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Flying on separate OW tickets and missing connecting flight

Flying on separate OW tickets and missing connecting flight

Old Mar 4, 2019, 7:15 am
  #46  
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I have yet to read on FT a satisfactory outcome to one of these self-connection insurance policies. Remember that you’d also have to have any return flights covered as well. Do you believe that the insurer will pay for a new long haul business class ticket from LHR to SIN at walk-up (ie full fare) prices because your inbound self-connected EasyJet flight was delayed by two hours?
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Old Mar 4, 2019, 7:24 am
  #47  
 
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Originally Posted by IAMORGAN
I understand the OPs frustration - and I actually share it. What the OP experienced is symptomatic of the dumbing down of the industry. When one makes a booking with a LCC, then to my mind you kind of know youre on your own when things go wrong.

Here, the OP is a top tier oneworld frequent flier, booking on two legacy carriers, both members of OW. One OW carrier was delayed, causing the OP to miss their other OW flight. In those circumstances, I dont think its unreasonable to think booking OW would help. OP may have read, or have been thinking of, the beginning of the below thread for the position a few years ago

Oneworld connection protection on separate tickets
[edited to add: having skimmed through the thread, it isnt clear to me that this is no longer OW policy]

Unfortunately, these days, legacy carriers have adapted their business practices to streamline processes, remove complexity, all to cut costs and make them more competitive with LCCs. In simple terms, this has meant a dumbing down of customer service. Same as densification, redundancies, no more complimentary food / drink, and so on.

Weve all played our part in it by booking flights based primarily on price. It has become self-fulfilling, since in economy now there isnt a huge amount to distinguish a legacy carrier from a LCC.

So, I think the OP is entitled to feel let down by the process. Yes, they got what they were entitled to, and to some, it seems that as long as one gets their legal rights then they are perfectly happy. However, there are also warm & fuzzy concepts of loyalty and the belief that by booking a legacy carrier this is going to provide more backup / support / service / care when things go wrong. The OP had that dashed last night and I can see where they are coming from. My instinctive emotional response is what is the point of an airline alliance if they dont provide a seamless service? The rational answer is there were two contracts, OP booked to London & then missed their separate ticket to Helsinki, tough luck. But when one OW member causes that to happen, it would be lovely if the OP could have been looked after better, especially as a OW FF. Sadly, its 2019 and the answer is tough luck, we need to show Willie the money and Ryanair / easyjet wouldnt do it so with prices as they are today if this were policy wed be seeing OW airlines going bust.
Some vary fair points and indeed I understand the frustration. However when you talk about OW helping - who exactly do you mean?

The Finnair flight left less than an hour late. So the cost isn't for their pocket. The Iberia flight was 2 hours late, annoying but inside what EC261 allows. So the cost isn't for them either. And whilst it appears BA sold the tickets but have nothing to deal with the operational aspects. So where is this OW team and pot of money that comes to the rescue?

The link you highlight is from 5 years ago, a lot has changed since then. Agreed, not always for the better, however that is the price we pay for the low fares and the need for the legacy carriers to compete with the locos. Some call it dumbing down, others market forces at work.
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Old Mar 4, 2019, 7:46 am
  #48  
 
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Originally Posted by simons1
Some vary fair points and indeed I understand the frustration. However when you talk about OW helping - who exactly do you mean?

The Finnair flight left less than an hour late. So the cost isn't for their pocket. The Iberia flight was 2 hours late, annoying but inside what EC261 allows. So the cost isn't for them either. And whilst it appears BA sold the tickets but have nothing to deal with the operational aspects. So where is this OW team and pot of money that comes to the rescue?

The link you highlight is from 5 years ago, a lot has changed since then. Agreed, not always for the better, however that is the price we pay for the low fares and the need for the legacy carriers to compete with the locos. Some call it dumbing down, others market forces at work.
Completely agree.

As a matter of fact, I dont think weve established the OP would in fact have misconnected as things played out (they boarded the IB flight and found out about a further delay so offloaded themselves) or that, had they thrown themselves at the mercy of FCC agents at Heathrow they wouldnt have at least been rebooked. They were told by BA CR that they would be - its FT who advised that they wouldnt. Plus the OP knew the risk both by own admission & because they started a new thread to ask.

I am not 100% sure (doubting myself) that OWs policy has changed - would be interested to see a definitive answer on this.

What Im trying to say, rather inelegantly, is from a customers point of view it doesnt really matter if IB / AY / BA or A N Other pick up the bill. They could say, look, Im a OW FF, flying on two back to back OW flights, Im within the MCT, I have a choice, OW should offer seamless service so somebody somewhere could have helped me out. Im not talking about legal entitlement, purely from a customer service point of view. Or what is the point of the OW alliance...I sympathise with that view - OW has lots of other benefits which I wont list. As I say, though, its not been established that re booking wouldnt have happened in Heathrow had the OP travelled, especially given what BA told them.

As for market forces / dumbing down, whether you see this as a good thing will probably ultimately come down to whether you subscribe to capitalist / free market principles or not!

Its a very interesting debate in terms of where the industry is now, what customers do / dont expect and the practical realities.
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Old Mar 4, 2019, 8:02 am
  #49  
 
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Originally Posted by IAMORGAN


Completely agree.

As a matter of fact, I dont think weve established the OP would in fact have misconnected as things played out (they boarded the IB flight and found out about a further delay so offloaded themselves) or that, had they thrown themselves at the mercy of FCC agents at Heathrow they wouldnt have at least been rebooked. They were told by BA CR that they would be - its FT who advised that they wouldnt. Plus the OP knew the risk both by own admission & because they started a new thread to ask.

I am not 100% sure (doubting myself) that OWs policy has changed - would be interested to see a definitive answer on this.

What Im trying to say, rather inelegantly, is from a customers point of view it doesnt really matter if IB / AY / BA or A N Other pick up the bill. They could say, look, Im a OW FF, flying on two back to back OW flights, Im within the MCT, I have a choice, OW should offer seamless service so somebody somewhere could have helped me out. Im not talking about legal entitlement, purely from a customer service point of view. Or what is the point of the OW alliance...I sympathise with that view - OW has lots of other benefits which I wont list. As I say, though, its not been established that re booking wouldnt have happened in Heathrow had the OP travelled, especially given what BA told them.

As for market forces / dumbing down, whether you see this as a good thing will probably ultimately come down to whether you subscribe to capitalist / free market principles or not!

Its a very interesting debate in terms of where the industry is now, what customers do / dont expect and the practical realities.
Well both Iberia and Finnair websites make specific reference to separate tickets and the need to recheck bags/allow a much longer connecting time (as does BA website) so I'm not sure the OP is on strong ground here.

And who would you throw yourself at the mercy of in FCC? BA - not relevant to them at all. Iberia - their job is done, they have delivered the OP to where he was supposed to get to (or would have) and no EC261 is due. AY - well OP would just have been a no-show in their eyes (accepting he may have made the flight).

I'm still unclear why the OP called BA anyway. Whatever advice they gave is largely irrelevant....as stated above I fear they just gave out whatever message the OP wanted to hear. Unprofessional - yes (but not a great surprised). Does it create any liability - I doubt it.
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Old Mar 4, 2019, 8:06 am
  #50  
 
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Originally Posted by LondonElite
I have yet to read on FT a satisfactory outcome to one of these self-connection insurance policies....
I maybe one of those who had a satisfactory outcome, the reason I say "maybe" I will come to later.
I was flying DBV-ZAG-LHR flying Croatia Airlines to ZAG then BA the same day. I knew the risks but took the gamble with 5 hours between flights. Just my luck, due to the weather, I found out at about 1900 that my flight for the next day from Dubrovnik was cancelled and I knew that I was stuffed re the BA flight from ZAG. Knowing I had to do everything possible to get to ZAG, I considered taking a 10 hour taxi ride from Budva (Montenegro) to Zagreb at a cost of €300 but eventually settled for a 6 hour journey through the night to Split at a cost of €100 Euros having booked the first Croatia Airlines flight from Spit to Zagreb which would give me 5 hours to catch the BA flight. My employer reimbursed me the taxi fare and the flight from Split to Zagreb was covered by the reimbursement of the cancelled flight.
My employer applied to their insurers for the €100 taxi fare and I believe they got the money back, hence the "maybe."

Last edited by IntVic; Mar 4, 2019 at 8:21 am Reason: grammar
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Old Mar 4, 2019, 8:06 am
  #51  
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Originally Posted by IAMORGAN
As a matter of fact, I don’t think we’ve established the OP would in fact have misconnected as things played out (they boarded the IB flight and found out about a further delay so offloaded themselves) or that, had they thrown themselves at the mercy of FCC agents at Heathrow they wouldn’t have at least been rebooked.
IB3172 scheduled 1450-1620 actual 1707-1838
AY1342 scheduled 1925-0015 actual 2021-0114

In the event, the actual time between flights was 1:43.

But more importantly, no rebooking at LHR would have helped him. After the booked LHR-HEL flight, the next LHR-HEL flight would have been this morning: AY1340 scheduled 0730-1225 actual 0750-1236 - so they would have missed the "early morning business meeting" today.
Originally Posted by IAMORGAN
Or what is the point of the OW alliance ...
I think the point of the OW alliance (in this respect) is that you should get pretty seamlessly looked after if you are truly connecting - ie you have one ticket covering both parts of the journey. You can't split it up to save yourself money, and then expect to claim all the benefits anyway: when all airlines are feeling the effects of passengers scrimping and saving by any means possible, the days of such generosity are largely gone. Dare I say it: it's like wanting to have your cake and eat it too.
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Old Mar 4, 2019, 8:14 am
  #52  
 
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Originally Posted by LondonElite
I have yet to read on FT a satisfactory outcome to one of these self-connection insurance policies. Remember that youd also have to have any return flights covered as well. Do you believe that the insurer will pay for a new long haul business class ticket from LHR to SIN at walk-up (ie full fare) prices because your inbound self-connected EasyJet flight was delayed by two hours?


Most, probably all, policies cover a limited amount only, typically in the U$500-U$1,000 range. I assume they do will pay in the case you mention, but only up to the covered amount.
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Old Mar 4, 2019, 8:17 am
  #53  
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Thank you for your replies.

I think I need to explain little more.

- this wasn't a business trip but aviation enthusiast weekend. Only business related matter was to be at HEL monday morning.
- the proposed route was HEL-BUD (Getjet), BUD-BSL (Wizz), ZRH-MAD (LX A220), MAD-LHR (try Dali lounge and get some OW segments), LHR-HEL (to home).
- done this kind of trips many times before and well aware about risks.
- posted here because BA ticket and to ask if there are anymore OW separate ticket policy (got ansver very quickly, thank you very much)
- the reply after IB was bit emotional. Shouldn't have been submit

Ps. Sorry my bad english. My co-flyer is much better in english and he edited my writings to english yesterday.
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Old Mar 4, 2019, 9:17 am
  #54  
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So did you get back to HEL in time for your Monday morning meeting or not? And did you fly MAD-LIS/LIS-HEL on TAP in the end?
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Old Mar 4, 2019, 9:20 am
  #55  
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Originally Posted by Reissuruuna
Ps. Sorry my bad english. My co-flyer is much better in english and he edited my writings to english yesterday.
There's never any need to apologise for this here. Even without your friend's help, your English is infinitely better than any Finnish that most of us could possibly deploy.
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Old Mar 5, 2019, 7:30 am
  #56  
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Originally Posted by MSPeconomist
So did you get back to HEL in time for your Monday morning meeting or not? And did you fly MAD-LIS/LIS-HEL on TAP in the end?
Affirmative. TAP oneway price was reasonable 141 pp.
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Old Mar 5, 2019, 8:54 am
  #57  
 
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Originally Posted by Agneisse
I really don't understand the "but still". You chose to gamble with the separate tickets (presumably lower cost) knowing the risks, and lost. Why is it somehow IB/OW's responsibility to get you out of that pickle? And what sort of advice could the agent possibly give, other than to book a protected through ticket next time?

If anything, in these situations I have more sympathy for inexperienced leisure travelers genuinely unaware of the rules, than businesspeople who knew the potential pitfalls and then are annoyed others didn't bend the rules to accommodate them.
to be fair, there used to be an Oneworld protection for separate ticket non-connections. It just stopped (probably because its been exploited like what the OP did).
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Old Mar 5, 2019, 1:19 pm
  #58  
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Originally Posted by lostfly
Most, probably all, policies cover a limited amount only, typically in the U$500-U$1,000 range. I assume they do will pay in the case you mention, but only up to the covered amount.
I suppose this is my point. Not much help in many cases where insurance is actually useful. For that price range Id probably not bother in the first place.
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Old Mar 5, 2019, 1:39 pm
  #59  
 
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Originally Posted by SKRan
to be fair, there used to be an Oneworld protection for separate ticket non-connections. It just stopped (probably because its been exploited like what the OP did).
I cant see an expectation of buying two tickets and expecting the airlines to fly to time table as exploitation.

I know it doesnt work like that from knowledge gained here. But BA dont protect connections on two different tickets, sure thats common knowledge here, but do you think any non-FT person booking two tickets on BA would not expect BA to sort things if a BA delay left you unable to make a second BA flight?
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Old Mar 6, 2019, 8:51 am
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Mrs T (BA Gold) and sis in law just checked in at MAN on an Avios redemption to LHR , separate PNR to the BA100 year promo LHR -BOS I bought them (gotta keep in the good books) leaving later today. We both figured BA would not through check hold baggage as separate PNR etc...so they went HBO.

The MAN priority checkin told her we had a letter yesterday telling us that BA Golds can now through check hold bags on separate BA (PNR ) bookings

News to me, figured Id post it in case it is a genuine development
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