CheVive

Hi All,

My fiancée and I booked two separate open-jaw tickets for our wedding in Tehran and Lahore (LHR-IKA, LHE-DOH-LHR). Booked separately because she was flying out earlier while work is keeping me in London till the last minute, although I purchased both tickets on my credit card. In terms of status, I am BA Silver and she's Blue.

The flights are not till late March/early April, but we both just got texts from BA saying our DOH-LHR leg was cancelled. This is particularly concerning because we sprung for WT+ and the other DOH-LHR flights that day don't have a premium economy cabin. What is the typical BA policy in these case? I'd like to have a sense before calling the call center. The online booking doesn't give me any rebooking options, simply telling me to call.

Especially given the occasion and that we paid for premium, I really hope we are not going to be downgraded or expected to fly on a different date, which would mean either less time with family or taking more time off work.

Thanks in advance for your advice and guidance.

mda03jb

Unfortunately your options will be a date change, downgrade to Economy with a fare difference refund (which may not be calculated in a particularly favourable way) or a full refund.

As the alternatives that day will all be on Qatar who have no premium economy cabin there's not much more they can do. They will not be offering a free upgrade to business I'm afraid.

corporate-wage-slave

The usual policy is that they will downgrade you to Qatar Economy or offer another date of travel on BA. You would then be entitled to a refund based either on BA's involuntary refund calculation or EC261 downgrade refund calculation, which is ever is greater. Working out the latter is finicky, but the forum's Dashboard has a thread on EC261 and you should work out what it would be roughly. In this circumstance I would expect BA's own downgrade calculation to be more. You also have the option of a refund if you prefer. This may not make good reading but Qatar, in line with many airlines, doesn't offer a premium economy cabin.

CheVive

BA never called me, despite their cancellation e-mail saying I should expect a call from them.

So I called them tonight and have just spent an hour back and forth with an agent saying that all he can do is rebook the DOH-LHR leg on a QR flight, but that no fare difference is due because fares have moved and the economy fare is now higher than the price I originally paid, saying they'll do us a favor and rebook us onto Qatar economy and not charge us extra.

This is clearly nonsensical. We are being DOWNGRADED from premium to regular economy and are being told that we're being done a favor and so should not get any fare difference at all.

I will take this up with EU compensation process, but in the meantime, what are my options with BA??? If I accept the confirmed booking change do I give up any hope of getting BA to itself refund the fare difference? I don't want to do something that has BA mark this as somehow resolved in their systems and remove mention of the flight cancellation and involuntary downgrade.

corporate-wage-slave

My experience is that very few frontline BA staff have any detailed knowledge of EC261, and I would be surprised if this has been seen by a refund specialist on a Sunday. Your right to the downgrade reimbursement cannot be taken away by BA or its agents, however it would be helpful if BA do their Involuntary Refund calculation as well as EC261 to ensure you get the right outcome. So fill in the relevant form on BA.com, take a screen shot of it before you press the send button and make sure you get an auto email acknowledgement - sometimes takes a few hours to arrive. See the main thread, by all means set deadlines, but usually you do have to travel first before you will get EC261 (though not for BA's Involuntary Refund strangely) since you could still cancel for a refund.

CheVive

I've just logged into MMB, and despite my having told the agent and the duty manager that I did NOT want to have my flight changed until I had clarity on the refund issue, I see that I am on two different LHE-DOH-LHR flight sets on QR/BA codeshares and that the original DOH-LHR flight on BA metal has been removed.

Both QR operated return pairs show as confirmed, but I have no idea if they've been ticketed yet.

What does this mean? Also, where should the link to the involuntary downgrade calculation show?

Thanks for your help.

MarkFlies