abligh

I'm going to ask this in the most general way possible so it's useful to other people.

I booked a trip A->B->C->A with a one night stop in B. Let's say due to weather or something beyond BA's control, BA cannot route me to B at all, but reroute me A->C->A so I can make my appointment at C. I still however need to visit B at some point to do a thing that needs to be done in B, so will need to book another A->B->A ticket in the future. Am I due a partial refund on the ticket? If so how is that partial refund calculated? Cost of A->B? Cost of A->B->A? Difference in price between A->C->A and A->B->C->A (which is practically nothing in this instance)?

I'm not talking about incidental costs / hotel costs which I know I can claim.

I'm not asking about EU 261 compensation as we're assuming this was something beyond BA's control (rebooking me on the middle of it into a flight which they should have known either could not have operated or could never have made the connection is a different question).

I'm also not asking about an offer of goodwill Avios from BA, which I expect may be forthcoming anyway as there were a sequence of other problems, but isn't immediately relevant to this question.

I'm asking about a partial refund (or I guess a replacement A->B->A ticket). My feeling is I paid BA to take me to A then B, then C, and even (for the sake of argument) accepting it wasn't their fault, they didn't get me from A to B which is what I paid them to do, so they should at a later date take me from A to B or pay me what it costs me to go on that route, same booking class. Reasonable?

In case anyone wants to know the original flight plans: A=ZRH, B=LCY/LHR B=EWR/JFK. And they eventually (3.5 hours of holding on the phone, queuing and arguing later - ignoring awaiting eventual flight cancellation time) rebooked me on Swiss rather than a route via MAD on Iberia which would have meant missing a Fri Eve appointment too. Save for the 3.5 hours bit, I'm not complaining about the outcome of this bit - assuming the Swiss flight works.

Misco60

I appreciate your desire to make this a generic question that might help others in the future, but I think the question would be much clearer if you had used the actual airport codes from the outset rather than adding a key at the end.

KARFA

orbitmic

if your night stop is under 24 hours (ie a connection), your ticket was really A-C-A so you are due nothing.

If your stop was over 24 hours (ie a stopover), difference would be calculated as above and likely give you very little.

Bear in mind that whilst being rebooked "at the first opportunity" is an option, EC261 also gives you a right to ask to be rebooked at different dates of your choice, and in your case, this might be a better fit to your needs.

corporate-wage-slave

I agree it's not entirely clear from the way laid out, and I think there is a typo in there too, but from what I can understand of this, if you had a ticket from Zurich to New York, then that is all the airline is required to provide, if the time at any connection points is under 24 hours. The precise routing isn't contractural, the start and end points are contractural. So if BA chooses to reroute you - bearing in mind the restrictions via EC261 - then that's the way it goes and your visit to London (or was it Madrid?) is incidental to getting you to New York. If London was for you intrinsically part of the reason for travel then you need to book Zurich to London, then London to New York, but with a gap more than 24 hours at London so it's a stopover not a connection.

Generally I find BA happy to route as per your requirements, so usually you can reject the Swiss option and go via London anyway.

sunshinebob

Mine is the same as the OP..

I booked AGP-MAD-LHR-OSL-LHR-MAD-AGP with Iberia , the Oslo flights are on Ba.

The outbound Oslo flight was cancelled last night. There are no further seats and I cant get there to come back on monday.

I should be able to cancel the whole thing ( from London ) and get taken back to Malaga. Iberia are worse than useless and blatantly lied to me. I hung up and called again only for them to put the phone down on me. They did say as I have flown some of the way I was not entitled for a full refund.

Ba are helping but have said that my return will be cancelled if I dont take the Oslo to London flight but they aware they cant get me to Oslo!!

Two hours on hold and still not sorted.. Finishing breakfast in the Hilton and going to wander over to T5 to see what that advises..

SWISSBOBBY

Yours is a very clear "trip in vain" they can not get you to OSL when you need to be there, and not until after your return starts... so any way back to AGP and full refund if that is what you want to to.

TSE

My question on the general case would be whether there should be a distinction between booking a return flight A-C-A but (choosing outbound flights via B) and using the multi-city tool to deliberately force a connection in B? Should the airline definitions of connections/stopovers affect a pax who wants a <24 hour layover on a single ticket?

corporate-wage-slave

That doesn't change anything regarding stopovers, which is an IATA industry wide definition. Multi city is just an alternative, internal to BA, method of constructing valid fares. It's a means to an end, it doesn't add extra benefits.

orbitmic

abligh

It wasn't a connection but a stop if that makes a difference. And was booked as such. But I had a feeling this might be the case.

abligh

It was booked ZRH->LCY; LHR->EWR; JFK->LHR->ZRH (on a tight-ish connection), using the multi-city tool, staying overnight in London.

They initially rerouted on the same route with ZRH->LHR->EWR (with not enough time to do the thing I wanted to do).

Then that got cancelled and they offered ZRH->MAD->EWR (which got in too late for NYC). They couldn't route me at all via London to NYC without an additional day's delay, so I am now doing ZRH->JFK on Swiss (return the same). This was an INVOL reroute (as written on the Swiss ticket). I was given no option to reroute via London (apart from the one I took but was again cancelled)

My point is I booked on the multi-city tool to visit London, and I've not got it.

abligh

I wasn't even "forcing a connection". I genuinely wanted to visit London! It was a simple three way trip, booked using the multi-city tool (*). If I'd wanted simply to connect in London I'd have simply specified the flight going via LHR (as opposed to via MAD which is the normal way to book this).

(*) actually it's possible I may have booked it using the GGL line simply by specifying flights.

orbitmic

abligh

I had a feeling this might be the case. Grrr.

Out of interest what happens if it's over 24 hours and BA can't connect to the next leg? This would have been the case were I on a later flight out as apparently there was NO flight from ZRH to LON today that had space (andl last I saw it was looking like the delayed 10:25 ZRH->LHR was going to be cancelled too, which means given there are no LCY flights on Saturdays, I'm guessing there will be some grumpy passengers in Zurich for the weekend)