Flight delay and cancellation compensation, BA ONLY

Interested2023

How on earth do you get in touch with BA Customer Relations?
I used the letter template to submit a claim for a cancelled flight  in early November and a month later I got a reply by email telling me that I was entitled to £110 and to supply payment details, which I did.
Nothing happened until I received another email a month later to say that I was entitled to £110 and to send payment details which I did again. And again nothing happened until three weeks later I received an email to say that as I hadn't replied BA was closing my case.
I replied to tell BA I HAD previously replied (and attached PDFs of the two emails and responses) and provided my payment details for a third time. I also forwarded correspondence to another email account and re-sent to BA in case the original reply was dropping into their spam and not being read. I also printed all correspondence out, added a covering letter to explain what I have done and that I still expected payment. That was three weeks ago and I have heard nothing.
I also tried calling BA Customer Services but it seems that BA Customer Relations are completely ring-fenced and even Customer Services have no way of getting through to them, even just to act as an intermediary.

Does anyone have any advice on the best next step to received the payment that BA have offered but failed to pay?

workedforme

Followed the advice on cancelled flight compensation and had a reply next day acknowledging payment will be made. Gave bank details as requested - now waiting to see if/when they follow through. Experience so far is excellent, but given last comment, I'll withhold final review until I see the money in the bank. 

silvercar

I would suggest copying any email to Sean Doyle - seanl.doyle@ba.com - there is a team that will look at it and spur other departments to do the necessary.

sayling

silvercar said:

I would suggest copying any email to Sean Doyle - seanl.doyle@ba.com - there is a team that will look at it and spur other departments to do the necessary.

I would hope that advice isn't directed at @workedforme as there seems no need to escalate this yet. 

Filling up an inbox, that Sean won't even look at, with standard requests instead of genuine grievances and issues that require escalation merely serves to create backlogs and spoil the chances of resolution for genuine cases.

Sean did check that inbox before - I believe he can't use it now, primarily because of advice like yours

silvercar

sayling said:

silvercar said:

I would suggest copying any email to Sean Doyle - seanl.doyle@ba.com - there is a team that will look at it and spur other departments to do the necessary.

I would hope that advice isn't directed at @workedforme as there seems no need to escalate this yet. 

Filling up an inbox, that Sean won't even look at, with standard requests instead of genuine grievances and issues that require escalation merely serves to create backlogs and spoil the chances of resolution for genuine cases.

Sean did check that inbox before - I believe he can't use it now, primarily because of advice like yours

It was for interested2023, who does seem to have a problem getting a response.

If Sean is so overrun with emails from people, maybe he should sort out BA’s IT, you only need to pop over to the BA board on FlyerTalk to see the problems BA are currently having with their IT.

sayling

silvercar said:

sayling said:

silvercar said:

I would suggest copying any email to Sean Doyle - seanl.doyle@ba.com - there is a team that will look at it and spur other departments to do the necessary.

I would hope that advice isn't directed at @workedforme as there seems no need to escalate this yet. 

Filling up an inbox, that Sean won't even look at, with standard requests instead of genuine grievances and issues that require escalation merely serves to create backlogs and spoil the chances of resolution for genuine cases.

Sean did check that inbox before - I believe he can't use it now, primarily because of advice like yours

It was for interested2023, who does seem to have a problem getting a response.

If Sean is so overrun with emails from people, maybe he should sort out BA’s IT, you only need to pop over to the BA board on FlyerTalk to see the problems BA are currently having with their IT.

It's clear from your Ambassador status that you are a respected poster and I agree that your advice was relevant to the post from @Interested2023 but that was at the end of Feb and wasn't quoted. I hope you can see why I made the comment I did.

I'm on FT and follow that thread, so I can agree that there are multiple issues with BA IT (though some posts are definitely from the IT Challenged part of society). Earlier incarnations of that thread used to get comments from BA IT support, but I haven't seen any for a good couple of years. It's a shame, but I suspect the forums became like Sean's email address - used for the wrong purposes and over burdened with matters that need to be handled or reported through different channels. 

Have a good evening.

jimi_man

Interested2023 said:

How on earth do you get in touch with BA Customer Relations?
I used the letter template to submit a claim for a cancelled flight  in early November and a month later I got a reply by email telling me that I was entitled to £110 and to supply payment details, which I did.
Nothing happened until I received another email a month later to say that I was entitled to £110 and to send payment details which I did again. And again nothing happened until three weeks later I received an email to say that as I hadn't replied BA was closing my case.
I replied to tell BA I HAD previously replied (and attached PDFs of the two emails and responses) and provided my payment details for a third time. I also forwarded correspondence to another email account and re-sent to BA in case the original reply was dropping into their spam and not being read. I also printed all correspondence out, added a covering letter to explain what I have done and that I still expected payment. That was three weeks ago and I have heard nothing.
I also tried calling BA Customer Services but it seems that BA Customer Relations are completely ring-fenced and even Customer Services have no way of getting through to them, even just to act as an intermediary.

Does anyone have any advice on the best next step to received the payment that BA have offered but failed to pay?

Can I just ask what the ‘letter template’ is? The best way to make a claim is using BAs online form where it asks you to supply all the information up front, you get a ref no. and a trail. That’s the one I used when I claimed last year and they paid up within around a week and it’s the way to do it that is recommended on FT. 

Is that what you did? If you didn’t, can you explain what you did? 

I wouldn’t start copying emails to Sean Doyle’s inbox - as the poster above says - abuse of that is likely to backfire and it won’t be monitored any more. There is an escalation process, that doesn’t involve going straight to the head of BA. 

BobRatschings

I apologise, I've not read the entirety of this thread but am hoping for some quick advice regarding a current situation. I just want to know whether this is worth pursuing or not.

British Airways Flight due to depart LHR - Milan on Thursday, 14:10 departure was cancelled at 16:43 on Wednesday, the day before. Eventually we flew to Milan on a BA flight Friday morning, 07:20, but this meant we lost 1xnights accommodation (c.350) and the cost of pre-booked car hire for that day. The flight was cancelled due to industrial action at Milan airport.

BA messed us around on three points here:

1. We had an email earlier on Wednesday morning explaining our flight may be cancelled and invited us to change it. We called and asked to change it, potentially to that evening on the Wednesday to avoid lost costs. However, we were told we would have to pay a charge to change the flight as, at that point, it wasn't cancelled. The initial email asking whether we wanted to change said it was subject to availability, not cost. I have put this down to us having paid for the flights in air miles and the computer system just not offering us a flight change for free. 

2. Once cancelled, we were automatically booked onto a flight with a 7 hour layover in Frankfurt. As we had a newborn baby, this was less than ideal and not possible. Anyone with some common sense who looked at the booking would have spotted this but I presume it was just an automatic reallocation.

3. We called BA immediately to be rebooked on another flight once the cancellation confirmation came through and the 7 hour layover in Frankfurt was offered. I asked for a direct flight option. The telephonist wasted time offering us a flight via Helsinki. After I insisted it needed to be direct, the telephonist offered a flight leaving from LDN City direct flight with Air Italian (which did complete that journey) to Milan for the Thursday, the original day of departure. Immediately we said yes to which there was a lengthy delay. Once the telephonist tried to book us onto the flight, the availability had gone. The only option was next direct flight to Milan with BA which was Friday morning, 07:20.

I completed the BA online claims for but have been told that we are not due compensation due to the extraordinary circumstance - that this was industrial action outside of BA's control. I was instructed to contact my insurers. I pushed this a few times, including complaining about the service received, but have had the same push back. 

I then contacted my travel insurers (Admiral, Platinum, Annual Multi Trip). Admiral, after considering my claim both online and then with follow up phone calls, say they can only allocate this as trip delay, and offer £25 for a total of 12 hours delay and they encouraged me to go back to BA. They are not willing to reallocate it to cover the cost of the nights accommodation (c.£350) to trip abandonment, as the new flight offered was within 24 hours of the original stated time of departure. I am waiting to speak to a manager as I have had travel insurance with them for over a decade (always with competitive renewals), and I also have my family's travel, multi-car and home insurance with them...  I feel I should be using this to get some benefit with my case.

Note: I appreciate an argument that I "opted" to travel on Friday morning, therefore forgoing the opportunity to fly on Thursday via Frankfurt and avoiding, but surely the fact that my flight was cancelled with less than 24 hours notice and travelling with a newborn gives enough mitigating evidence that we weren't able to take any other option than to fly Friday morning.

Simply put: Should I be expecting either BA or my travel insurance to cover the cost of the cancelled accommodation? 

Thankful for any advice.

eskbanker

The UK261 flight delay/cancellation regulations don't place any obligations on airlines to reimburse consequential losses so you don't have any valid claim against BA for those, but whether or not the insurer picks up the tab will be down to their policy wording.