BA/AA Accommodation/Downgrade from Paid F: Who owes me money?
 

Short and sweet version :

1)Paid F ticket bought from AA on BA metal. DFW-LHR-DXB and return. Price ca. $8k/seat.
2) Last segment had a misconnect due to late arriving flight DXB-LHR.
3) Accomodation was on AA LHR-DFW, but in J. AA says that is what BA requested from AA.
4) AA says to look to BA for refund of fare difference on last leg. BA says they have no contract with me , and advices to look to AA for refund .
5) I'm OK with the downgrade , but NOT ok with paying F price for it.

Thoughts/ideas/comments/suggestions??

EU261 would get you 75% from that leg of a journey that was downgraded so you are looking at roughly $1700 or so. You need to claim from operating carrier specifically for EU261 compensation/refund (You do not want to ask for a fare difference).

how did you calculate that? looks very high to me.

remember that now the taxes and fees are excluded from the reimbursement (not compensation) calculations. And the price of the individual sectors will also vary. And it would only be for the LHR-DFW sector that was downgraded.

Who were you originally booked on DXB-LHR-DFW and what codes were used and who issued the ticket?

As nufnuf77 said, the operating carrier is responsible for EU261 which in Europe is deliberately set to be higher than the fare difference to stop carriers abuse (as they still do in the US!). However, IMHO it's the operating carrier causing the misconnect, i.e. probably BA which is responsible here. If they only rebooked you into J class on AA, despite F being available, then that is where you should claim. If your ticket was 8K return, then expect 3K per person as compensation based on DXB-DFW.

I agree that looks way too high to me, see the EC261 thread via the Forum Dashboard, there is a link towards the top giving the new calculation methodology.

I agree, that from the scant facts provided, and assuming it was caused by leaving DXB late, then BA is going to be the operating carrier, and since they also rebooked incorrectly there is a double jeopardy on them here.

Thanks for the replies .

To answer the questions :

Ticket purchased through AA.com.

All 4 original scheduled segments on BA .

Return portion of Ticket was in actual F class , I believe . Will verify later.

DXB flight was 4hours delayed by having to return to DXB after takeoff . Misconnect was therefore BA's responsibility.

EU 261 advice is excellent - I have 3 seats on this PNR, so that's big $$$ if I get even close to what is quoted.

Flight is about to take off - keep providing info and I'll check back after arrival in DFW.

Thsnks again.

Also as a US Based AA flyer, I could use a link to a primer/how-To On filing for compensation via this rule . Thanks

See the Forum Dashboard, post 5, where there is a guide to EC261 including said primer.

Indeed it could be a tidy sum.

DFW-LHR: 4750 miles
LHR-DXB: 3421 miles

Fractional mileage of downgraded sector (LHR-DFW) = 4750 / ((4750+3421)*2) = 0.29

Reimbursement = 0.75 * 0.29 * (8000 - taxes/fees) {USD}

Taxes/fees = 1600 USD (approx; based on current "A" fare of 8128 USD for this route on BA stock)

So amount due = 0.21 * 6400 = 1344 USD.

If you were over 4 hours late at LHR,measured by doors open time,you can also claim 600 euros per person from BA under EU261/2004.Could be a decent payout in total

Depending on the circumstances, if it returned after take-off for an unexpected medical emergency, this would not be covered by the compensation as I understand it (although I could be wrong), if it went Tech then it would be.

Did the OP question BA when the reissued a J ticket?

Hang on... if the ticket was in fully flexible F, shouldn't it have been changeable for fare difference only? (That said, perhaps not, as F-out, A-back ex-DXB is pricing up at $12k at the moment)...

J all the way is only about $1,500 cheaper though, so it looks as though the OP would do better claiming EU261 downgrade compensation.

(Also, while EU261 liability sits with the operating carrier, and it definitely applies, I assume that it is definitely BA that is the operating carrier as it's not actually operating the onward flight - although it was supposed to...)

I did the same calculation but with lower taxes as I did not include YQ in taxes, as that is a carrier surcharge ($1410 in F) and in my opinion should be refunded proportionally. But your calculations stand just fine, as a minimum in my opinion. Hence my figure of $1750.

If you arrived late at your final destination (DFW) you can claim delay compensation under EU261, provided delay was not due to extraordinary circumstances. Delay compo on this would be fixed Euro 600 per person from BA.
Your refund for EU261 downgrade to business is as calculated above 75% of that leg of the journey.
Altogether possibly a lot of money coming your way!

Thanks for the calculations.

Addressing items from earlier posts:

The fare was indeed $8128 US, so apparently an "A" fare.

Total time delay into DFW was just around 5 hours.

Delay out of DXB was caused by a technical issue causing a turn-around approximately 1 hour into flight. Flight then sat on ground in DXB for 2 hours while issue was examined and the plane was judged good-to-go. 2nd try at leaving DXB took place just under 4 hours after scheduled departure, and arrival in LHR was about 3h45m after scheduled arrival.

Original connect time in LHR was about 4h.

If any of y'all have additional insights as to whether or not delay compensation kicks in for this situation, please post.

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Long, boring rant follows : :D

On my complaint list, the delay itself barely registers. Yes, I'd prefer to have arrived home on time. But, particularly as a US citizen, I'll choose that over potentially getting into a forced emergency landing somewhere in western Iran.

I also have no complaints about the new flight on AA. It was the next available direct LHR-DFW flight, my lugggage made it on, the J seating was "good enough", etc.

My two big beefs, in ascending order, are:



Rant 1:

The way BA handled the misconnect was, IMO, in no way, shape, or form "First Class".

At one point, I was on the phone with a BA agent, and he expressed surprise that, as a paid F passenger, I didn't get my new boarding passes from a waiting agent when exiting the DXB-LHR flight. :D:D:D Yeah, that didn't happen. And it just got better.

At T5 Flight Connections, I was simply told to "Go to AA in Terminal 3" for my rebooking. No further assistance was provided by BA. They just washed their hands of me.

Once in T3, I was directed to a long line of people needing reaccomodation on AA. There WAS a Priority line, but it was unstaffed. :mad: 45 minutes later, we finally got to the front of the line, where we discovered that we still had no actual seats or tickets on the new flight, simply a "request" from BA for J seats for us.

(Side note 1 - during the 45 minute wait, I got to have a very "amusing" phone call, with AA telling me that I was currently ON my original LHR-DFW flight, even though I was talking to them. They then handed me off to BA, who told me my best bet was to go back to T5 for BA customer service. To the same counter who sent me to T3? And a round-trip T3-T5-T3 runaround? (Cue Benny Hill music.) No thanks.)

(Side note 2 - BA had my e-mail address and cell phone contact info attached to the reservation, from when I went on britishairways.com to select seats. But during the misconnect - nothing but crickets - by phone, text, or e-mail.)

Anyway, we eventually got our seats. To my surprise and displeasure, they were in J. I asked why we didn't get F seats, and was told "BA asked us for J seats, so that's what you're getting". There WERE 2 F seats available, but the AA agent wasn't giving them to us. She invited me to take it up with the BA desk. But from AA's end, they delivered what they were expected to.

At this point, having already wasted over a hour of my connect time on just getting to T3 and getting my passes, I had no appetite for additional confrontation, so I gave up and accepted the J seats.

We headed to the Admiral's Club lounge in T3, grabbed some lunch, and waited until boarding. It was fine - they had a few things to eat, I was able to grab a shower, and it did the trick. But it's not exactly the Concorde Room, is it? :p

Parting thought on this beef - It's easy to perform above-and-beyond customer service in normal operations. It's another thing to deliver when things go wrong. And BA failed at this one. For 3 seats, and a $24K spend, I don't think it's unreasonable to have expected better service with the misconnect.



Rant 2:

The whole money thing - selling me F, delivering J, and making no attempt to compensate me in any way for the downgrade - really, really, REALLY makes me angry.

To me, it seems just this side of flat-out fraud.:mad: Seriously.

All the information you all have provided is extremely useful, and I'm sure I will be able to use it to get a fair deal from BA.

But if I were less plugged-in, I'd be walking away from this thinking, "Well, I guess I lost my F seat because of the new flight. Just my bad luck. Nothing to be done."

Why did they think it was OK to shaft me into J where there was F availability on the new flight?

Unless I rattled the cage, were they just going to keep the F->J fare difference for themselves?

Does BA really have NO obligation to proactively reimburse me for hosing me over on the misconnect?



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OK, I'm done venting. Have fun with that.

After my 30 hour door-to-door trip, I'm going to grab some sleep. ^

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Just to put something positive out there: I can very, very highly recommend Raffles Dubai, particularly with the Amex FHR program. Incredible hotel and amazingly generous FHR benefits, most notably the full-blown buffet breakfast that would otherwise set you back $50 or more per person per day.