houstr8male

Original ticket is LHR-ORD-LHR, paid A fare of 1980 GBP of which 682 GBP are fees, surcharges, taxes etc. I've already flown LHR-ORD in F. The aircraft for the return leg in August has changed to Airbus 351 with no F. I intend to take the flight. It appears I am entitled to a 75% refund of the fare, however that is calculated. My question is on how to proceed. Do I wait until after the flight to call BA and request compensation or should I call now? Should I complete a form instead of calling and where is the form? How do I calculate what to ask for? How would you proceed? I've read a few other threads but they mainly deal with refunds due to cancellation or not wanting to fly.

thebigben

BA seems to have their own way to compute this and it should come close to 75% of half the fare, maybe minus taxes (but not surcharges as those are abitrary).

If you got a confirmation that you are downgraded (by email I would guess?) and want to take this particular flight (Instead of moving it to another service with F) then you are perfectly able to do so, and you'll be able to claim the compensation after the flight.

TWCLAM

In normal times you should get a notification( normally via email if you've given BA one) nearer the time advising of the change. Waiting for this will probably be your best bet as whilst we can all agree now that the change has happened already you do risk a wasted phone call giving you the response of "we may change it back and therefore are unwilling to compensate at this point" @corporate wage slave etal may be able to advise better/ drill into the minutiae better than I but when an IIROP occurs in advance of the flight ( normally dialled in 'for sure' at +72 hrs) communications should occur giving you your options.

I will leave the 'current F Vs new J' argument aside and would suggest exercising your rights( to claim comp) over personal choice discussions regarding the two cabins.

corporate-wage-slave

You can only claim after travel. You may therefore want to investigate other routes that keep you in First for most of the flight, usually YouFirst is amenable to sensible suggestions in this space.

The amount you can claim is pro-rated by distance and you have to be careful about exact taxes and fees, as opposed to airline surcharges. The calculation is known as the Mennens Formula and if you look in the wiki of the EC261 thread you can see the way to calculate this. As also referenced in that thread, BA have an Involuntary Refund formula, which will depend on your fare basis. Sometimes this is more generous than EC261, often it's quite similar (to the extent it's not worth complaining about) and sometimes it is significantly less generous. Given the low fare here, I suspect it was a special fare or a J upgrade offer, in which case BA's Involuntary Fare calculation is not going to be generous. You'll need some patience in this space, but what you can do now is do an approximate calculation on Mennens to see what a reasonable outcome look like. The EC261 calculation can't be massive either, given the numbers provided, hence it may be better to restructure the booking.

This is not affected by the Covid pandemic, there is no exception circumstance on this one.

TWCLAM

As if by chance, the bastion of knowledge sweeps in.

There are few things a man should covet in life aside from a @cws

houstr8male

Thank you for the replies and I had seen the compensation post containing the Mennens formula and example posted by CWS. I received notice of the downgrade via text and email. It was a discounted A fare when BA was running a sale, not a paid upgrade. This is my first experience with EC261 and I will wait until after the flight to make a claim. The only re-booking that would interest me is changing the departure city to DFW and flying F on the new B78X. I'm not sure BA would do this but I'm also fine flying out of ORD in the A351 club suite. I am unclear how to follow the Mennens example in the compensation thread because my ticket receipt shows a fare of 1299 plus 176 APD, misc taxes and fees of ~105, and a 400 pound 'carrier imposed charge'. The example takes half the fare and subtracts APD plus 2 airport specific fees then multiplies by .75. I guess I would start with half the total which would be 990, subtract 176 APD and 105 in fees/taxes then multiply by .75. This would be 990 - (176+105) x .75 = 532 GBP. I'm not sure what happens with the 400 pound carrier imposed charge.

corporate-wage-slave

Add that to the fare, since that is what it is: BA's own surcharge. So that adds another �150 to your estimate.

Dave Noble

Checking on ITA, the genuine taxes for LHR-ORD/ORD-LHR non stop each way are GBP284 - taking that off of the GBP1900 comes to GBP1616
Assuming fare same both ways and that it is a single sector each way, that would make the inbound fare GBP808
So would work seem to work out at GBP606 for the downgrade

haroon145

you can ask for a reroute for ORD to LHR via DFW.

Dave Noble

I think you would have to be desperate to travel in 1st, take a 1600 mile detour with 800 miles in a domestic US 1st class rather than take a GBP600 refund and travel in business

houstr8male

Yes I agree. I considered the idea but much prefer the 8 hour nonstop trip compared to a 12-14 hour journey with the hassle and possible stress of a connection. A Club Suite on the A351 plus an extra ~GBP600 in my pocket will be fine. Passenger loads appear to be extremely low which matches my experience a few weeks ago when I was alone in F and there were only 5 or 6 in J on a B789 to ORD. I will ring Youfirst and ask them to change the departure city to DFW since I am not far from there anyway. Assuming they deny that I will stick with the downgrade but ask them to change the departure to a few days later. I think this is allowed via current waivers. I anticipate still being subject to quarantine and this would reduce my time in London.

houstr8male

Quick update. Agent denied changing departure city to DFW because it was "more than 300 miles from ORD". I assume this costs BA money since they will have to compensate me for the downgrade. At my request the agent did rebook me a few days earlier on the ORD flight. She also explained the procedure for requesting downgrade compensation after the flight.

KARFA

I think there is some confusion. 300 miles is if you were changing departure point, i.e. you are changing your ORD-LHR to DFW-LHR. That is not what you wanted to do.

What haroon145 was suggesting was you ask for your ORD-LHR to be changed to ORD-DFW-LHR, with ORD-DFW on AA included. That should have been fine if it was a reasonable option to maintain your F cabin and involved no change in departure point.

houstr8male

Actually I did ask to change the departure point from ORD to DFW to stay in F. Flying nonstop in F DFW-LHR would have been fine but I didn't want to add ORD-DFW simply to stay in F on on the TATL portion. It isn't worth the added time and connection. Therefore I am happy to fly ORD-LHR (only 8 hours) in a club suite and receive downgrade compensation.

eh220160

On a related note, what would be the process for a First booking made with Avios and subsequent downgrade due to an equipment change - would any "compensation" be expected, or are the options simply to (1) cancel for full refund or (2) accept the downgrade with difference in Avios/cash refunded? Guessing a request to be fly the same route in First on another carrier is a non-starter? TIA