mikeyfly

Very disappointing and distressing for you Adorabella . Good luck with your claim

As ​​​bisonrav states, there won’t be any additional comp beyond the legal minimum, so keep your details to do with involuntary denied boarding, and additional accom / subsistence costs. If you get a quick rejection come back for next steps

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to FlyerTalk and welcome to the BA forum, I only wish the circumstances had been better, since you have been treated shabbily here. I'm very sorry to read your story. There is a thread on EC261 in this forum, but I'm not sure you necessarily need to read it, since all it needs is a concise version of your earlier post. I would very much urge you to do this, since unfortunately avoidable cash payouts is the one thing that makes BA sit up and pay attention. At this stage, get a list of
- extra travel costs
- extra phone / telecom costs
- extra food costs (excluding alcohol)
- extra accommodation costs
- the unnecessary tests in LAS.
- plus the £520 IDB compensation per person.

Then by all means combine the above with a short version of your post (and there are some good eyes here, including lawyers, so reach out for more information). The login into the BA.com, go to the contact us section at the bottom, cut and paste your version into the form. Direct link below. Most important: do a screen shot before submission since you won't get your own copy in this process.
https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb...nts-and-claims

Again my apologies for this, not that I work for BA, you do not appear to have done anything wrong. I imagine there was a lot more to this story, in terms of personal distress, but you wisely managed to get the salient points starkly for all to see, and to the greater embarrasment of BA.

corporate-wage-slave

I would be almost certain this is at the heart of the problem, and explains everything else that flows from it.

Geordie405

I am not sure whether those impacted in LAS and JFK could claim US DOT IDB compensation instead? I believe the limits are higher - up to $1550 per person.

wrp96

US IDB compensation would only apply if the flight was oversold.

London Dude

If they used NHS tests they wouldn't have had any documentation to prove the outcome, right? It sounds pretty stupid to me.

Adorabella

Perfect.

Thank you!

EDITED TO ADD: We were not even given an opportunity to show our original test results to know whether they were acceptable or not. The BA rep asked, "Did you go to a lab here in Las Vegas?' Our answer was no and we were instantly denied the ability to check in.

Thank you ever so much for your kindness...and bullet points etc!

I will draft something tomorrow (or will at least attempt to do so jetlag and stress permitting).

corporate-wage-slave

Here is the Simon Calder story in The Independent:

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel...-b1975125.html

The comment from BA about this story is reprehensible: "A spokesperson for British Airways said: “Like all airlines, we ask customers to check the gov.uk website for information on testing.”" Clearly people have been doing precisely that, it was BA that elected to come up with their own rules, and only told the passengers about these invented rules at LAS rather than email them in advance. If 60 people take BA to the cleaners on this, this nonsense will cease very quickly.

mrandery

I find this the most interesting bit. (My bolding)

cauchy

it’s quite narrowly defined - https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-1...#se14.4.250_16

What a mess. Usually the advice would be to fly BA ex-JFK to benefit from EC261, but actually AA might be advantageous as their ground staff are actually empowered to solve problems.

dougzz

Klarity.Health are providing certificates based on certain approved tests. The NHS ones (Flowflex?) meet that standard as I understand it. I bought the Abbott Binax ones which I hope to use with Klarity, but now I’m having doubts.

dougzz

I was about to post exactly this, but am too fat fingered on iPad to cut and bold.

corporate-wage-slave

Indeed, and I can imagine some people would turn up at check-in with LFD catridges proving they are negative. But if someone not familiar with the NHS saw some memo about this they may say "well if they didn't get the test in Vegas for sure they used these illegal free cartridges" - given that the USA has very little history of using LFDs. The whole thing is ridiculous - the point of this exercise isn't paperwork - it's to ensure that people who boarded are not obviously carrying COVID on board. Even the NHS issue is silly in its own right, we need to test, test, test and test again. It's not as though the NHS ones really are free either or massively different to the USA system. CVS and co bill back their testing costs to insurers, which is merely a variant of the UK system. However I'm pretty sure that those IDB'd in LAS were mainly using tests that they had paid for outwith the NHS.

bisonrav

I think the BA response Calder quoted was from Twitter, and essentially the twitter team were using a script, which is reasonable, for several similar cases. It was accurate if not very helpful, and not particularly reprehensible. You'd expect a gradually better calibrated response.

bisonrav

Someone going to take one for the team and try Klarity + NHS?

It might bring a new meaning to "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas"