And once again, your daughter is the passenger, not you. The decision at the time was at the discretion of your daughter who was the person traveling. And she chose to take the offer.

The very best of luck to you.

I will bow out of this thread now.

You fail to answer simple questions....

Why would you have your 17 yr old daughter escort your wife and not you? It seems that your daughter was not up to this task. Also did your 17 yr old daughter inform the BA staff that she is a minor and that she can not sign paperwork?

As I wrote, to me the LACK of communication falls on your shoulder and not the airlines. Why would I have no issues when I'm escorting patients? Simple, I communicated to the airlines what I was doing and then the airlines worked with me..

Parking at Brisbane airport is presently a shambles. The nearest parking to the Qantas terminal is over 300m away. I dropped my wife and daughter at the terminal entrance, and went to park the car. From then it was more than 10 minutes before I got into the terminal myself. We had initially arranged a private wheelchair for my wife, however Qantas advised this could not be taken on board, it would have to go in checked baggage. Thus this would have been of no assistance at all between Brisbane check-in and arrival into Copenhagen.

My wife can sit upright for very limited periods, due to pressure on damaged areas (sacrum, etc) at the base of the spine. A reasonable recline, e.g. domestic business class, is tolerable for much longer periods, up to a few hours.

I did not accompany my wife for 2 reasons. Firstly I had work commitments. I am a self-employed professional and there are obviously large bills to be paid. Abandoning my clients at this time would have meant losing more than 6 months of future income. Secondly my wife in recent times has used me as something of a punching bag as her condition worsened, and it seemed that for her to have a mindset conducive to healing it would be best to remove the catalyst for the anger she has been venting. I hope this admission satisfies those on this forum who have been demanding all the personal details !!

Finally, my point about BA bending the rules is simply that. The flights were booked and paid for in Australia by Australian citizens, so quoting British privacy laws is only an opportunistic way for BA to ignore the complaint. Secondly if BA is planning to ask my daughter to sign for so-called compensation, then BA by law (Australian law at least, once again where the flights were ticketed and paid for) must ascertain that she can legally sign. My wife was unaware this was going on as her wheelchair driver kept her in another area while this took place.

Oh, and the attitude of BingBongBoy right through this thread is obviously a perfect parallel to BA's customer service ethics.

Of course. What did you expect?

sorry to hear that

I do agree with you that your daughter should not be able to accept the compensation. she is a minor, and unable to contract. that matter can be taken up with BA here in Australia. however.. again, I am not sure of the compensation given that sector was one of many in a through ticket. at best you might be able to get the voucher converted to a ex gratia cash payment here in aud.

I also agree some of the comments were a little off mark. there is, and never has been in this thread any question of a language issue. to introduce that did come across as condescending. we all know what the law is in the UK, but that doesn't stop us having the right to be frustrated with that law, or to comment that it is sometimes less than satisfactory in it's operation.

Well, my wife copied my complaint across, made a few minor edits, and submitted it to BA via the same web page. She has just received a reply. There is a qualified apology and compensation for my daughter's one sector downgrade in the form BA credits to the value of AUD 81.71 each. I find it hard to envisage even the sum of those credits being sufficient for any one sector upgrade, anywhere, and yet that is exactly what it is supposed to compensate for. I also doubt very much that they will have need to fly with BA ex Brisbane within 12 months, so unless the credits can be used directly for Qantas bookings they still have zero value.

Try to be mindful, your wife travelled on a BA/QF JV route, so the generous compensation offered via the QF channel will have been taken into account by BA (internally, if not expressed to your wife directly).

Back to the issue of passenger assistance. BA, QF and other airlines will pass on their customer's requests for assistance to the airport operator. So this assistance is not provided by individual airlines and at LHR, this service is delivered by Omniserv. In actual fact, in the EU it is the Airport Authority's responsibility to provide passengers with the necessary service to suit their specific needs.

You can find more information about this and guidance here:
http://www.britishairways.com/travel...o/public/en_gb
http://www.heathrowairport.com/heath...ial-assistance

Your wife and daughter's return transfer at LHR worries me. At 110 min, there is a risk the unhappy experience on the outbound may well be repeated. Do you know if your wife's ticket is flexible and would she be willing to rebook on to either an earlier flight from Copenhagen or later flight to Australia?

It was a business class "companion" fare, so less flexible than usual for business class. I think there is a change fee of a few hundred dollars. They already have an 8.05am departure from Copenhagen, so it may not be easy to depart earlier.

I have to disagree with you here.

there was another report on FT about someone with (I think) an auckland-Sydney-Europe and return flight in business. for some reason (ash or flight cancellation or something) they had to make their own way to catch the flight in Sydney. there was NO compensation IIRC for the unflown sector. the value of that sector was zero by the time the fare had been recalculated. unfair perhaps, but that's the way it works.

the add on sector to Copenhagen probably had little or no value, and It was probably either the same price to fly to Copenhagen as London, or even possibly slightly cheaper to fly to Copenhagen rather than just London.

as such, almost $100 back for a short sector is not bad.

as you say, it might not be useable, but you could negotiate with BA to have that issued in a form that is useful to you.

While a wheelchair can't be taken on board, most airlines allow them to be taken as far as the boarding door and then treat them the same as a gate checked item that is returned to the jet bridge on arrival. You should check with Qantas their exact policy regarding this for future travel needs.

and that's really my point....

I think it's unfair to expect that minimum connection times programmed in to an online booking tool, will be sufficiently flexible to meet all the requirements of those with mobility difficulties. In such cases it's surely sensible to book using a travel agent or directly with the airline in order to ensure that all requirements are taken into account. A longer transit time would surely have been available had you taken the trouble to ask in advance of booking.

I hope it all works out well for you.

Okay, it will probably be change fee plus upsell to the current cheapest available selling fare, so probably best to rule this option out.

Passenger assistance is ordered on BA.com. Open the booking and follow the link if you haven't already done so.

Usually upon arrival assisted passengers are asked to remain on board until all other passengers have made their way off the aircraft. However, it might be a good idea if your wife asks the cabin crew ahead of time if they can check that the escort will be in place at LHR and ready to whisk her over to T3. I've done many a T5 to T3 connection, and it is at security over in T3 flight connections where the hemorrhaging of valuable minutes usually occurs. That said, escorted passengers do tend to get taken to the head of the queue, bypassing other waiting passengers.

I hope your wife is responding well to her treatment and is able to convalesce comfortably.

Best wishes

I think one of the biggest issues really is the fact you are too close to the issue, if BA given you 2 FC ticketd good for 5 years (you still woldn't have been happy.) I haven't read anyone standing behind you cheering you on that its all BA's fault. Some of the issues need to lay with you too. Using a 17 yr old was not the right thing to do, I'm sure a friend or family member (sister or brother) could have escorted your wife.

Granted you had to work, and granted you didn't book the trip, but you could have called all the airlines and made sure everything was set up correctly.

Hopefuly you have learned something from this, and in the future you can follow some of the advice given to you.