labdoctor

Definitely EU261 has no time limits on duty of care commitments. The hotel should be repaid by BA, legally.

KeaneJohn

They could book him on Brussels Airlines which will mean if rules don’t change there will be a 14 day quarantine so I suspect.

Which part of the legislation specifically covers this as I’m struggling to see.

MaxiStoat

How does this work - under what circumstances can you insist on this?

Lets imagine that BA withdraws a route entirely - as has happened quite a bit lately - with insufficient notice for you to rebook onto another carrier at sensible cost. Is there really an entitlement for them to rebook you to a competitor? Is this typically difficult to get them to do?

orbitmic

I would say that the OP should expect not to get a refund for the hotel night, and unfortunately, in the current period, I think that the odds are, by far, that they will indeed have to pay for it themselves. Is there another day when you could fly and the flight times would mean not overnight stop? If not I would indeed consider refund and rebook on another airline. As pointed out by cws, there are low cost options which sometimes work best for that sort of routing.

KARFA

Yes there is an entitlement for them to do that. In the case of a route closure there is usually specific guidance issued by BA on what alternative carriers they have an arrangement with which you can book with, although that guidance may take a few days to appear after the route closure is announced.

Often1

To be clear, there is an entitlement created by BA as a matter of its internal policies to devise alternatives when it drops a route. There is, however, no such requirement in EC 261/2004 and recent (nonbinding) Guidance from the EC makes it clear that a refund would satisfy Section 8 rebooking during (not necessarily as the result of) the pandemic.

For you this won't make a difference. But, beware when you fly other carriers that they may not have a policy.

Tobias-UK

Not on my reading of the guidance! Which guidance are you relying on to make this statement?

KARFA

Just to clarify, the guidance needs to be viewed in the context of when it was issued on 18 March when everything was locked down and there really were not many flights running at all. It really was the case at the time that rerouting could be almost impossible. That doesn't seem to be the case now, and most places are being served.

The guidance said that re-route might not be a viable option where the passenger wanted to be re-routed at the earliest opportunity - i.e. under Art 8.1 (a) & (b). Re-routing at a latter date at the passenger's convenience (Art 8.1 (c)) was still applicable. In fact the guidance explicitly said re-routing at a later stage may be preferable.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/pres...l/en/IP_20_485 see Interpretative Guidelines on EU passenger rights regulations in the context of the developing situation with Covid-19

The Tourism and Transport Package issued in May by the Commission also said the following:

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/pres...n/QANDA_20_870

I think now several months on it's hard to argue that the guidance still has the same weight it did back during lockdown with regards to the options under Art 8.1. In terms of the OP's routing from WAW-LHR there would seem to be options using KLM, LOT, Austrian, Air France, and Lufthansa so it would be difficult for BA to suggest that in this case re-routing was not a viable option.

angeloedades

My recent experience: ZRH > LHR cancelled with 10 days notice. Opted for the ZRH > LHR flight the next day.

I claimed hotel, taxi and food under the duty of care and it was all approved in a couple of days.

Sam Lewis

BA did this to me with Kiev. They rerourted me LCY-MUC on a BA plabe and MUC- KBP on lufthansa

cheshirepete

I had a similar issue back in July for my August Bank Holiday trip to AMS from MAN via LHR. They pulled my domestic connections which made the booking unviable. But I sat on the booking in the hope they reinstated flights, and was then able to resurrect my itinerary when BA recently added in later connections to MAN.

Now! Obviously I’ve been scuppered again yesterday due to The Netherlands being added to the Quarantine list!

However, my advise to you would be wait it out, as you’ll have total flexibility if they change and add to their schedule again by October.