Flight delay and cancellation compensation, BA ONLY

gentlecleanser

Hi need a bit of help and advice here please!
A friend and I were caught up in the BA IT melt down on sat, checked in for flight, arrived at Heathrow with plenty of time to find out 7 hours later that our flight had officially been canceled. We were flying to Amsterdam for two nights. Checked the BA website and there were no more flights until Monday eve when we were due to fly back 7pm Monday eve. Told to leave airport (another 5 hour queue!) so we had no choice but to abandon the trip.
We had booked a non refundable hotel room and boat excursion. Called travel insurance and they have said it is not covered as the problem was not a 'mechanical error with the aircraft'. My friend booked the flight and so has filled in the claim for for the refund of the flights. Can anyone suggest how else i might go about recovering our out of pocket costs? I am currently £550 down due to the fault of BA! Thanks

Vauban

gentlecleanser wrote: »

Hi need a bit of help and advice here please!
A friend and I were caught up in the BA IT melt down on sat, checked in for flight, arrived at Heathrow with plenty of time to find out 7 hours later that our flight had officially been canceled. We were flying to Amsterdam for two nights. Checked the BA website and there were no more flights until Monday eve when we were due to fly back 7pm Monday eve. Told to leave airport (another 5 hour queue!) so we had no choice but to abandon the trip.
We had booked a non refundable hotel room and boat excursion. Called travel insurance and they have said it is not covered as the problem was not a 'mechanical error with the aircraft'. My friend booked the flight and so has filled in the claim for for the refund of the flights. Can anyone suggest how else i might go about recovering our out of pocket costs? I am currently £550 down due to the fault of BA! Thanks

It's outrageous that insurance companies are wriggling out of this. What's the difference between a plane's computer going tech and the airline's mainframe?

Anyway, one other poster has recently suggested that you can claim from your credit card company (if that's how you paid for your air ticket) as it would be classified as a "consequential loss" under Section 75.

gentlecleanser

Vauban wrote: »

It's outrageous that insurance companies are wriggling out of this. What's the difference between a plane's computer going tech and the airline's mainframe?

Anyway, one other poster has recently suggested that you can claim from your credit card company (if that's how you paid for your air ticket) as it would be classified as a "consequential loss" under Section 75.

Thanks for the reply! I have just checked and i did pay for the hotel on credit card! However it was my friend that booked the flights. I am going to try this route anyway.
Do you know how i go about this? I take it it would involve just writing a letter to the credit card company?

Vauban

gentlecleanser wrote: »

Thanks for the reply! I have just checked and i did pay for the hotel on credit card! However it was my friend that booked the flights. I am going to try this route anyway.
Do you know how i go about this? I take it it would involve just writing a letter to the credit card company?

No. You've misunderstood. The claim would arise from the credit card company with whom you booked the flight - on the basis that they are responsible not just for refunding the cost of the cancelled flight but also "consequential losses" arising from this incident (which, goes the argument, includes accommodation you booked but couldn't use). Even if the accommodation was booked with another card, the liability sits with the credit card company that you bought the flight with.

In your case, you didn't buy the flight, and your friend didn't buy the accommodation, so I don't see how this would work unfortunately.

You might want to try appealing to the insurance company and then escalating the complaint through to whichever ombudsman oversees insurance.

Williamrr

Hi need a bit of advise please as I am confused what and how to claim against BA?
We were delayed in Copenhagen for our flight to Heathrow on Sunday by a couple of hours which made us miss our connecting flight to Aberdeen. When we arrived in Heathrow we were handed an A4 paper and a booklet with a list of airport hotels and told there were no more flights to Aberdeen tonight. Was told to find a hotel and phone BA to rebook a flight to Aberdeen and keep all our receipts. After getting to a hotel in Woking and spending over 2 hours on the telephone I was given a flight on Tuesday. Do I claim for the accommodation and the €250 or can I only claim for the receipts I have kept?
Thanks William.

Tyzap

Williamrr wrote: »

Hi need a bit of advise please as I am confused what and how to claim against BA?
We were delayed in Copenhagen for our flight to Heathrow on Sunday by a couple of hours which made us miss our connecting flight to Aberdeen. When we arrived in Heathrow we were handed an A4 paper and a booklet with a list of airport hotels and told there were no more flights to Aberdeen tonight. Was told to find a hotel and phone BA to rebook a flight to Aberdeen and keep all our receipts. After getting to a hotel in Woking and spending over 2 hours on the telephone I was given a flight on Tuesday. Do I claim for the accommodation and the €250 or can I only claim for the receipts I have kept?
Thanks William.

Hi William,

You claim for it all, including all 'duty of care' expenses.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=72622795&postcount=15

Please download and read Vaubans guide. Just Google it then ask any further questions here.

Good luck.

JPears

Williamrr wrote: »

Hi need a bit of advise please as I am confused what and how to claim against BA?
We were delayed in Copenhagen for our flight to Heathrow on Sunday by a couple of hours which made us miss our connecting flight to Aberdeen. When we arrived in Heathrow we were handed an A4 paper and a booklet with a list of airport hotels and told there were no more flights to Aberdeen tonight. Was told to find a hotel and phone BA to rebook a flight to Aberdeen and keep all our receipts. After getting to a hotel in Woking and spending over 2 hours on the telephone I was given a flight on Tuesday. Do I claim for the accommodation and the €250 or can I only claim for the receipts I have kept?
Thanks William.

First of all download Vauban's super duper guide (google) make a brew, couple of biscuits and read.
Make 2 seperate claims. One for your out of pocket expenses - food, drink (non alcohol) accomodation and taxis etc.
2nd claim seperately, compensation of Euro250 for each passeneger (including kids/infants) under regualtion 261/2004. There should be the relevant claim forms on BA website.
3rd Make a letter of complaint to BA and to the CAA for the total and abysmal mishandling of the situation. BA should have made all the arrangements for accomadtion etc for you and given you a letter or similar expaling ALL your rights under reg 261/2004. They clearly didn't.
This won't get you anything, but the more complaints the CAA receive there is a slight possibilty they may do something about it. (but don't hold your breath)

111KAB

BA trying to hoodwink delayed passengers into claiming for duty of care costs off their travel insurers ...


http://www.travelmole.com/news_feature.php?news_id=2027389&c=setreg&region=2

legal_magpie

It is downright dishonest for BA to suggest that passengers should claim on their own insurance policies first. Travel insurance is a separate contract between the customer and the insurance company and totally irrelevant to BA's liability.

Sim311

Hi, i was wondering if someone could help with a little advice? Like many others, me and my family were caught up in the BA fiasco last weekend. I understand the process re cancellation and comphensation based upon previous posts and that consequential loss my not be covered, however would this still be the same where the hotel and hire car was also booked via BA? Obviously as we booked via BA they would be deemed to be aware of the potential loss as a direct result of the breach. Does this not stand us in a better position to claim for car hire and post travel hotel costs? Basically id be looking to recover the cost for the hotel prior to the night of travel (drove from Manchester to Heathrow the night before) as the hotel was only booked conditional upon the flight, while the car hire was only arranged on the basis that we reached our destination. Given the inability to contact BA to rearrange flights we abandoned our holiday and drove home to Manchester...it also didnt help that one of our cases disappeared for 5 days ! Even to this day, we have still been unable to contact BA. The only call was from a courier to ask where we wanted my daughter's case delivered.