Sparkyfletch

T5 seemed back to its pre pandemic self today amazing queues everywhere even to the First check in. I've never seen every stool at the Fortnum & Mason stall full. It was great to see HAL back to it's former self.
Our flight to Catania, after much consternation at the gate was cancelled - Flight deck out of hours. I thought a standby crew should have been in place mid afternoon or is that an expectation too far?

I felt for the poor duty manager and the pilot who came to the gate to announce the cancellation. Some Pax were understanably put out, especially those with kids, but having to back through immigration then to the luggage hall to find no bags could be unloaded, but we will get you back out tomorrow afternoon seemed with a pragmatic head reasonable.

My wife and I accepted the £10 vouchers, I double checked the hotel policy to be told up to £200 / room. After a little phoning around on this really busy school holiday Saturday the best we could get was T5 Soffitel at £281 with breakfast.

Would those that know advise:
Is this covered (I got the price down by 10% by joining their 'Club) to £251 plus a sensible dinner for £55?
Meet and greet had stashed our car somewhere remote so we couldn't drive home and back in the morning.
A 24 hour small car rental from Sixt was £450 so it had to be the overnight hotel.

This trip was booked through BA Holidays so one day (of six) is lost.

We are both Gold, flying in CE. What is a reasonable outcome please?

Oh BTW my two bottles of duty free Tanqueray 10 are now landside with me. There is nowhere or no way to take these back through so I will look for the T5 foodbank :-)

corporate-wage-slave

THe guideline is £200 per room, but it's not a firm rule. They may just pay the excess. However the Hilton T4 is still going at £123 so I think BA would have a point if they capped you at £200. The meal costs should be picked up. There is also EC261 delay compensation, BAH should refund the lost 1 night. If the duty free was fully sealed and wrapped, with the receipt visible inside the bag, you should be allowed to take that through security. Otherwise you could try to ask the hotel for a wine box (they will have plenty of those) and with enough packing around it should survive as another checked bag.

The _Banking_Scot

Hi

if possible could you do a search of hotels and screen print or download the results. This may help you for a claim with ba regarding the hotel.

I am also seeing some hotel prices below £200 ie the double tree lhr at £93 although with no Internet access it will be harder to find.
Regarding the alcohol could you leave it with the hotel or left storage until your return.

Regards

Tbs

Sparkyfletch

Thank you both for such a quick response. Sound advise received.

The _Banking_Scot

Hope you get a good nights rest and have better luck getting to cta tomorrow.

Regards

Tbs

scottishpoet

some screen shots of the other hotels on the bath road showing no availability below £200 would probably see you get your hotel rate paid.

If you are not able to provide that then you may only get a partial refund of the rate you paid

binman

I cannot see how BA can avoid paying more than £200 a night for a hotel. This is mass disruption of their own making. More over, individuals do not have their buying power or ability to negotiate deals.
If BA through their own incompetence, or through their refusal to provide service at T5 (or anywhere else,) cannot provide the room and transport to and from it, then they cannot reasonably expect people to keep within these guidelines. And that is all they are. EU/UK261 does not limit the costs of duty of care.

corporate-wage-slave

On this occasion I don't think a £200 cap is unreasonable. A very quick check on the Hilton website - 3 minutes maybe - took me to the £123 at Hilton T4 and I also saw th DT Bath Road on £93. Hotels around Paddington and Olympia were under £100. And that's just one brand - Sofitel is part of the Accor brand and they also had offerings under £100, including an Ibis at under £50. Those that went to Zone E to get a hotel voucher were given them for the Renaissance. There will be occasions when BA would have to pay well over £200 for rooms, but last night wasn't one of these occasions.

scottishpoet

a quick search yesterday evening when i saw this thread there were 2 heathrow hiltons under £150, one of which was under £100. Plenty of others availble for under £200 slightly further away.

I then looked on IHG and found the HInn on the bath road was under £150.

Flying Doctor

This is an interesting one and will be interesting to see how BA handles this.
I know in normal times if you are in F or GGL on a long haul that gets cancelled and BA put you up overnight they usually organise the Sofitel for you (or they have done in the past). Clearly with complete chaos at the moment they are just telling people to get on with it as they just don't have the staff to sort out mass bookings etc......
I think there is an argument that the Sofitel if you are at T5 is just 100 times more convenient than even the Hilton 5 minutes away at T5. Also add in a couple of taxis to get you to and from the hotel and the price difference suddenly gets less and less (yes I know there is the bus but after hanging around half the day with a ruined part holiday and a family messing around with those buses would just be the icing on the cake......)
Also there is the issue of ones own time and the value that has. When I have had trouble late at night at T5 I would generally go for the Hilton because I have a card with them and if it is not too late I can grab something at Mr Todiwala's in the Hilton which I think is a great place for a curry. However, have also done a couple of early am starts from the Sofitel and rolling out of bed onto a plane at 6am has its plus points too......
Honestly - I really don't think BA will be picking too much of a fight here. Clearly if you book a suite at the Ritz they are not going to cover that but anything reasonable I doubt they will have much beef with. What sort of surprises me more is that with all this irrops there was any space at all at the Sofitel! Usually gets rammed in about 10 minutes when this happens.......

FD.

sgm

Hello Sparkyfletch. Same position as you, although we returned to the lounge and missed the captain etc.... Self booked into the Sofitel and will seek to reclaim, along with meals and compensation. After 90 min to just checkin and crazy security, plus delay, we did not feel like taking a bus etc... Happy with our decision regardless of how much we get back (I typically agree with the always-reasonable CWS).

Just hoping the flight goes today. The amount of wrong info at various stages yesterday was disappointing, eg told at the gate your bags will be offloaded baggage claim 8 only to wait and then hear that only a few were offloaded and the rest would not be. Happy in many ways not to have the bags to recheck, but tough for families etc.... We were never offered a BA-booked hotel option or told of a max amount (just, for the record).

scottishpoet

previously, long before covid, on a weather disruption, as a gold in ce, i was put in the rennaisance and given vouchers for the hoppa bus.

i would have expected similar for the OP. Cws suggests that is what BA was providing for people who went to zone e


I don't think anyone would disagree at t5 the sofitel is more convenient

chris1979

Does the BAH booking (and presumably BAH knowing that you are sharing a room at the destination) mean that BA expect you to share a room at LHR as well? otherwise, 2 pax for £251 is cheaper than 2 x £123 rooms.

Vasto1M

Is the hotel allowance per person or booking?

If you had been two people on the same booking who did not want to share a room, BA could of been on the hook for paying out £400. So fortunately for them you shared a room and have effectively saved them £150.

xenole

2 x £123 = £246, so is cheaper than £251

Whether transport makes much difference, at say £11 return pp on the Hoppa, not sure. Maybe having status within Hilton might get you a better deal overall than the Sofitel?