taylorl25

Hi, our NCL-LHR flight was cancelled this week and although there is a 6am flight on the same day it was full so only alternative offered was LNER to Kings Cross which although meant an early start was fine with us.

A few hours after making this change RMT announced strike on 18th Aug. Obviously rail timetable for that date now won�t be available until much closer to the time but it�s unlikely the 5am train will run.

Do I have an option now to cancel the train element and may be book on a domestic from EDI or MAN? Or if not now will I have that option when my train is actually cancelled a few days before the 18th? If not I�m assuming I�m ok to just check in for the train journey 72 hours beforehand to protect the onward flight and simply not catch a train and drive down to Heathrow the morning of the 18th? BA have no way of knowing whether I actually use that element of the ticket I assume?

Thanks in advance for any advice and sorry for all the questions. Never had a flight swapped for a train before so it�s all a bit new to me!

Krisz

Well unfortunately not much you can do now. BA rebooked you onto a service at your request so if the train get cancelled now it�s down to LnER to sort it out. They will not rebook you into any flight.
I would suggest to see if there is any cheap flight from NCL, MAN, LBA, etc with other airlines.
I would remind others not to accept changes as soon as the flight cancelled. Space can open up, BA can swap to a larger aircraft other people cancel their trip etc. I know this is now too late for you but hopefully others in the similar situation see that most of the situation is best to wait. Personally I have a cancelled flight end of Aug and I will not touch it for a long while.

Krisz

In regards of the onward flight I would call BA if the train segment is cancelled to ensure you are protected.

corporate-wage-slave

Indeed I would echo the idea not to rush things. The 06:00 hrs flight now has 1 seat available, though if you are more than 1 passenger that may not help. If there is an onward flight there may also be new options for rebooking on other airlines, though that depends on the details. So I think it's best to wait until LNER publishes their timetable and then ring BA if it become clear that it's impossible to work. By all means revert back here at the time this happens, with details of the onward service, for specific advice as to what to ask for.

Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA forum taylorl25.

taylorl25

Thank you much appreciated, and lesson learned about not rushing to rebook!

We’re connecting to the BA67 in F (for our first time in F!) so just really wanted to protect that segment, but realise now would have been better to wait and see what happened.

corporate-wage-slave

I guess the alternative would therefore be to have been rebooked to NCL-LHR 15:10 flight, then in First to JFK, staying overnight and then Amtrak or a flight to PHL. And various other options if First is negotiable.

It's entirely possible there won't be a strike at all. You could depart on the 08:01 hrs service from Newcastle station, which gets to KGX at 10:52 and have a good chance of making the 13:40 fairly comfortably. On the tube it takes an hour from KGX to LHR, on HEX around 45 minutes. And there are 7 other services between 05:26 and 08:01. The other option will be to travel the night before, stay over in London or Heathrow. BA would pick up the hotel bill if the train service was cancelled.

:D!

You can't "check in" for a train journey so how would BA know whether you actually took the train?

If you decided that it was important to get the long-haul and you would make your own way to LHR should your BA-booked train be cancelled, I wouldn't have thought BA would be able to do anything to the flight tickets.

It sounds unlikely to me that BA is actively monitoring train schedules or that somehow they automatically feed back to BA's IT systems?

paul71

Just to add that if you have the train booking reference (Ive no idea if BA book these directly with LNER or through another channel, or whether they provide flexible or advance tickets) you can make a seat reservation for the trains that are running on the LNER website once they are published. LNER were giving +/- 48 hours flexibility on all tickets for cancelled trains during the last strike.

:D!

You don't need anything to make a seat reservation with LNER, not even a ticket as there is no verification of whatever you enter on the website, and the website actually encourages you to enter 0 if you don't have a booking reference.

If BA issues advance tickets, they would come with a seat reservation already.

PUCCI GALORE

I think that faced with a train strike that might or might not happen, I would crack, The 15.10 flight on 17th is still showing fares of �75 (�88 I think with luggage) - I'd go into a cheap hotel at Heathrow (although Cheap and Heathrow might be oxymoronic) and fly the next day secure in the knowledge that I was where I needed to be.This may not be possible I realise but that is what I would do. I would trust the trains in such situations as far as I could throw an A380.

ZZ100

These tickets will be AccesRail bookings under the 9B IATA airline code - there is a requirement to check-in up to 72 hours before to retrieve the eticket.
Here is a guide for GWR but the principles are the same for LNER: https://www.acprail.com/wp-content/u...Manual-GWR.pdf

lcylocal

This taken with this document (https://www.britishairways.com/asset...dates/rooc.pdf) confirms Club should be rebooked into J booking class which then maps to a First Class ticket on GWR.

This is also probably the case on LNER although more booking classes are in use (J and C for Club).

We have seen one report of a Club passenger being rebooked into Standard Class, so I would suggest checking the rebooking has been done correctly if travelling in BA First or Club and using this agreement.

Edit:- C also books into First Class. Also of relevance to the OP these tickets are valid on any train that day https://accesrail.com/products/londo...stern-railway/

corporate-wage-slave

What is fascinating about this is that if BA wanted to have Lufthansa style rail / air integration (of a sort) then it has the physical mechanism to do so. Looking at the check-in area, the UK entities in scope include

https://check-in.accesrail.com/

- LNER (already used by BA)
- GWR (already used)
- Avanti West Coast
- Trans Pennine Express
- Scotrail
- National Express

So there is plenty of scope for BA to add routes and connectivity. Moreover we have some airports like LHR, LGW, BHX, MAN which are clearly overloaded, then we have DSA (Doncaster Sheffield) in danger of closing down due to lack of traffic. Yet it has a runway long enough for longhaul, a modern building and just 6 miles from Doncaster railway station. Perhaps BA could have moved some operations there and provided connectivity by rail or even coach.

layz

I'd certainly consider BA rerouting me on LNER in the event of a cancellation, but do you qualify for original routing credit for the original cancelled flight?

ScienceTeacher

Why? The ticket is with British Airways, not LNER. If the train is cancelled on the day the OP could catch a different train, most likely. But if in advance, I'd fully expect BA to rebook the customer, ideally onto a flight if the OP wishes.

If I book an AA flight on a BA ticket, though the BA website, and AA cancel the flight; it would BA's job to rebook me - my contract is with them - not the job of American Airlines.