blix

Maybe you should try it yourself and see. I think this is the best thing to do. Good luck.

henkybaby

Try what exactly?

blix

LHR T5, desks A1 - A14. There you can overhear all the OPs interacting with BA staff. If you can't make it there, then I will lie a bit more on this site in order to pimp up my claim to BA.

henkybaby

I am not saying you are lying, I am saying that you may not recall everything exactly as it happened because you were stressed. Possibly the BA checkin agent was not helping either by assuming that if you did not want to checkin your luggage that you were OK for carryon. However, proceeding to security with luggage that does not comply with the rules is your responsibility alone.

I am still not saying it is futile to contact BA about this. They could offer something as a form of compensation even though technically they did nothing wrong.

My advice to you is that you don't try to suggest that BA is somehow responsible in your complaint since that will only illicit a formal response by BA. In that case you will get nothing.

I am also suggesting that you acknowledge your own responsibility in this unfortunate series of events. If you don't there is little chance that you and BA will ever see eye to eye.

I think that you (quite possibly subconsciously) may have rewritten the events in your memory. Not uncommon and not ridiculous.

Shona

If we are focussing just upon EU regulations-which regulation and which bit is immaterial to what?

Timeframes are mentioned in both Articles 5 and 7 of EC 261/2004 in some detail.

henkybaby

If the OP gets to her destination within the timeframe specified there is no grounds for a claim so the whole thing becomes immaterial. But I really don't feel like having this discussion for the umpteenth time. The search function can help find the few hundred threads on this subject.

orbitmic

I think you are technically mistaken about the process of what happened. I don't think the reservation was ever cancelled - it will have stayed untouched up to the point when the OP could check in. IF there had been no seat on the plane and no person who voluntarily accepted to be denied boarding, then the reservation of the OP would have been changed to another flight but only then. In that sense, I think it is wrong to claim that he was effectively denied boarding during the time he was denied a confirmed check in (which, if I understand correctly, is your argument). I thus think that he is not covered by EC261/2004, not even for the non-compensation elements.

More generally, again, I do sympathise with the OP in that I can certainly relate to how unpleasant and frustrating it can feel to be told there might not be a seat for you on a plane for which you had a confirmed reservation and feel powerless while being asked to check again later (btw, for information, when did you first go to check in and when did you end up having the go ahead?). The 'panicky' atmosphere you describe is also not pleasant and not the way BA should deal with these things so I think you should write and explain your disappointment and your loss and what exactly happen, but the key is not to shoot yourself in the foot by fighting the wrong battle (i.e. claim that they should have told you about the liquid restrictions) but instead focusing on what will get you the sympathy of the customer service people who'll read your letter.

Land-of-Miles

Hi Blix welcome to FT and I am sorry but not terribly surprised to hear of your experience. It is a shame that you have encountered some of the "characters" on this forum somewhat adversely on your first contribution.

In all honesty in your position I would just write it off. In all likelihood you will get nowhere, just bear that experience in mind when making future airline choices. Your mistake was not immediately insisting on being deemed denied boarding at check in (I suspect that might have magically found you a seat and avoided your subsequent problems). However I know the feeling of just wanting to get to your destination rather than having a stand up row, even though I inevitably opt for the latter option

If you submit a complaint (letter or email) you will almost certainly eventually get a poorly cobbled together response cut and pasted from boiler print stock which will completely fail to deal with your issue to your satisfaction. You can either throw good time after bad or give up when you get this inevitable response.

I wish I could be more positive but since you were looking for advice I think it is best to give an honest view which you can either take on-board or disregard. It is a shame that this is how things are but BA increasingly resembles a low cost operation in most interactions with its customers these days (not that long ago BA lost a bag of mine for over a month, they gave continuously conflicting and inaccurate information and cost me - well cost Amex in the end - almost £2k yet as a Gold travelling in paid Club World I got Nada), so I frankly see your cause as hopeless, even though you deserve better than that IMHO.

Stick around here in the future, it is always nice to see new faces around, if only sometimes for the way it winds up some of the other posters. Some of us here are merely miserable moaners rather than frothing at the mouth nutters

stifle

If someone is involuntarily denied boarding (at all) when the EU regulations apply, they get compensation. Even if (extreme example) they get rerouted and the plane they were booked on goes tech and ends up arriving 10 hours late.

The compensation amount is €250/€400/€600 for flights of <1500km/1500-3500km/>3500km, and is halved if the rerouting enables them to arrive within 2/3/4 hours of the original scheduled arrival time.

henkybaby

I will try and find references but I believe that as long as the passenger gets rerouted and arrives at his/her destination within 2 hours (in this short haul case) of their original arrival time (per the time table of the original flight) there is no grounds for compensation. I am not 100% sure though.

Oddly enough (at least I always found it odd) this also applies if you arrive > two hours early.