mario

Sue them. Don't forget to throw in a few ££ for litigation in person costs (i.e. the cost of your time)

ermis177

No sorry. I used to work in customer service and this is NOT how it works. This is how BA customer service works....

We have seen some very worrying examples lately with compensation rejection, broken seats sold as upgrades and then given 5k avios as compensation and many ' this is not our fault, Covid/War/Supply issues etc'.

It's a shame, personally i had some fantastic flights with BA due to their staff and it looks like customer service department is being run with a different attitude and ethos.

aristoph

I honestly thought nothing about BA service levels could still shock me, until I read this.

Bullswood

As one who has been on both sides of the airline fence, I confess to being no fan of the "always blame, always claim" culture, nor of certain aspects of EC261, however under the circumstances described and in the context of BA's well known IT shortcomings, this response would plainly be daft.

By extension, if BA for cost saving reasons were to outsource every facet of its operation, would it thereby become responsible for nothing? I can assure you that the CAA would have a fit if such rubbish was spouted in any matter of flight or engineering safety.

Given BA's formulaic "cut and paste" approach to written customer communication, together with reports here of BA trying to wriggle out of claims through tenuous covid links, one might reasonably assume that this is a wheeze which has been concocted at a higher level rather than a one-off clerical error. On the other hand, I am surprised that there have not been other identical reports on this forum if this is the official line on a major disruption almost 3 months ago, which must have affected many of those who post here. I am not qualified to judge whether such a response at corporate level would be wilfully misleading as well as immoral, however it would presumably only be attempted because it would be likely to fob off a significant number of claimants. Would a single court judgement against any such spurious rejection carry an obligation for BA to re-contact and make good to those other claimants who had accepted its content?

Hopefully some of the BA employees on this forum will double-check whether BA upper management is aware of or has ordered any such shift in policy, as it would make a mockery of Sean Doyle's statement of intent to improve BA's reputation with its customers and undermine the efforts of many of those employees who are struggling to do just that in the post-covid recovery. I would suggest that in addition to the various remedies proposed, OP writes to SD and/or the Chairman - in the past there used to be a special team dealing with complaints so addressed, though I would not be surprised if that was no longer the case.

By the way, and with the big assumption that the rejection was in writing and is quoted verbatim, am I the only one with whom the chatty dismissal of "your claim's been refused" grates in formal correspondence? Do BA's cuts extend to the necessity of shaving off two letters of the alphabet? I am an old fashioned baby-boomer so it may be cool nowadays 4 us to write as we speak.

YYCCL3

Are there any services that will work on your behalf with MCOL for pax who don't have a UK address ?

LCY8737

I'd go MCOL - if only for the fact that it makes things more expensive for BA. The spelling and grammar of this response deserves punishment, before we even get to the content or the general way of doing business.

Have a look around FT - there are some threads that have details and templates (e.g. How to get a refund in less than 30 days (UK residents)).

Edit: Corrected my own spelling mistake. Head down in shame. Thank you for pointing it out @wijibintheair.

GLA350

I was also caught up in the IT meltdown on the 26th Feb. My flight wasn't cancelled outright but did arrive with a hefty delay. BA agreed to pay compensation and expenses on the 6th of May albeit the GBP equivalent of 250 EUR rather than £220. Their inconsistency is poor even if unsurprising.

HHarry

I too got the GBP equivalent of 300 euro, rather than the £260 under UK261. I’ve asked for the outstanding £9.90, been met with radio silence, so plan to go to CEDR when the 8 weeks is up.

A couple of people have said it’s not worth the hassle for such a small amount. But if 40% of people are getting fobbed off by responses like this, and a further X% aren’t getting all that they are owed, BA are quids in. Making money by choosing to ignore your legal obligations is not on.

Captain Schmidt

Mrs Schmidt had the LHR-CAI leg of her GLA-LHR-CAI cancel with zero notice on that Saturday morning (GLA-LHR flown the previous evening). No ability to get into T5 to talk to anyone and no ability to get through on the phone to anyone at BA. She had to be in CAI that afternoon so we booked a MS flight to get her there with the idea that we'd sort this all out later.

She eventually managed to get through to BA just before the MS flight departed and was told that her return CAI-LHR-GLA was protected and that she should submit a claim for the cost of the MS flight. So far so good. Response has now come through from BA and they have paid EU261 compensation and the small subsistence claim that she submitted for food whilst hanging around in T2 waiting for the MS flight that left much later than the original BA flight, but they have refused to pay the cost of the MS ticket LHR-CAI as this is in their opinion "subsequent loss". With the EC261 comp we're not out of pocket on this, but it strikes me as inconsistent that BA has paid the subsistence costs but not the flight and there is a principle involved.

Before we pursue the claim for the MS ticket (which was in Y vs the C booking she had on BA), I just wanted to check the opinion of the forum that it is perfectly reasonable for us to do so?

GLA350

I reluctantly think those people are right but I can't stomach the potential upside this practice might have for BA. Cynically, I think they would have paid out in which ever currency was worth less.

corporate-wage-slave

Yes it is reasonable. They even managed to mangle this - they meant "consequent loss" not "subsequent". But it would have been consequential on BA's own failure to comply with their own conditions of carriage. So I would either go MCOL if you want a fast result, or CEDR if you want a more user friendly but slower approach. Your reply didn't indicate whether BA had also refunded the cost of the BA sector, or whether you asked for this.

dougzz

Lost revenue assumes there are alternatives that behave in a more honest manner in regard EU261.

bisonrav

I'm pushing for UK261 where due rather than EC261. They should know and apply the rules properly, there is literally no excuse for this.

BA are playing very dangerous games in general with their statutory obligations - this just needs to get picked up by MSE or a newspaper and they'll be flooded with CEDR claims and very bad publicity. EasyJet are paying their claims within a week or two in my direct experience, and presumably this is automated. No reason why BA have to review every claim individually, unless they're trying to avoid liability.

OGG flyer

One word: chargeback.

In so many years with Amex,they have never cited with the merchant in my cases. And in the unlikely event that Amex rolls back the charge back, make them joined defendant in small claims court,that will speed thing up. Although if I were a betting man ,I'd bet you will not have an issue with the chargeback. Just write what happened when you raise the chargeback and mention relevant legislation. Really no need to go through time-consuming mcol as first step.

Lioneye

I did copy & paste the email so it's verbatim.....but here's a photo of it too