WelshGirl

This was on a flight to Abu Dhabi (sorry that I don't know how to upload the old thread).
It was a special trip for a wedding anniversary and there had already been a problem with the return flight ( we had to change the booking and the agent thought Z class was the same in Qantas as BA First. Except it was PE on Qantas !). That had taken a while to resolve. Then to hear of an involuntary downgrade made me feel the trip was doomed!
Hubby stood his ground.
I suspected that we were selected because of being blue cardholders on a voucher. As it was my only chance of ever flying First on BA I was pretty upset, and ithe situation was not handled well by the BA manager. I was offered £500 as a take it or leave it basis but of course £500 would simply not be enough to get another experience in First for me .
The manager told us to go to the Flounge and wait and he would send a colleague to let us know if the First seat could be reinstated. I advised that as we had been dealing with him I would like him to come and tell us what had happened. ( it is always easy to send someone else to break less than welcome news so I thought that he may resolve it if he had to come and see us.). He did come back .
In the end they found a seat for me in First . We saw when we disembarked we saw that Damon Hill had been in CW so I may have had his seat!
The experience sadly did take the shine off the First experience even when I look back now , although we had a great WA in Abu Dhabi.
I hope that your friends did get an outcome which was satisfactory for them ( I appreciate that we are all different) . I think that for those who are less than frequent flyers the anticipation of a trip in First is pretty great.

Tafflyer

I think more specifically that BA targets the companion passenger using the 2-4-1 rather than the passenger who paid for the flight with Avios. The logic being the flight was free and therefore no reimbursement is applicable. However, I think the provision of the regulation would require a theoretical reimbursement of 75% of the 2-4-1 voucher itself. The value in this case being the savings in Avios required for the flight.

frb98mf

BA have 8 flights a day (+2 EWR, +4 AA codeshare), so unless they were on the last flight or every single one was completely full in F, and assuming that if travelling on a 241 this was personal/leisure, I'd have taken the £500, switched to a later flight that had the F space for me and my travel companion, and got thoroughly sozzled in the CCR.

madfish

This would be fine but I don't think the OP in their first post said that this was £500 for going later. It was £500 for the downgrade for travel on that flight.

corporate-wage-slave

I'm not sure about that. The usual SOP is to award £500 via a Visa card, and then offer the rebook. If on the same aircraft that ipso facto has to be in CW or below, if on another aircraft it could be in First if there was availability. Right of care isn't offered if an overnight is involved, but that's legally dubious. Now I am not totally sure of this, since LHR can go for weeks without a single First bump so I've not seen it happen very often. What I strongly suspect from LGW services, where this is a bit more common (but still rare) on the return services due to local ticketing arrangements, is that 2-4-1 and other redemptions are indeed targeted for bumping. This is unlike in other cabins, where as far as I can tell it's more likely to be the last booked passenger without on-carriage will be bumped, if no standby passengers, but there again they wouldn't be offered the £500 card.

Given the revised rulings on downgrades from CJEU, which allow airlines to calculate refunds per sector and net of taxes (see main EC261 thread), I would suspect the £500 card plus refund of Avios would go a long way to meet the airline's liabilities in this area. However the complication for the airline - and the passenger - is working out the precise liability, particularly after the recent CJEU judgement. Which in the UK context is interesting, since if it is open to interpretation then the MCOL route could bias towards the customer's calculation, if the judge felt it was vaguely reasonable. BA will go to court over core liability, they generally will not go to court over the extent of liability unless someone is being greedy.

In the case of NYC it would be unlikely that all of First would be booked out all day long.

Flexible preferences

With WelshGirl's experience above, that makes at least three recent experiences on FT of an F downgrade on a companion voucher booking. This does seem to be creeping in, perhaps due to liability issues as corporate-wage-slave outlines.

craigthemif

F --> J might be the easiest downgrade for people flying on miles or 2-for-1 voucher for whom F is probably a step up from normal flying behaviour, which is surely why such travelers are targeted for the invol downgrade.

Those who pay for F would probably be precisely the most peeved about being downgraded - exactly how much compensation would you need to offer somebody who paid thousands more in the first place!?! Moving from a private seat to 8-across J and fingers crossed that elites haven't nabbed all the best seats in J...

tony flynn

Loyalty programme my arse.

WelshGirl

In my case I had made the booking and they tried to bump me

s0ssos

Currency in the same sense of the word as bitcoin? Can you show me which government has defined "Avios" as a valid currency?

How do I use this currency? Where is the market to trade them, to buy stuff with them? Is it freely exchangeable?

Tobias-UK

Is this a serious question?

Tobias-UK

BA are more generous dealing with downgrades than many other airlines, the OP was offered £500 per passenger over and above what EC261 dictates. Isn't that a form of goodwill gesture? In addition to the £500 the OP will get their statutory 75% reimbursement.

Now, from what I've witnessed, that sort of generosity is not to be found for those downgraded on QR, EK or EY. I know you like to bash BA at every opportunity, but credit where credit is due.

tony flynn

With respect Tobias, that's 'Whataboutery', as they like to call it in The Grudian.

The long and the short of it is that it's dishonest, I've never tried to cheat my way into a cabin, why should BA develop a policy of cheating me out of it at will?

The fact that other airlines are even bigger crooks is neither here nor there, the fact that we are even discussing such a policy damages any trust that we may have in the company.

Tobias-UK

Don't shoot the messenger!

I'm not sure I follow. What cheating, what dishonesty?

Overselling is not confined to BA, almost all airlines do it. Downgrades are not that common on BA, when it does happen BA are more generous than many other airlines in that they typically pay more than the statutory levels.

tony flynn

I promise I'm not blaming you for this Tobias!

I understand the concept of overselling but I also understand the concept of fairness.

When choosing who to bump, it should be last to check in, first out in my eyes but not how the ticket was paid for.

If redemption flyers are now going to be first off the aircraft or downgraded, that's yet another Avios devaluation, but by another name and one less reason to choose BA over any other airline.