DYKWIA

I'd be fuming if I was on a 2-4-1, knowing that I'd lost the voucher *and* been downgraded. And now it seems BA won't pay EU261 compensation without a fight.

email2markt

With comp, you should be compensated so if you were to fly again, you’d already be 75% of the way there. With 241 you’d be 0% of the way there if the voucher is not refunded or 100% if it is. So BA must either refund the voucher or allow a traveller to be 75% of the way to travelling there again through another means (Avios or Cash), simples.

That’s why the regulator is siding with passengers, no particular bias this time, just that BAs stance is wrong.

KARFA

Doesn't he? He is the one asserting companion vouchers are targeted for downgrades - the result of which is many people posting on this board worried that they are going to get downgraded and expecting that to happen. He is doing more than merely presenting the experience of several passengers.

AdBoy

To me, you make it sound like he's doing it nefariously. Which, for me, he clearly isn't.

Tobias-UK

Really? I don't see that.

My concern about the article is that it is misleading. It gives the impression that those who are downgraded on a companion voucher are not entitled to EC261 protection - that is not necessarily the case. The article appears to be an attempt to malign the airline on flimsy evidence rather than to impart information to the consumer about remedies or options when such an event occurs.

Prospero

To put it in slightly more diplomatic terms, I sense a theory has developed in the minds of some that companion vouchers are being specifically targeted for downgrades - ad hoc reports that surface from time to time are being selected to support this theory while reports of commercial ticket holders being downgraded are ignored. Presently, I am of the mind this is a false theory because:

• We don’t know the true reason why specific passengers are selected. I have been told by a BA employee who I trust that travelling on a 2-4-1 redemption has no influence in the management of oversold flights. Others here have been told the same
  
  
• The assertion that FLY assesses the financial hit of a downgrade is a bit of a red herring. While I understand it is a tremendously clever system, I have my doubts it holds much commercial information, if any at all, on tickets not issued by BA itself, and i’d probably include corporate 125 plated tickets in that category too.

So while this is a fascinating theory and great fodder for us on FT to chew the fat, I don’t believe it is something we need to be overly concerned about.

zanderblue

Irrespective of whether 241's are being targeted, wouldn't the passengers best response to a downgrade be to decline it and to request first available flight on comparable basis.

The passengers will get to where the need to be in the class that they booked and paid for as soon as practical. ^
Incentive for airline is to make it happen otherwise EC261 kicks in and compensates pax.

Tafflyer

I think some on here are being unfair to Raffles. Once the weight of anecdotal evidence combined with BA's reaction to victims of this policy reach the point they have, it becomes more a distinct possibility that BA is doing this deliberately than pure chance. Is it proven, no, but forewarned we are all better prepared for the possibility.

What is certain, however, is that the way BA tries to wriggle out of paying EU261 or other compensation for these "random events" is completely wrong and dishonourable. For pointing that out, as well as the success of others in fighting it, Raffles deserves our gratitude.

And let's face it, who would really be surprised if BA under its current management were really to invoke both this policy and the reaction to compensation claims?

NWIFlyer

In an ideal world, yes - but sometimes people simply don't have the option to wait for any number of reasons and need to get home. Splitting a group - not even necessarily on a 2-4-1 - would make such a decision doubly hard.

Dave Noble

That still does not show that there is a targetting of such. Someone did a post about such passengers being downgraded - it seems unsruprising that others making contact are those that were affected in that same way

Ancient Observer

As it would appear to be BA Corporate policy to lie - in writing - whenever it suits them, but especially when they might have to pay out a penny, I simply do not believe anything anyone from BA says any more.
Their spoken word is worth the paper it is written on. (whoever).

So when an authorised Director, on BA headed notepaper, denies Raffles' points, then I might believe them.

Meanwhile, Raffles is most likely to be correct.

renwaldo

Agreed that the odds of actually being downgraded are probably less than 1%, however anecdotally it does in some way suggest that people are being downgraded on a voucher (maybe just as many not on vouchers are, in which case no one is being targeted etc etc).

However, I suppose it's impossible to prove this EITHER way. BA are never going to admit that they do this publicly (or even privately) and so all we have to go on is anecdotal tales. Even if BA comes out and say they don't do this, there's always going to be mutterings that they are - because this is a forum and we love a conspiracy! Also it makes financial sense for them to do so if they can fob off 80% of customers with their zero value for ticket story.

KARFA

Thanks, yes perhaps a better choice of words than mine.

My main issue is that as you know we have had quite a few worried posts on FT from people who have been genuinely convinced that because they are on a 241 they will inevitably get downgraded when this isn't the case. The anedoctes are being presented with an assertion that BA is downgrading companion vouchers when the evidence simply can't sustain such a conclusion.

rakehey

Yes, I'd be interested to know this too...

Paralytic

This.

I trust the people on this board when they relay what someone at BA told them. But, I don't blankly trust what BA told them, either because they are far removed from the facts, or they are using their FT contacts to relay duff information. BA is no longer a company I trust.

Amongst all the "we don't know" statements, the undeniable perception is that the prevalence of reports of 241 passengers being downgraded has increased over the past year or so.

It could be that the perception is wrong, and is merely a result of a message being amplified in the FT/Head for Points vacuum, or it could be fact, but the perception is certainly there, as evidenced by some of the worried posts we've seen recently.