Has it happened out of goodwill? Yes. Is it a guaranteed aspect of doing business with BA? Generally not. It may be that the fare difference change is cost-effective, and what does sometimes happen is that if you ask for a free move and the answer is no (which I would expect here unless there was something really unexpected), then the agent may nevertheless be able to find an inexpensive way to do something similar to your request. I think there's always a case for cancelling for a full refund if realistically your trip is too drastically changed, since cold hard cash does the best arguing here. Particularly on a route like Dubai where there are now LCC options.

If it helps, even if you asked at the time of the initial re-routing, it's by no means guaranteed that BA will extend the trip, not least because availability could in the moment be quite tight.

Understood, thank you so much!

Tried my luck with the claims department and they declined it, as the BA114 was delayed because of ATC Slot delay they are saying.
Shall i push it further or leave it?

As expected, my CEDR case has had the deadline extended until April 7th. That will bring me up to 5 months

Connections are the area where BA tends to default to "no compensation" since frankly they rarely spend the time delving into the details, until CEDR forces this to happen. If that 52 minutes was genuinely BA's fault and due to ground staff issues, and that resulted in the missed connection, that that is in the frame for delay compensation. However ATC delays at JFK are endemic as I know very well indeed (and indeed experienced a few days ago) so a lot will revolve around some quite detailed data, which neither of us has seen. CEDR can get those logs published, so if you suspect that there is more to this than ATC then you should consider the CEDR route.

My claim was refused , although they agreed to pay my expenses.

The response blamed Heathrow for the delays last Friday as expected.

Hi all,

I just want to check my understanding of what, if anything, I am entitled to following my recent flight disruption.

We have 2 x CW seats from LHR to MIA returned booked using an AMEX 241. Outbound was flown without issue.

The inbound was cancelled on March 29th and the prior flight went tech at LHR. I asked to get moved onto AA flights from MIA to JFK and then JFK to LHR.

We arrived only an hour after we were due to land if the MIA flight had run as scheduled. We did have to fly the MIA to JFK sector in economy as no Biz seats were available.

I believe the only compensation on offer would be for the MIA to JFK sector due to the downgrade in cabin; 30% of miles?

Correct, and claimable from BA in the first instance. It probably won't be much money though, so it may be easier asking for a gesture of Avios instead of claiming the Mennens reimbursement (not compensation....).

I suspect you are correct, but someone else will hopefully answer with more certainty. I was also meant to be on this flight. I'd allowed an extra day in my schedule, so I took the rebook for the following day MIA-CDG-EDI on Air France. So I'm hoping for a bit more compensation of course. The initial offer suggested the new ticket would be in F, but when it was ticketed seat selection was for business. Only 4 x F on that plane, so maybe someone got in ahead of me. Would have been nice to fly F on AF. I did however have an unexpected bike ride along ocean drive during the extra day...

Thanks CWS. ScottishOdyssey, I hope you made the most of your extra day!

Unless you had to leave MIA more than an hour earlier, you are correct that you would not get cancellation compensation. However you are certainly due downgrade reimbursement.

Be prepared for BA to undercalculate your reimbursement. Firstly, they may try to only give you 50% of the pro-rata cost, arguing that since the affected flight falls into the mid-haul band (1501-3500km) the mid-haul reimbursement rate of 50% should apply.

However I would contest this, as you were never booked to be on a mid-haul flight and this was a replacement for what should have been a long-haul flight. The reduction in comfort is therefore greater than if you had been booked in a short-haul recliner for example, and it is thus entirely reasonable to get the long-haul 75% rate.

The CJEU jurisprudence is very clear that journeys with connections are viewed as a single indivisible "unit of transport", which isn't exactly compatible with looking at the leg in isolation and ignoring the wider journey.

Secondly, BA may also try to ignore the value of the 241 - however, I would argue you're entitled to reimbursement on the Avios it saved you (i.e. doubling the reimbursement from what it would be from the 'nominal' value of the Avios actually used). This is since reimbursement is supposed to be based on a proportion of the "fare paid". The voucher surely has to be counted as part of the "fare", as it's an indispensable part of the consideration you exchanged to get the flights - BA would not have issued the ticket for that amount of Avios otherwise.

There have been successes at CEDR and MCOL level for the latter element, although I will be the first to concede that not all cases have succeeded.

If the best offer was next-day rebooking then yes, you would be entitled to cancellation compensation.

Similarly you are also entitled to downgrade reimbursement. However it may be a little trickier to get 75% for the CDG-EDI portion, since you would presumably also have been booked in J for LHR-EDI, which is only a slightly longer distance. If you got 75% based on MIA-CDG then I would probably call it quits, unless your fare was particularly expensive.

Thanks for your response. I probably wasn�t clear - original flights for me were first outbound, club world return. So the return with AF in business for me wasn�t a downgrade. The initial email did say they had unfortunately changed my cabin class, but when I went to MMB it was for F with AF. Excited to be upgraded I took the rebooking offer straight away, but was ticketed into business. So I was downgraded in terms of my expectations, but not from the original ticket class. Hey ho I guess unless they compensate for unrealised expectations.

There was no BA rep at MIA (I was already at the airport) but check in desk said they had been advised to tell everyone just to book own hotel etc and claim back. Virtually all hotels were $500+ for a short notice Saturday night. I checked with live chat and they said they were happy to cover this.

Our return flight was the BA208 scheduled time of departure was 9pm. Our rescheduled flight had a STD of 6:40pm, does that change our compensation position?

Since you were informed less than one week beforehand and departed more than one hour earlier and arrived less than four hours later than scheduled then you are entitled to 50% of the compensation amount.

When a flight is cancelled less than a week beforehand and the rerouting results in a departure of more than one hour earlier, under the regulation, exemptions under 5(1)c(i/ii/iii) can not apply. With that earlier departure, other than possibly reducing compensation by 50% (Article 7.2), it does not matter what eventual delay in arrival occurs, if any, in relation to compensation being payable or not.

Thanks serfty