Booking changed - arrive later than need to - looking for advice
 

Morning all - looking for a bit of guidance for a colleague. He's booked to fly EDI-LHR-VIE on 16th April. Originally booked on 0650 EDI-LHR / 1000 LHR-VIE. First flight has now apparently been cancelled, rebooked on 0805, which means he misses the connection at LHR and arrives 90 mins later, which doesn't work for him. If he rebooks to ensure he gets to VIE no later than original booking, would he be entitled to claim cost of hotel for either an overnight stay at LHR and take original LHR-VIE flight, or in VIE if he makes the full journey the previous day? Couldn't see anything on https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb...mer-guidelines and suspect I know the answer...

Thanks in advance.

In theory this could fall under the provisions of EC261 Duty of Care regulation. In practice BA do not interpret the regulation this way and - whilst there should be no issue with changing to the last flight the night before - they expect the passenger to pick up any hotel bill.

This would almost certainly require court action to get BA to pay. With LHR hotels sometimes costing not much more than the court fee, with no guarantee of success, most people wouldn’t bother.

The other option, which again is not in dispute, is to take a refund and book elsewhere, although obviously on that routing the options will be limited - KL perhaps?

Another option is to go from GLA if that suits. The 6.55 from there would allow him to connect to the original VIE flight. BA should be ok to move him to that.

Thanks both for the quick replies. Reaffirmed my thoughts...

@Ldnn1 - we did think of GLA as an option, but he's a Fifer, and would mean a very early start, or an overnight at GLA (albeit much cheaper than LHR...). Think he'd prefer an extra night in VIE than the outskirts of Paisley!

What's wrong with the outskirts of Paisley? ;)

If this is travel paid by an employer or client, they should foot the cost, and then the colleague may as well go to VIE and stay there overnight rather than near LHR or near Glasgow. Since there has to be an overnight stay somewhere make it as close to the ultimate destination as possible.

I must admit to being surprised that EDI won't have a service to LHR until 08:00 on that particular Monday, though there are early services to LCY and LGW. So much so, that I'm wondering if it may be reinstated in a week or two, it's an AA codeshare and will cause problems to AA. In addition to the unspeakable charms of Paisley, I can add NCL as well, since it has an 06:05 service to LHR and a good Doubletree next to the airport (don't even think about the Britannia unless you make money from Instagram) and would be within the 300 mile range allowed for these changes. Otherwise the SN->OS service via BRU is a solid way around this and a comfortable connection time too.