henkybaby

BA seems to play the long game, hoping it will wear most claimants out. Bad form I think.

Send them a letter stating your intentions to start a small claims process. No point to keep playing email pingpong.

corporate-wage-slave

The hold times aren't always bad, midday UK midweek and you should be through in under 10 minutes. Or use Twitter. So I would call Customer Relations, they don't handle EC261 in detailed cases, but they may be able to help. Or use Twitter.

If that doesn't go well, play hardball. Work out the cost and give BA final notice of your claim, with a view to MCOL, as per the posts above. I would use the full ticket price and use that as a bargaining chip, since actually they prefer to pay on a per sector affected basis, even though the Regulation doesn't actually say that.

lorcancoyle

Send them another message highlighting that EC261 compensation is due within 7 days (might want to double check the wiki / early posts) and giving a (reasonable) deadline after which you'll initiate a small claims court action.

corporate-wage-slave

Birdstrike is no longer considered Extraordinary Circumstances, as a quick Google will throw up. Keep at it, by all means quote the relevant cases back at them, and consider setting the pace and playing hardball.

PaulN

Thanks for the responses (+ henky and CWS). We are still in the US at the moment and I don't want to spend my hols arguing with BA. Will give them one more message as above and then call on return to UK.

Here's the message:

Thank you for your further message. The compensation you must offer is set by law, not by BA. To say that £75 is the set limit is not correct according to EC regulation 261/2004.

261/2004 states a refund of 75% of the ticket price is payable for a downgrade. The ticket price I paid is £1168.26. 75% of this is £876.19.

It is still not clear from your response whether the refunds team will be processing a refund of the fare difference or a refund due under 261/2004. Given you have only provided a postal address, it is not reasonable for me to write them a letter and wait to find out.

The regulation requires that compensation is paid within 7 days. It is now exactly 7 days since the flight.

If I do not receive the compensation due under regulation 261/2004 within 7 days from now (02/04/16) I will be considering further action including an MCOL claim.

PS - I know that we could have got an ex-EU at a better deal than £1168 for WTP but (a) the wife said a flat no to a visit to Dublin first and (b) we were due to be taking the in-laws who would not have survived the extra journey I fear.

UKtravelbear

We need to be clear that there is NO compensation for a downgrade under EU261.

The language in the article is quite specific. If the EU wanted this to be compensation (like for cancellations or IDB) they would have said so.

Article 10 states 'reimburse' and the various % levels depending on flight distance are all they are required to pay.

There is no point asking for compensation when it is reimbursement is what you want.

Happytohelp

For a downgrade, a request will be sent to the refunds team to calculate the difference in fare that's due. The "compensation" we offer is a gesture and not a legal requirement. This will either be offered as cash or an eVoucher. The voucher is usually worth more than the cash payment.

"All posts are my own and not on behalf of my employer"

Happytohelp

I don't work in refunds, so can't say with 100% certainty.
I believe the 75% difference in fare, is based on the fare element of the leg of the journey affected. Not 75% of the total amount paid.

The gesture offered is a set amount and won't be changed.

"All posts are my own and not on behalf of my employer"

Happytohelp

I have to disagree with you on this point.

Cases are put in a queue to be dealt with. When an agent picks up a claim for EU comp, we go via the information given to us by the flight investigation team. The flight detail report will state if the delay is payable, if it isn't payable or if it's debatable. Generally a debatable will be a rotational delay. In this instance we will refer to the previous leg to see what caused that delay and the one before that.

If a marker is put on the flight as not payable. It's because the flight investigation team believe this isn't payable.

As I mentioned in another thread. People who get through to the CR trial teams. Can have their EU claim sorted in half an hour.
If the claim is in a queue, it's waiting for an agent to work on it.

There's nothing in place saying "deny a claim and hope they don't come back". If the report says payable, we pay. Simple as that.

"All posts are my own and not on behalf of my employer"

henkybaby

I was not suggesting it is you who are doing it. It may very well be the ones categorising the flights. No idea.

Maybe BA just has very little control over all the delays they have. That is also not a good thing. Every claim denied based on extraordinary circumstances is one aircraft where BA cannot control its departure and/or arrival time.

PaulN

Thanks for your response. I've seen some very helpful comments from you on recent threads here.

For clarity two questions :

(1) Are you saying the "gesture" is the £75 already offered at the airport?

(2) Will the refunds team calculate a refund based on the 75% of the sector cost (i.e. in line with 261/2004) or just calculate the one way difference in fare paid between premium economy and economy. If the former, had the response said that I would have waited for the refund without issue. If the latter it seems extraordinarily shoddy that somebody who has paid extra for a modest amount of additional comfort can be downgraded against their wishes and only get £75 for their trouble.

Noted the other poster's comment about compensation vs reimbursement. Will remember this for next time.

LondonElite

It's 75% of the fare, not the fare difference.

henkybaby

Here is a quote from a document

NEB stands for National Enforcement Bodies. I realise this document has no legal standing, but maybe if you escalate your downgrade complaint to the NEB of the UK, it can help? Someone in the know about this?

In other news...

Lightning strikes no longer count as extraordinary circumstances. Could this be the end of the 'weather en route made us do it' defence?

henkybaby

A friend of mine - from the legal profession - says:
I think it makes sense. He also came up with the lightning strike example from the previous post, claiming that this is in fact (legally) the same circumstance.

Additionally...

Maybe this ruling (van der Lans vs KLM) can be added somewhere, in case people need to fight the 'technical issues beyond our control' defence.

Here is a good document summarising important rulings and describes the 'state of EC261' as per 2015 (downloads directly to your computer).

Hope this helps someone.

T8191

Very interesting, henkybaby ... airlines won't like those interpretations!