My British Airways Mess.....

murtazahh

Hi, need your help,


Last December on the 22nd I was due to fly out to Boston from Heathrow T5, I had booked this ticket in advance well before the snow disruption started that occurred that week in December 2010. From advice given from BA, on the evening of the 21st, the day before I was due to fly, I called BA to check if my flight was still running to be told by the BA staff that my flight had been cancelled. At this point I was moved onto the flight on the Sunday 26th December which I was told I now had a confirmed seat on.

After about 10 minutes on the internet I realised that my flight BA239 on 22nd December never actually showed as cancelled on BA’s website and I was still able to buy tickets for flights to Boston earlier than the one on the 26th that I had been moved to. I called up BA immediately, at which point I spoke to the manager who apologised to me as she told me that the person I spoke to earlier had ill-advised me that the flight had been cancelled as it wasn’t, so somehow, this manager managed to move me to another (BA215) on the 22nd of December to Boston telling me that I would be flying out.

I arrived at the T5 about 4 hours before I was due to fly, at the check in desk I was told that I was only on the wait list for the flight, but I was high up on it at which point I asked what my chances of flying out on that day were, and was told that I would almost certainly be flying out that day, or if not I would be receiving £500 compensation.

Inevitably I didn’t depart on any flight that day. Of the several hundred people at the rebooking /customer service area, we were all told that we would be placed on the next flight in a logical order and that trying to push queues wouldn’t get us anywhere, however in reality this has no truth to it as the staff there are just putting people on flights as wait list passengers and suggesting to many of them that this means they will definitely be travelling. I was fortunate as after a few hours trying at different desks I managed to find one person who was extremely helpful (His name was Steve I think). He looked at what happened to me earlier on the phone, and said that I had actually had a confirmed seat on the BA239, however the agent on the phone who I spoke to removed my booking from that flight as she told me it was cancelled when it never was.

After some persuasion, Steve managed to put me on a flight on the Friday 24th December departing at 19:15, which I now had a club world seat on (business class) which he gave me a seat number for, he also advised me that as the booking was changed on their system, I should come to the airport on the evening of the 23rd to check in so I can assure I get my boarding pass, which I did. I did finally fly out on the 24th. I also asked him if he could give me a print out of the log of staff entries on my booking which contained evidence of the idiocy of the staff phone agent that I spoke to at beginning who told me the flight was cancelled. Steve also told me that it seemed people on the phone team were occasionally cancelling peoples seats intentionally to free up spaces for others as the flights were overbooked and that the person I spoke to was either an ’idiot’ or intentionally cancelling peoples bookings.


ON my return I pursued trying to obtain compensation. Under EU regulation 261 if I am denied boarding I should get EUR600, however it excludes exceptional circumstances such as denied boarding because of bad weather; however for me it was due to the incompetence of BA staff. Only yesterday did I receive a letter from BA saying they would be unable to compensate me, however they gave me a £50 voucher and offered to pay taxi costs to and from the airport.

I am writing as I wondered what I should be doing now as I will be pursuing this via the small claims court, but wondered where I would stand in the eyes of the law, would I be entitled to compensation or not, and weather small claims court would be my best bet. Sorry for the length of this post, but I couldn’t keep it much shorter.
Thanks!!!!!:)

dmg24

Did you ever check in for your originally booked flight? If not, you could not have been denied boarding.

If you push them they may give you some BAEC miles.

What did you actually lose by not flying?

murtazahh

dmg24 wrote: »

Did you ever check in for your originally booked flight? If not, you could not have been denied boarding.

If you push them they may give you some BAEC miles.

What did you actually lose by not flying?

HI, thanks for the help, I Checked in online on the morning of departure, The status of of booking on the BA website was 'Checked in', on the piece of the paper i printed off it said i was checked in, but that i had to goto the airport to bet a valid boarding pass as the one i printed off hadn't got a seat number on it.

I was due to go skiing with 10 other family members in Vermont. Due to my late arrival it ended up in them having to drive 4 hours to pick me up from Boston and then another4 hours back up on christmas morning at midnight, and i missed out on 2 days of skiing with family of the limited time i had there.

Thanks:)

dmg24

I'm confused, how did you check in when you had been transferred to another flight?

Did you have travel insurance?

murtazahh

dmg24 wrote: »

I'm confused, how did you check in when you had been transferred to another flight?

Did you have travel insurance?

Hi, i was on BA239, i was then transferred to BA215 for the same day, when the booking changes it updates the online booking manager page and still allows you to check in, so i 'checked in' for BA215 according to the onlince check in system, but a valid boarding pass wasnt issued online. Hope that clears up the confusion. Thanks for the help

dmg24

murtazahh wrote: »

Hi, i was on BA239, i was then transferred to BA215 for the same day, when the booking changes it updates the online booking manager page and still allows you to check in, so i 'checked in' for BA215 according to the onlince check in system, but a valid boarding pass wasnt issued online. Hope that clears up the confusion. Thanks for the help

OK, I thought you meant the 239. I know the MMB screens but have never seen them for a standby ticket, so I am not sure whether you would have officially checked in or not.

I would repost this on the BA board on www.flyertalk.com. They are a friendly bunch, and very knowledgeable.

Chester85

murtazahh wrote: »

. Steve also told me that it seemed people on the phone team were occasionally cancelling peoples seats intentionally to free up spaces for others as the flights were overbooked and that the person I spoke to was either an ’idiot’ or intentionally cancelling peoples bookings.

I had a similar situation with BA on my flight to JFK and was put on the next flight (later that day)

However, I think 'Steve' is talking out of his !!!! if I'm being honest and you'll not be able to use anything he says against the airline.

From what BA CS told me

BA use the Amadeus system and this doesn't ticket automatically, it takes time. If your travelling with 72 hours the ticket has to be manually re-issued by the back office team. If you can imagine so many people re-routing and cancelling it also affects the Amadeus system and overloads the back office systems.

Prem and Gold card holders would have got priority over you but they can bump people off a flight at anytime for that (even during normal flying conditions) so he could have meant that but I think the guarantee was temporarily removed for that too.

peachyprice

Did you book and pay for the business class seat you eventually got, or did they upgrade you to it from economy?