corporate-wage-slave

The point that has to be made here is that the fact that the £200 limit is now in the open is actually quite new, last year or two. Before that we used to get the "what is reasonable?", "how to I know I'm doing the right thing" style of posts here. For many cities, this limit will work fine, even London most of the time. On the other hand getting a room for £200 in Boston at short notice will be a tall ask on peak weekends, or even EDI (as we saw here). During the Festival it will be near impossible.

So I've no problem with the guideline, in some ways it is quite generous, but that guideline will need to be flexible on occasions.

HilFly

BA have a responsibility to provide care for their delayed passengers. If BA choose to arrange accommodation themselves, they have complete control over what they pay for accommodation. If BA abrogate that responsibility and make the passengers themselves arrange accommodation, they have to accept the consequences.

BA have made a business decision to not have sufficient staff on hand in case of irrops - the chickens are coming home to roost.

simons1

You cannot put a definitive figure on what is acceptable which presumably is why EC261 doesn't do that.

Even a novice traveller will know hotel prices vary significantly from place to place depending on what may be happening. For example a single flight cancellation on a routine weekend in Amsterdam may be very different to mass cancellations on a summer weekend in London, or when there is widespread disruption due to snow or an IT wipeout at BA.

No different to buying a one way plane seat at the last minute when every other flight is full.

The airline has the duty of care responsibility - there is no requirement to outsource it to the passenger. If the figure is reasonable then the airline should just make the arrangements and all will be happy.

The Ritz is an extreme example but if you could prove from some screenshots that the room at the Ritz is the only one available within 100 miles well hard luck on the airline, it's their problem. That isn't betterment, it's supply and demand.

Otherwise it is also the thin end of the wedge and everything will become governed by the airline not the legislation. I wouldn't find that helpful at all.

Often1

Reviving this thread suggests that the issue remains unresolved. While it is unlikely that most would file an MCOL or other claim for the GBP 9, there are examples of people with much greater overages.

One can argue until one is blue in the face about what is reasonable, but it seems clear that the issue remains unresolved.

theddo

If BA wishes to enforce a strict limit all they have to do is book the rooms themselves and pay for it themselves and arrange transport to and from the hotel.

If they refuse they shouldn't complain. GBP200 is probably reasonable most of the time, but not always.

If my last flight of the night is delayed and I'm rebooked to the first one the next day I may very well think that whatever the airport hotels had on offer was reasonable, even if it far exceeded GBP200.

Unless BA tells me otherwise before I book and offer an alternative I think they should be responsible anyway.

Flexible preferences

Now you've paid your first £25 to recover £9, please do report back, it will be very interesting to hear what the judge makes of such a minor claim (after you've paid the next £25 hearing fee and taken a day off work).

If BA are wrong they are wrong, and that's bad, but really going this far for £9?

Cymro

I doubt it will go that far as BA is at least as inconvenienced as the passenger. £25 is cheap entertainment - it's not even two bottles of Blue Top BoB battery acid.

At the moment, BA can make it go away for £34. If they want to go to a hearing it'll be more like £300 before they even think about recovering their costs.

It's possible a judge will be sympathetic to BA and consider this a vexatious claim but more likely in my entirely unscientific and unqualified opinion that he'll see a big company tying itself up in organisational knots trying to get out of doing the right thing, and rule accordingly. (But far more likely again that no judge will ever see this).

Flexible preferences

Yeah, fair points

Will be interesting to see how this unfolds.

joequimby

This is no longer about the £9. The way this has been handled by BA has left a very bitter taste in my mouth and I have never been treated with such disregard, let alone as a revenue customer. Being asked to stop emailing them was the last straw.

BA has acknowledged how strongly I feel about the shortfall yet insist their policy is being enforced in the interests of being fair to all passengers. Their responses have been signed by the same representative and I expect they would have at least consulted a superior or colleague by now. It indicates a clear directive from management to follow policy to the letter. At the risk of DYKWIA, Silver status (Gold next week) is also irrelevant to them in this situation.

The £25 fee is a small investment to prove a point and there's also an entertainment factor as other posters have indicated.

The sad reality is that with every customer that fights this, there are probably more customers (likely with larger discrepancies) that are more ready to accept being short-changed to make this exercise worth BA's while.

simons1

Well done. It's only by people standing up to the airline that it gains publicity and helps others in a similar situation.

TravellingSalesman

If nothing else, this is the part that would have nudged me to do the same as joequimby ended up doing:

MSPeconomist

My perspective from the other side of the pond is that this needs a nice class action lawsuit to get BA to reconsider its policy.

barobson

Very quick update on the issue I added to this thread. I wrote to BA complaining they had not offered duty of care when my flight was cancelled and I was stranded overnight. They responded very quickly to say that possibly it was that they had been "too busy" to find me a hotel and I should have booked my own and would have been reimbursed. I responded to say that that was not the case and in fact I had been explicitly told that I was not entitled to anything. It was pretty much a case of "tough s*** its not our problem that te weather is bad. I have just had a reply from BA actually being very apologetic and saying they will reimburse any receipts I have and they have also given me 10,000 avios. I don't have any receipts as my brother in law drove me to the airport at some silly time but I am pleased that BA have acknowledged they were wrong. I wonder if they may have listened to the call as they have also said they will be retraining the staff member concerned.

corporate-wage-slave

Thanks for reverting back on this. It wasn't a complex case (a flight being cancelled and rebooked for early the next morning) but it's probably an example where this forum probably can give independent advice (from several viewpoints) perhaps better than a Contact Centre agent - who in any case can't book hotels under any circumstance, as far as I can tell. I'm pleased that BA have made a remediation gesture for you on this occasion, it effectively is a replacement flight given it was DUB-LHR.

joequimby

Just to provide an update, I've received notification that BA have responded and intends to defend all of this claim. They now have 28 days to file a further response.

The position held by the respondent is Customer Disp Resolution Exec.

Sigh.