corporate-wage-slave

And quite right too, things like the Mennens case have unfortunately complicated the issue for European airlines, but it is important to pursue airlines if downgraded or denied boarding, that is why EC261 is so important. There is a lot that airlines can do to make the process as painless as possible, and unexploited technology that could greatly assist. Happily it is quite rare, some days zero people are downgraded on BA, which from an equipment swap perspective alone is quite remarkable.

Using ME3 increases the risk of downgrading or IDB: often there are 2 aircrafts involved in a particular trip, the risk of misconnects is what it is, last minute equipment changes on a complex fleet are more common and your EC261 protection is typically weaker on ME3. ME3's customer relations aren't widely praised in this forum. On the other hand they tend not to offer 2-4-1 deals!

corporate-wage-slave

That figures from points made on this forum that some CSD/CSM can operate 200 flights between downgrade cases. Each flight has many passengers on it, however what CSD/CSMs may not see are those downgrades that pushed the customer on to another airline or they refused to travel or an IDB version of downgrades.

We can't get the precise figure of downgrades unfortunately, it's clearly not 10%, it doesn't appear to be 1%, 0.1% on the other hand seems about right, if subjectively tending to being too low. On the other hand we also know some days no one is downgraded. We do know that you are much more likely to miss your flight by arriving late to the airport. And more likely still that you will get an involuntary upgrade.

dougzz

I'm struggling with this, but I think it's because there is so little in the way of hard numbers. If downgrades are so few, why can't BA behave better about the tiny fraction of people subjected to downgrades? Surely if the numbers are this low the cost of proper redress would be minimal. Pretending the 2-4-1 voucher has no value seems like belligerence rather than a rational approach to something rare, if downgrades are indeed this rare.
If downgrades are 1 in 200, that seems significant to me, and suggests if they want to oversell they need better management of overselling, and better handling of those cases where people are downgraded.
Edit: Sorry is that suggestion 1 flight in 200 has a downgrade, or 1 in every 200 passengers. I'm hugely confused, and those numbers represent very different amounts of downgrades.

corporate-wage-slave

As mentioned in my previous post, 1 flight in 200 flights has at least one person downgraded. However obviously more than one person could be affected, and some downgrades potentially wouldn't be visible to the SCCM. It's not 1 in 200 people (0.5%) but perhaps 1 in 1,000 passengers (0.1%). However this is somewhere between anecdotal and science, hard numbers aren't going to be in the public domain.

What we can do, however, is compare the "who has had an upgrade" thread, which usually has an entry every 2 or 3 days and I certainly don't bother to put my upgrades into that thread, against the downgrade reports that come here, of which I guess we see about 10 (?) a year.

Andriyko

It is not that it does not have value. I think it is hard to ascribe value to it (or what's left of that value after one has travelled).

simons1

Maybe, but for BA to say it is worthless and to deny any EC261 compensation is a bit lame.

London_traveller

I don't think that's quite right. The value of a 2-4-1 in relation to two people who were downgraded can very easily be attributed to what happened in that particular scenario (whatever it was): the value of the companion is the same as the value of the other passenger, in relation to their travel disruption.

What can't be done is attribute some kind of value on the 2-4-1 in isolation, i.e. outside of context of booked travel. Otherwise everyone would be claiming they were about to use it for F to SYD.

But there certainly is an attributable value on it. If BA thinks there isn't then the logic follows, in the case of the companion not being able to fly on the flight and cabin they'd booked, that a replacement voucher is provided to the customer after the trip. After all, the 2-4-1 has no value, right?

pauldb

It's hard to put a value on a to-be-used voucher, but it's very easy to determine what value (in avios) it had when used for the downgraded flight in question. Nobody expects to get back 75% of 50% of a voucher, we'd want 75% of the avios for that leg or a cash equivalent but no doubt BA would prefer the avios and we'd settle for that.

MSPeconomist

It seems to me that the nature of the downgrade matters too: not all downgrades are equivalent, even if restricted to nonelites and/or those using 2-4-1 vouchers. F to CW doesn't seem too awful, although it would certainly be disappointing, but the practice of downgrading for instance from FC to WT rather than doing a cascade with a downgrade from F to CW, and then downgrading another person from CW to WT+ and yet another from WT+ to WT. Obviously BA doesn't this to minimize payment of EC261 downgrade compensation and perhaps because of some misguided notion that it's better to make one customer extremely annoyed than to annoy two or three by not as much.

710 77345

The numbers are all anecdotal and very unofficial guestimates - these haven't come from official BA staff. I don't think they add much other than concern to people here, especially as there's a lot of people who like to over-analyse numbers.

MSPeconomist

Even if "one in two hundred" is roughly accurate, does it apply to the number of flights, number of seats (including empty ones), number of total passengers (including those in coach who can't really be downgraded as it wouldn't be legal for the airline to assign seats in a lavatory, in the hold, or on the wing), or total number of premium cabin passengers, etc. There are also issues involving whether we include nonrevs in the count and many other fine points here.

rakehey

Idiot question from a paranoid soon-to-fly-in-F-on-a-241...

If this happens (I get it almost certainly won't!) could I ask for both of us to be rerouted on an alternative airline in F rather than accept a downgrade? On the basis the rules say we have to fly together in the same cabin...

Sorry if already answered, can't find it in what is quite a long thread now...

Thanks all

MSPeconomist

I would think that BA is very unlikely to rebook you onto another airline, but they should be willing to put you on another BA flight/routing to the same destination or even permit you to travel the next day. YMMV.

brentford77

I think the reason this thread sounds somewhat more emotive than others is that for many who fly every week or so with BA, the 2 for 1 is the icing on the cake which makes the loyalty worthwhile. e.g., when the inventory opens for xmas 2018 in a couple of months, I intend to try to book LHR/HKG/LHR in First for my family of 4 using two 241 vouchers. Whilst my business travel which gets me the points is alone and frankly, I would not be massively upset with a F-J downgrade nor a J-W one if not on a night flight. What WOULD really p**s me off would be a downgrade when on a special family trip such as this one to HKG. Given that most people who have enough avios to use 241 flights on long haul routes are probably Gold or GGL, it does seem to me that if (and I concede it is an if) they are routinely picking 2 for 1 vouchers for invol downgrades, it is a supremely efficient way to upset many of your better customers. That might be why this is emotive and not as Tobias indicates just uncalled for moaning and carping.

Tobias-UK

And where exactly have I said that?