DelTroon

This reminds me of the John Grisham book "The Rainmaker" which was turned into a film. Insurance company denied medical cover for a leukemia case and eventually were dragged into court where one of the insurance handlers admitted the company had a policy of denying all first claims and if anyone challenged that it was referred to a secondary team who also denied the claim and so on. It was fiction but I think someone at BA as implemented this as a new policy for EU261 claims!

aristoph

I honestly don't know which is a worse explanation, that this is BA incompetence to a new level or deceit/evasion of obligations....

GrannyWeatherwax

Incompetence is not malign and relatively easily fixed. Deceit / Evasion of Obligations is by design and harder to fix.

My view is it's the latter, simply because we are hearing similar stories - with 'cut and paste' responses over and over again. I would imagine BA has 'done the sums' and realised that if they can fob off, say, 30% of claimants with the first letter they're quids in. I would think the number fobbed off is even higher, though, given that a lot of people don't know about this legislation despite the fact BA are legally required to tell them about it, those who do know often just can't be bothered, those who can be bothered will either accept the rubbish they receive as factual and correct or decide that MCOL/CEDR is too difficult/too scary to do and so it goes on.

Unless and until there is proper enforcement, with punitive fines for this consistant abrogation of their legals duties, why on earth would BA change ? They're onto a winner and they know it.

Stratus

Here's another data point:

My flight from Berlin to London was cancelled on Feb 26. No alternative flight was offered in MMB and I needed to get home that day, so I booked a one way Lufthansa ticket. On Feb 27 I submitted a claim for both the cost of the Lufthansa ticket and EU261 compensation.

After 4 holding emails in March I finally heard on Apr 21 that my claim had been accepted, and full payment came through on May 4.

bisonrav

I did just get an additional UK261 amount added to a claim paid as EC261, for €400. £8 better off. Result. (Yes, I'm cheap).

OverTheHorizon

Eventually the Government will be shamed into action and will make "UK261" payments automatic and mandatory with the onus on airlines to report in their accounts and be liable for swingeing fines where compensation is incorrectly denied. They will be a lot worse off than they are now and it will be entirely self-inflicted.

mnhusker

Of course this is deliberate!!

Medicare in the US does this as well.

They refuse a fixed percentage of first claims, forcing Doctors/Hospitals to refile if they want to collect for services rendered.

For smaller offices or hospitals that do not have sophisticated software, Medicare knows that they will often just give up!

While larger clinics like mine (Mayo Clinic) knows this is going on and invested in the software needed to immediately refile and viola, you immediately get paid with no change what so ever in the claim.

Since governments are involved in these kinds of scams, there is no way that they will hold BA's feet to the fire about this .

HIDDY

All getting a tad OTT.

docdee

Hoping so as I had exactly the same email after 3 months for a cancellation on the 26th Feb where they paid the compensation and subsistence costs but not the cost of alternative flights. I've quoted the legislation back to them and said I will go to MCOL if they do not pay up. In our case the compensation fell short of the cost of the replacement flight. Cheeky buggers didn't even refund the Avios and charges!

fusionblue

I submitted a claim for the same February meltdown on March 2. 82 days later i'm still waiting for a response.

HIDDY

Out of curiosity have any UK based members approached Citizens Advice for help?

ratechaser

Well it's just possible they are hiding behind their reputation for incompetence and instead carrying out a more coordinated 'deny all claims' campaign. As other posters have alluded, won't be the first time that a large corporation has taken this approach.

Hopefully not the case, but the number of stories of egregious unfounded claim denials is rising so it's not unreasonable to ponder the question rather than just stick to the usual line that BA doesn't know its arse from its elbow.

HIDDY

I'd have thought the media would be reporting that as suggested by some BA are in cahoots with the Government when it comes to compensating customers. Maybe the media have been too busy gathering evidence showing Boris actually drinks water out of a glass?

bisonrav

I spoke to someone fairly exalted at BA yesterday, who suggested that a lot of EC261 processing delays were because cases tended to be complex on multiflight itineraries and were being chased by phone and email which created many more interactions. This individual wasn't involved in the process in any way, so this was presumably what had been reported.

It doesn't sound very convincing, certainly all my claims bar one which isn't in yet are simple point to point. So I wonder whether some excuses are being made.

Captain Schmidt

That's identical to Mrs Schmidt's situation. She actually saved them money by buying an economy ticket for the replacement sector rather than business so you'd have thought they'd show some gratitude