ScruttonStreet

Agreed - you are showing commendable fortitude in what must be very trying circumstances - a refreshing change from many of the rants we get on here. I hope the rest of your travels go as smoothly as possible.

tedcruz

Thanks. As I would say, 'It's all in G-d's hands!!!'

Cymro

Oops... understand your point though and sometimes insurance is best! Let's hope for an op-up.

tedcruz

I refer you to post #62 .

msm2000uk

Feed him. He's one of us. Simple

M

nufnuf77

orbitmic

Poor op. Sounds like a fairly unpleasant experience with little that could be done at any stage. Hope you’ll arrive ok and sympathise with the feeling one feels more worried about how family members will react to travel incidents even if you are as calm as can be yourself.

mario

BA should have rebooked you on the next available service. As per the conditions of carriage https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb...ns-of-carriage

3c4) If you need to change any aspect of your transportation because of events beyond your control, you must contact us as soon as possible. We will use reasonable efforts to transport you to your next stopover or final destination, without re-calculating the fare.

Unless you didn't let BA know that you were being affected by an event beyond your control?

KARFA

And just for completeness, the term events beyond your control is defined.

This point has been discussed before in plenty of threads, but the scope is certainly not clear for this or whether the OP's situation would be covered. It is worth debate but it is not as clear cut as you seem to be advising.

Will100

Disaster....

Often1

OP should certainly not rely on the BA COC provision as there are many things he could have done to avoid this situation. Not the least of which was to purchase a connection, in which case he would have been protected and rebooked by BA.

Without reading the exact provisions of OP's insurance contract, it is equally unclear that a no show between two tickets will be covered. Same reason as above. A risk which OP chose to take.

tom911

Are you able to add a connecting non-BA flight with the AMEX offer?

KARFA

you mean on to a booking made with an amex 2-4-1 companion voucher? no, the voucher terms are that it is only for BA flights. knowing this you need to plan accordingly if you are transferring from one ticket to another and ensure sufficient time is left between tickets to reduce the risks due to delays etc. it's the same principle when positioning for an exEU ticket.

EsherFlyer

I'm not sure if tom911's question was rhetorical, along the lines of BA not permitting a mixed carrier itinerary so OP made reasonable provision within the constraints of that. Arguing that they shouldn't have used the 2-4-1 (which would have allowed a connecting itinerary) might be seen as unreasonable, since that effectively (largely) restricts iternaries that a customer can rely on end-to-end carriage for to single BA hops from LON. It would be quite reasonable for BA to allow multi-sector itineraries but only apply the 2-4-1 to BA sectors, but they choose not to.

orbitmic

I think that if the argument is that one had "no choice" but to buy separate tickets because one "had" to use a 2-4-1 for the purposes of the BA CoC protection, it would be a very weak argument. We all understand why the OP booked his itineraries the way that he did, and indeed, as far as I can see, everyone has been expressing sympathies for his misfortune as we all tend, quite thankfully, to prefer stories that end well on our forum, but I think that the argument expressed above that in that particular configuration, it is quite unlikely that BA would have allowed a free change holds. From what I have heard about the experience of others, not least on this forum, BA tends to apply that clause quite restrictively and rarely seems to show sympathy in the case of separate itineraries except in the past (and I don't even think that this is true any more), in the case of a badly delayed long haul BA flight followed by a separate booking for a BA short haul flight (and not in the other direction). Moreover, even when the article is invoked, the level of support seems to vary - it often only means that the person affected will be allowed to rebooked without paying the fee but still having to fork the fare difference. On a 2-4-1 booking, it is very easy to see how quickly this can add up.

On the whole, the OP was very unlucky. I think that the only hope would have been for CX to do more than they did but BA, whose flights were unaffected by any change bar a slight delay which effectively was favourable to the OP but not enough was not likely to be helpful. An expensive misfortune.