JClasstraveller

Often1

That depends on who is telling the truth.

It all comes back to someone making a decision as to the veracity of the statement that denying boarding was "reasonable."

mdj1

But it's already been ascertained that the card was used at the airport and proof of this could be provided, so why would the OP refuse to show the card if asked?

I think the ground agent is telling porkie pies.

Mrlmrl

Hi everyone,
Thank you very much for your replies. We are learning a lot from you, it's an amazing platform.
I'll reply by order:
Yes, BA refunded the flight ticket.
Yes, we used the card 2 times in PMI: 1 hour before the flight, at PMI Burger King. And right after the incident, to withdraw euros from an ATM in the middle of PMI. They would easily see it from the cameras actually.
BA shared the screenshot of the message they sent to PMI, saying: "Pax must present exact card if unable, pax will need to purchase new tkt at orig fare". The time stamp is 2 hours earlier than the incident. But at the gate the agent even showed the screen to us and said "look it shows you as not checked in, i don't know why it says like this." We saw our name on the screen and didn't see any message. Maybe the guy should look somewhere else. I don't know where this message should appear on that screen.
He talked to his supervisor from the desk phone at the gate, I'm curious if those calls are recorded. That would clarify everything indeed.

In addition, this text below is from the claim document that BA shared and CEDR is referring to this one as the "enough evidence". Also, see the call record when we called BA in front of the gate. Even there it's obvius that we did not given any reason for being denied from the flight. But they refer to this text as "contact center confirmed the reason why he was not able to board". There is no word about the reason. It's just suggestion to buy a new ticket.
So, how can we prove that they did not ask the card? In my opinion, the call record was a good proof but they interpreted it very differently on BA's benefit. The guy at the gate was a nice guy, I believe he really just didn't know what to do. Even maybe it's just a technical error which prevented him see the message, whoknows.
What would you do as the next step??

mdj1

So the call notes dont mention the need to show the card at all!

I would be contact BA and making an SAR Subject Access Request, which is a copy of the actual telephone call. This would clarify if you were ever told to produce the card on the phone. If the call makes no mention of supplying the card then I think you have a pretty good case.

https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rig...access-request

details on how to make this request are above.

Buster

i have been wondering about this need to present the "exact card" a lot lately. I no longer have the "exact card" used to make any of my bookings for the next 6 months...because it was compromised thanks to BA! I realize this is a little off topic, but it does give me a bit of pause that this is a loophole that BA may use to its advantage (and which they themselves caused).

Bullswood

Unless BA have provided other reports then it's difficult to understand how the CEDR arrived at their conclusion.

For example, what does this mean"The passengers could not certify the credit card and there was no time for them to buy another ticket..." ?

and "it is difficult to believe that no one informed the Passengers the card used to make the booking was required" is not even a definite assertion (let alone a substantiated claim) that such a request was ever made. It appears to be merely the surmise of an interested party,

I'd certainly pursue what more was provided to the CEDR, in particular, you should ask for the PNR to see what instruction was placed in it by BA Security (i.e. whether it contained an explicit requirement to require production of the credit card) and confirmation from the handling agent that they had access to and read the full PNR and then clearly conveyed such requirement to the passenger).


With regard to the above observations about such "Passenger said" vs "BA said" bunfights, I'm not yet sure that we're clear on what BA is even claiming was said...

Often1

With the facts dribbling it, it now seems clear that BA had given instructions to the IB agents. Also seems clear that the IB agent reviewed the PNR notes and denied boarding. I suppose that it is possible that he reviewed the notes, did not ask for the CC, and simply denied boarding, but that seems very, very odd.

I'm far from surprised that a neutral common-sense individual, such as CEDR would provide, would find as he did. On the critical question of whether the IB agent actually made the demand before denying boarding, the inference could be drawn by anyone.

NickB

But is it not equally "very, very odd", to use your phrase, for the passenger to refuse to show the cc when asked if the passenger did have the cc, as seems clear from the fact that the card was used to make a purchase at the airport on that day?

TerryK

My take is probably due to language barrier, IB agent, instead of asking for credit card, informed OP to purchase new tickets at the same fare in order to travel. OP, not knowing original tickets had been refunded, refused and were denied boarding. Credit card verification is usually done at check in or ticketing desk. It seems to me that OP went straight to gate which might have caused confusion as gate agents are not properly trained for it. Issue was probably not uncovered until boarding time which left little time to purchase new tickets.

The bottom line is OP were denied boarding without valid tickets. This is a BA customer service issue, for miscommunication, not a legal claim issue. OP can write to BA to claim additional expenses incurred due to miscommunication, yet it is up to BA customer service to decide how to compensate for that.

corporate-wage-slave

Thanks for those extra pieces, which will be useful if you do want to take it further forward. It's not clear to me whether CEDR saw documentary evidence from your card statement that you certainly had the card with you at the airport, since to my mind it will contradict the somewhat confusing lines quoted from the PNR above. Confusing since they don't seem to align with the adjudicator's decision. It is almost as if "buy new tickets" = "show credit card", which are two very different things to my mind, and as mentioned there is at the gate no mechanism to buy new tickets anyway, ergo Involuntary Denied Boarding. I presume the CEDR adjudicator saw another document from the ground handler advising more clearly that you had been asked for the credit card and that you not presented the card.

In your shoes - and I am not a lawyer - I would be tempted to send to CEDR a copy of the credit card transactions with a note saying that proves you had the card on you, and it would be illogical and counterproductive not to show it if asked. Therefore you are unable to agree to the CEDR illogical finding, will take it to MCOL and add some note of regret that CEDR's adjudicator's judgement seems to be stacked in favour of contradictory statements from the airline.

MCOL will cost about £50 but because you (unfortunately) went to CEDR first - presumably at BA's suggestion - BA will almost certainly defend the case in court, at least for the early stages - and will also put in a robust statement requesting the judge to award them costs. This cost award doesn't happen very often, the system is biased in your favour in that respect, so long as you have clear arguments, which you seem to have, and a good reason for rejecting the judgement. You also need to fulfill the requirements of MCOL on timelines and documentation, including a Statement of Truth, and you should also look at the thread above in terms of constructing a Skeleton to present to court - a 2 page bullet point summary focusing on your main arguments (and briefly touching on the aspects that both sides agreed on).

Since BA refunded the tickets, the other option is to put the additional costs of rebooking on to easyJet and not bother with IDB.

I wouldn't bother with an SAR - they are currently taking months to produce due to the unrelated issue of the data leak. I suspect you have most of the BA documents already, and you can use a Statement of Truth to cover anything contentious such as telephone calls to the Contact Centre (which presumably you have documentary evidence of via your telephone bill).

LCY8737

That! The credit card transactions will prove that the OP had the physical card on her at the time. The rest is pretty much common sense - it appears far more likely that there was some communication gap than that the OP would choose not to show the card and prefer to be offloaded.

Also - on a more general note: What is the particular fraud risk in a scenario where the name on the credit card (presumably) matches the name on the booking which has to match the name on the passport?

typical

Is this really true with BA? I have had lots of airlines warn me, during booking and/or by email, that my card would be verified at the airport.

Ldnn1

bluemoon68

Is there a chance that BA refunded before the flight departure?

I've been asked for my CC at check in with BA.

Done this. There is a tick box somewhere in the booking process (at least there is on BA.com) where you can indicate that you won't be one of the passengers.