corporate-wage-slave

Yes, the only downside is that tickets are not always priced on a 50 / 50 basis so it may actually make more sense to rebook to a second date and cannibalise the booking. But the agent should be able to tell you the refund immediately if it's a simple booking and not mucked about.

ramalama8

I need a bit of help if you don't mind -

My reservation is thus: ATL-LHR-ZAG on Oct 18-19 operated by BA, ticketed by AA (ATL-LHR leaves on 18th, arrives on 19th; LHR-ZAG leaves and arrives on the 19th)
BA has canceled the LHR-ZAG portion on the 19th
I was only informed of the cancellation today
The solution offered to me by AA is to push the entire itinerary back by one day (ATL-LHR leaves on the 19th, arrives on 20th; LHR-ZAG leaves and arrives on the 20th)

Two questions:
1) Am I correct in understanding that BA is liable for cash compensation of 600 euros?
2) If I chose to remain on ATL-LHR on the 18th with an overnight at LHR, would BA be responsible for a Duty of Care for the time I spend on the ground until LHR-ZAG on the 20th?

Thanks for your help

corporate-wage-slave

I think it's highly unlikely BA just cancelled this, I suspect BA will blame AA for not telling you sooner, but in the Regulation the onus is on BA to contact you. So yes you potentially do have a claim here for compensation given the failure to give you 2 weeks notice. BA should be OK to pick up the cost of the hotel for the overnight stay, plus meals and transport to and from the hotel. Usually that is less problematic. I suspect they will try to wriggle out of the delay compensation, but BA will have to prove they informed you of the change.

ramalama8

Thanks for the reply. That is super helpful!

rjn21

I just received a Notice of Transfer of Proceedings as part of my MCOL re EC261 reimbursement, following a downgrade.

Of course it's to Uxbridge, which is absolutely not what CPR 26.2A (5)(b) provides. Perhaps the system works so that an Uxbridge judge now looks at the parties' directions questionnaires, and reallocates the case back to my chosen court as claimant against a company. If not, a bit more faff to transfer the case.

I'm, perversely, actually enjoying this.

Khatl

I reviewed the other articles on this... but couldn't see a response that directly addressed the following.

I had an Avios booking in F, and BA downgraded it to CW.
I didn't want to take the flight as a result... and BA basically informed me that a downgrade did not exempt me from having to pay the GBP30/US$55 cancellation fee.

I challenged them saying that basically it meant that if someone purchased a service, and the seller later voluntarily didn't perform that service, there was nothing that the purchaser could do to cancel that service without paying a fee. Which seems nuts.

But, they didn't budge. Is this right?

Still

My friends were allocated to PE seats to ATH a couple of weeks ago despite purchased Club Europe(J cabin was full), never had a situation like this, could this be treated as a downgrade? Thanks

KARFA

Would you think the seats and service were a downgrade compared to the booked cabin of club europe?

KARFA

Yes so unfortunately BA's policy is that there is no right to full refund from a downgrade - unless there is a significant time change involved as well. You can do a voluntary cancellations as you note, but that would incur the £35/$55 per person cancellation fee which is subtracted from the cash part of the redund.

Depending on the route are there any other nearby BA gateways you could go to which still have F? Or if you move the flight -2/+2 days are there flights with F you would consider taking?

Still

At least no blocked middle seats. I’m not seeking any compensation or anything, only asking because for the same fare paid, some gets J cabin others get PE cabin seems not very fair.

KARFA

Ok, so if everyone had been accommodated in the WTP cabin I assume that would mean you wouldn't ask?

The point I am making really is the "fairness" question is rather irrelevant here. What you need to look at is what they booked vs what they received. Others may have got a better shake of the dice that day, but it really isn't relevant to any claim your friend may have.

Still

Nobody is claiming anything. I wasn’t on the flight and they didn’t complain. I’m only assessing the situation here. The majority of CE were in J Cabin and a few in PE doesn’t sound fair to me. Yes, if the J Cabin is closed off and everyone sits in PE is fair to me. If it’s normal for BA operate like this, please just say so, no need to question others opinion.

KARFA

well to be fair I wasn’t questioning your opinion on whether compensation is due - mostly because I didn’t think you had given one and just asked whether it was

in terms of fairness it may or may not have been, but again i am not questioning your opinion on fairness, just saying it isn't relevant within the scope of any compensation or refund that could be due.

again the fairness thing is irrelevant. Sorry to ask another question but if there were too many people to be accommodated in one or other of the WTP/CW cabins what would you expect to happen? obviously some got lucky and were placed in the CW seats, but some were placed in the WTP seats. I am afraid that’s just luck, and possibly status related. It isn’t a basis for any refund or compensation because someone else got luckier than you friend.

At the end of the day your friend needs to decide whether what they received vs what they booked was a downgrade. What happened to others isn’t really relevant to that question in the sense of any EC261 claim that could be submitted for downgrade refund.

Still

It was indeed status related, my friend is GCH, with separate tickets he was separated from his friend, without realising she was in PE seats, he requested to swap his row 1 seat to row 9 to sit next to her.😂

corporate-wage-slave

I agree with KARFA's reply, and I would add that EC261 does actually allow downgrades, so the implication is that airlines can and should do this, but if downgraded there is a reimbursement mechanism for that. On longer trips this is quite a generous reimbursement mechanism, though BA and other airlines are somewhat loathed to pay it. On shorter trips then it could result in a trivial sum being reimbursed, and on one USA-LHR-BRU, where LHR-BRU was downgraded, you wouldn't get £5 out of it. BA themselves have played ducks and drakes on this one, in the past they wouldn't give the reimbursement (Mennens Formula) but would give a full refund on a cancellation basis, but now the aviation climate is very different - refunds are bad news even if Avios based - so they have switched it around, but don't regard a downgrade as a cancellation. And don't make it easy on claiming Mennens. But the bottom line is that EC261 doesn't help you, particularly if you don't fly the service as booked. If you fly the service as booked you would eventually get a potentially large reimbursement.

However. The logic that BA is applying related to BA's Conditions of Carriage, which provides various contractural implications for things like schedule changes and flight cancellations. There is nothing in there about downgrades directly, so presumably BA are saying that thereby your contract holds good even if we downgrade you. Now I think this is quite dodgy, but unfortunately no-one has so far given me evidence that they have successfully used other mechanisms to force a full refund, which in my opinion is due. Now I'm not a lawyer, but to my mind BA are in the possition of a frustrated contract (albeit of their own making) and therefore you should be put back to the position before the contract was started. Secondly the Consumer Rights Act gives broad consumer protection to a refund if your goods are not "as described", and clearly CW is not First.

Unforunatively CEDR may not help here, you would have to argue that BA is not trading fairly - again an area where I've seen no hard evidence from travellers - since CEDR don't handle contractural disputes unless EC261 is involved. So it probably tends to an MCOL based solution, or a small claims dispute in your jurisdiction. BA aren't terribly fond on small claims for small amounts of money, they just pay up at that last moment before a court hearing starts since it's commercially unjustifiable to waste time on the matter.