710 77345

Do not worry, you will not be unlucky twice. Sounds like the person you spoke to at Gatwick was really doing a number on you - 40 Gold card holders ahead of you? £200 being the compensation you are due They should be fired by British Airways, but in today's world more likely to be promoted. I worry for the day in the future when my phone is spammed by the guys who have moved on from PPI misselling to BA compensation claims.

Enjoy the beach, sort this out when you get back - a few legal forms, a phone call with a mediator, and you'll have a nice wodge of cash or a travel voucher in your pocket, having had a reasonable cabin on the day flight and a flat bed on the way back.

LimitingFactor

I know the chances of it are still slim, but this thread has taken the gloss off 2-4-1 for me even further. I've also got an MCO flight in October with it, and for me the chances are maybe slightly higher, as we're in a group of 12 (9 revenue, 2-4-1, plus normal avios), but all on separate bookings. I only travel CW/F for leisure, scrape Silver each year, but whats the point? I don't need Silver as I'd get most of it with a CW (or equivalent other carrier booking). I don't need to pay amex £195/year. All would be great, and I'd be happy, but worrying that I'm going to get downgraded is just not worth the hassle, I'd rather pay. (And as I'm tall, I'd rather not fly than fly WT/WT+). No answers required here, its just a rant.

gustavmahler

Totally agree - was just wondering what the procedure would be if it happened. I think I'd most disappointed about missing out on my planned T3 oneworld F lounge crawl! I haven't made it into any of those yet.

IAMORGAN

What CWS says about Amex is interesting. I'm a lawyer (not aviation) but I am a litigator, and I agree that 'joining in' / naming other parties as defendants can have quite interesting consequences. For some clients it can be quite sensitive if it happens to them, and there might be overarching commercial agreements between multiple organisations which also come into play (and clients get jumpy about being forced to disclose - not an issue in a simple money claim). One other thing to think about, given BA's shoddy service is to complain to AmEx and say you think BA deliberately targeted you as a cardmember. If AmEx get enough of these complaints, they might well also launch an investigation - especially because they are a financial services business. And AmEx have pretty good service so might not be so quick to just fob you off.

I'm not going to dabble in EC261 advice.

I'd be thoroughly pissed off though!!!

BERbound

Your seat selection fee is a seperate issue. Just fill in the seat selection refund form on BA.com to get that refunded.

Raffles

I published the form on HFP a few week ago. It implies to the casual reader that you have forfeited your EU261 rights. This is not actually what it says - since EU261 rights cannot be signed away - but if you had no legal experience you could easily believe otherwise and not bother claiming.

HarryKUK

If you push for rerouting in the same class on a different flight later in the day, say 5 hours later, do you still get the "delay" part of EU261? Or is that considered to be a suitable alternative that doesn't qualify for any compensation?

Also, if you are on an Avios one way flight which is 20k for Y, 40k for W, 60k for J and 80k for F, for example, and you are downgraded from F to J would you get 75% of the entire one way Avios amount (so 75% of 80k which is 60k) back in Avios?

corporate-wage-slave

Right to care you should get, that's an absolute. The Article 7 could easily be argued both ways given there were 2 options on the table, the problem being that it also overlaps with Involuntary Denied Boarding, which is one factor that discourages airlines from doing this. If it got to a senior court (which in the case of BA would never happen) then my suspicion is that the judiciary would see the legislation is about protecting consumers' interests and would thereby be guided if someone was unclear. I suspect that many passengers would be entirely happy with a £x voucher and a rebook a few hours later, rather than the downgrade.

That would be my understanding, and ditto with the cash element, but with some fudging there on the taxation component.

HarryKUK

I guess to go from F to J and get 75% of F back isn't too bad, and similar for W to Y, but the worst situation is therefore J to W in terms of what you get back compared to the difference in product?

I guess it depends on circumstance / how many passengers / if you have kids etc but my initial thought is if I am alone then waiting for a later flight in the same cabin is usually better than downgrading, unless you absolutely have to get on that flight?

orbitmic

Indeed, you cannot -it is very important for people to remember that when discussing with airlines as it is not unusual for airline staff (either candidly or not, I have no idea) to suggest that the passenger already 'settled' for something.

Alun

My daughter was the unfortunate revenue passenger downgraded ANU LGW a month or so back my wife and I travelling on 2-4-1 escaped the chop, I suspect as much down to incompetence at the ANU end as my daughter being last top check in. The £200 credit card certainly doesn't waive EU261 and BA paid a further £450 albeit some time later and with no breakdown of where that figure came from I could've requested a receipt but lost the will somewhat and my fag packet calculations came to around £530 so £450+£200 seemed a good deal. I know it 'll be more difficult with Avios and 2-4-1 in the mix but don't worry about signing the dotted line. Funny how they make you do it at the most stressful time boarding the aircraft and delaying hundreds of irate holiday makers did the same to my youngest a fifteen-year-old nervous flyer.

Enjoy the holiday and your extra £400

solwayspeedbird

I took a picture

corporate-wage-slave

Thanks very much for posting that photo (the link to the ex gratia payment card page is also useful):
https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb...rd/information

The first statement looks OK to me, but there again I've been socialised with EC261 for a long time. All it is saying is that this isn't actually ex gratia in respect of EC261, it's a part payment. The second sentence makes it clearer still, but I guess they could have used more simple English. 7.3 isn't the actual compensation part of the Regulation, it says this:

V10

Reading that, I can see that plenty of laymen would take the wording of that as being definitive.

Sorry, c-w-s - there is quite specifically no indication that this is a part payment that I can see.

Alun

The wording is deliberately ambiguous! More importantly, it doesn't say in full and final settlement.

When I accepted one of these I later complained through customer services and they very briefly tried to fob me off with the payment card being your payment, but a strong rebuttal put paid to that they quickly coughed up the balance