Cancelled flight refund through travel agent

jamescmac1988

Hi all, hoping someone can provide some clarification!

Took my family to America for three weeks in Nov/Dec last year (group of eight). We had a combination of flights, so booked through Carlton Leisure via Skyscanner as it seemed easier than making all the individual bookings. The booking was made through BA and all on the same booking - all flights were either BA operated or codeshares.

- Inverness -> Heathrow -> Orlando
- Orlando -> Los Angeles
- Los Angeles -> New York
- New York -> Heathrow -> Inverness

All went fine until the return flights from New York - Inverness. We were caught up in the ice/snow chaos on 10th December and were four hours late taking off from JFK. Arrived into Heathrow and took a further two hours to get to a gate.

Our original flight from Heathrow - Inverness was cancelled whilst we were in the air, and whilst leaving the plane were handed new itineraries and boarding passes for a later flight by BA staff. Shortly after all subsequent flights were cancelled and BA staff advised us we wouldn't be able to fly until the 12th Dec and try to make our own way home and to claim a refund for the cancelled flight. Managed to grab the last eight seats on the sleeper and arrived home 33 hours after leaving JFK!

Missing baggage and compensation for food etc due to the cancellation was all handled over the phone by BA on the 13th and the staff couldn't have been any better. Had an inkling I would have to gain a refund from Carlton Leisure for the cancelled flight, which was confirmed by BA on the phone.

Telephoned Carlton Leisure on 13th Dec to start a refund request, with the call handler being less than interested, fobbing me off with 'someone will call you back' before hanging up. I then resorted to communicating by both email and letters send Special Delivery, which have all been delivered and signed for by Carlton Leisure staff.

To date I have sent six emails and four letters by Special Delivery, yet had no response from Carlton Leisure regarding any of them. A quick Google shows that others in my situation have had the same runaround from them.

My questions are:

1) Am I legally entitled to a refund? There is nothing in Calrton's T&C's regarding flight cancellation refunds, only refunds if you choose not to travel
2) What is my best option for reclaiming the money? Going through the Small Claims Court?
3) If I have to go the legal route, as I am based in Scotland and Carlton Leisure are based in England, do I have to make the claim in Scotland or England? I've experience of making claims here, but nothing 'cross border' so to speak

The amount for the cancelled flights is just over £750, so not an insignificant amount of money. Just more irked by the lack of response from Carlton and the inability to actually speak to anyone with any form of customer service there!

Going back to the States next spring and will be booking directly with BA. Lessons learnt! Although the disruption and scenes at Heathrow were ungodly, every member of BA staff I dealt with couldn't have been any better.

Thanks to any responders, and apologies for the novel!

Westin

Did you claim from BA the costs for the transport that you ended up taking between London and Inverness? I would have thought this would have been the route to take as you mentioned claiming for delayed baggage, food, etc.

If onward travel was claimed from BA then there would be no claim against the unused/weather cancelled domestic flight.

jamescmac1988

Hi there,

No, I never claimed for the cost of the onward travel, only the cost for food (we were in the airport for 11 hours before leaving for the train, BA staff had run out of vouchers so advised to claim with receipts) and the damaged suitcases that were delivered a few days later.

Reason I didn't claim the travel costs from BA were that we managed to get the train with railcards for just under £200 - original flight costs were £750, so didn't want to jeopardise the refund of that by claiming for the train fares.

Cheers,

eDicky

jamescmac1988 wrote: »

original flight costs were £750

How do you obtain this figure?

Westin

How did you come to the cost of the LHR/INV flight as £750? Was there a group of you?

I would suspect that Carlton Leisure used a consolidator fare for your trip. BA actually charge very little for these domestic connections, sometime they are even cheaper to start the routing outside of London than flying from the regions. There may be little or no cost to refund on that fare and connection. Even if there is I think getting joy from Carlton will possibly be a frustrating exercise. They are not a full service travel agency, just a ticket reseller. Aftercare service may not be in their business plan.

I would speak to BA again and see if you can claim the rail fares as a replacement for the non operating flight.

I can see that you are hoping to claim £750 back but your expenses for the train replacement was significantly lower. I appreciate it must have been a long and tiring journey home but I don’t think it fair to look to gain out of the disruptive weather delay situation. Just my view however.

jpsartre

If you paid for your train fares you are due a refund for the flight from LHR to INV. Mind you, that part of your total fare might not be very much (not sure where you get £750) and it's a bit of a faff to claim it back (as it needs to be calculated by a special department at BA), even more so when everything has to go through an agent. Personally I would be inclined to claim the train fare back from BA and leave it at that.

peachyprice

Westin wrote: »

How did you come to the cost of the LHR/INV flight as £750? Was there a group of you?

There were 8 in the group, all in the OP.

peachyprice

jpsartre wrote: »

If you paid for your train fares you are due a refund for the flight from LHR to INV. Mind you, that part of your total fare might not be very much (not sure where you get £750)

For 8 people, perfectly reasonable that it would be £750 LHR-INV.

jpsartre

It could well be, my point was that there's really no way of knowing what the amount will be until BA calculates it.

Voyager2002

OK: if there is to be a refund, that will obviously not be the same as the fare for a one-way ticket from Heathrow to Inverness. To get an estimate of the amount, do some 'dummy' bookings (perhaps on the Carlton Leisure site): firstly for the itinerary that you actually booked; then for what you actually flew, i.e. terminating at Heathrow. Then look at the difference in total fare between the two. That will give you some idea of what you might eventually get if you were to go to all the trouble of using the courts and were to win your case.

The other route: the claim for onward travel would include not only your sleeper tickets but any incidental expenses such as taxi between Heathrow and Euston. You could try to claim the walk-on sleeper fare, explaining that BA should not benefit from a special discount that you paid for (the railcard). And this would be a fairly trouble-free route, dealing directly with BA rather than an uncooperative agent.

PeacefulWaters

There were numerous discounted BA bookings starting in Inverness last year.

Often £hundreds cheaper than starting at Heathrow.

It's more than possible your refund will be nil if you base it on flight cost.