Very easy: BA has to take care of the pax. If they fail to do so you can claim the cost of hotel, food plus compensation.

BA could have organised a bus and a Holiday Inn but chose not offer any support required by law.

See you at the gate SGM at 14:00; however a delay has beeen announced already!
We should post our financial outcomes when settled on this post for the collective good.

really? Or did the op just decide to make their own arrangements?

The guideline - not allowance - is per room, and an assumption that 2 people will share. So a family of 4 can look to have 2 rooms, for example. I very much doubt they have the time or inclination to parse the sleeping arrangements of every combination of travellers.

The limit is in place to stop people just booking a ridiculous hotel and billing the airline for it. They may pay up, they may not, but as others have pointed out there were other reasonable options available.

Specifically on duty free, and for future reference, protocol in this circumstance is actually to take it back for a refund before landing oneself. They may not shout about it but all retail outlets in Heathrow must offer full refund on any items with tax benefits in the event that a customer is unable to leave the UK.

In the before times they were quite robust with the £200 limit - with the current conditions I think you’d have to push very hard indeed with lots of proof. And probably, at the very least, a letter before action.

I think it is a critical question. If BA was unable/unwilling to offer the OP accommodation (and ideally, if that is documented), then I think that the OP have a strong case to make their own and BA would find it hard to justify using their own internal, arbitrary limit to cap reimbursement.

If, by contrast, the OP just did not want to queue, or preferred to organise their own stay (not least because quite understandably, they find the Sofitel a lot more convenient than the alternatives BA would have likely come up with at this busy mass IRROPS time) and did so without asking BA first, then I think that BA has a strong case especially given that clearly, cheaper alternatives did exist.

Regardless of the case, it is possible that BA will pay up, and in my view more likely that they will refuse to do so. It then becomes a question of whether the OP wants to go to CEDR over it, but in my view, if they did not give BA a chance to provide their own arrangements first, they would not stand much of a chance of success in that case.

When I had an Amex platinum I just used their insurance and followed their limits - they always paid up, I don’t know whether they claimed it back from the airline. But I no longer have my platinum card so the last time it happened to me I took the cheapest Hilton option (which was the DoubleTree) as I was flying from T3 it wasn’t that much hassle. The T2 HGI was well over £200 and Hatton Cross was full. As for T5 I discovered that the T4 Hilton is actually easier to get to than the so-called T5 one. There’s regular TfL buses that pass the hotel on the way to T5.

The Hilton at T4 can be reached for free via the Heathrow express unless I'm mistaken? There's a covered walkway connecting the hotel to the terminal.

Hi,

T4 is currently closed and the train/underground stations are closed and not running.

The covered walkway is closed

The only way from T5 to the Hilton is taxi/uber,public bus ( a little awkward with luggage) or the Hotel Hoppa ( not that frequent compared to public buses)

Regards

TBS

Not at the moment since the T4 building has been closed for over a year now. But the TfL buses run frequently and it's just a quid or two on them.

atm short of a taxi it would be hoppa or tfl buses 482/490 to that hotel currently

Even if T4 was open getting the train is slower than getting the bus (as you have to change trains at T2/3). I tend to forget people may have lots of luggage so remember the public bus stops on the street not at the hotel door and the Hoppa is expensive and infrequent so if you have luggage you really need Uber or a taxi

this is fine if you are an avid reader of this blog, have a encyclopaedic knowledge of Heathrow hotels, a detailed understand of the transport services around the airport and don’t have 2-3 kids under 10 in tow!
, or don’t speak English!

I am not suggesting anyone books the Dorchester but it is entirely unreasonable for any carrier to abandon thousands of customers at its home base and simply issue a letter. Especially as this weekends carnage would have been obvious in advance!

That is not complying with duty of care. If it were me I’d book the closest hotel to airport with meals and to hell with limits

fortunately I have long and exhausting experience of BA in mass disruption and just do my own thing now.

I have however been waiting 5 weeks for my costs and compensation to be paid for the last meltdown and frankly it time BA were properly held to account for this travesty of service. Refunds in 7 days. Duty of care costs in 14 days and EU 261 compensation automatic and immediate to original form of payment. It won’t happen but the current situation, which is not limited to BA, is not working

Thanks - good to know. That might explain why the Plaza Premium T4 arrivals lounge is still closed. I stayed at the T4 Premier Inn and walked to the PP Arrivals lounge for dinner using my Lounge Key card on a couple of occasions which was pretty handy.