Abandoned by British Airways in Thailand

Spearman21

My wife and I purchased two return flight tickets from British Airways London to Bangkok (outbound 13th Jan 2020 & inbound 3 June 2020) total cost £802.84. Having flown us to Thailand British Airways have cancelled our return flights twice and now say they will not be flying from Bangkok again until October 2021. Apparently because our British Airways tickets only have a validity of 1 year we have been told by British Airways that we must accept a cash refund or voucher.

Original return tickets cost £804,  

total refund offered £268 (less than 1/2 original cost), 

cheapest replacement single tickets (if they actually fly in Nov.) offered by BA £728 almost 3x more than the refund offered!

Can British Airways suspend flying a route for more than 7 months and then say the ticket only has a 1year validity?

Butts

When did they stop flying from Bangkok last year ?

I note you flew out in January but were scheduled to return in June. When the pandemic took hold did you attempt to return home between March and June ? - ie as soon as possible.

silvercar

Do you mean 2020 or 2021?

They have an obligation to get you home, obviously you can’t force them to lay on a flight, but they should re route you on another airline. This would generally be within a few days of your original flight date, so the one year ticketing rule won’t be an issue.
the BA flyertalk sub board is where I would look for help with this one. 

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club-446/

[Deleted User]

As previous has asked, what attempts did you make to get back to UK following advice for travelers to return home by the Government?    Did you ignore it? Do you have relatives or people you are staying with?  I assume you aren’t in a hotel raking up costs?   Seems kind of odd.   Yes BA did have a duty to return you but you also needed to make some effort yourself.  What exactly did you do back in April/May?   

As for refund, well flights aren’t generally split equally between legs but don’t know how BA have apportioned it.   Good luck getting back to UK at moment. 

bagand96

The best thing to do, given the fact a global pandemic was unfolding, would have been to arrange return flights yourself. There were plenty of options to get back to the UK last June, even for the rest of 2020.

You could then have taken up the argument with BA on reclaiming the cost of the replacement flights as they did have an obligation to reroute you.

Although that's a bit academic now. On the face of it your rights to reroute under EC261 haven't changed, as the law doesn't specify a time limit. Although the law wasn't written with a global pandemic in mind and getting back to the UK now is pretty challenging. 

@Tedber is right in saying the cost of flights is rarely split 50%. Each leg will be priced differently, and UK departure tax will inflate the cost of the outbound leg too. 

silvercar

Ok, so we really are talking of 2020!

Did BA offer you any flights? If they offered you a reroute and you refused then there is probably little you can do other than accept the refund. Normally when an airline delays departure they are obliged to pay for accommodation and food until they can arrange your return. But generally we are talking a couple of days and you must be willing to accept what they offer. I can’t see you winning in court over a years accommodation costs!

sheramber

 Have there been no flights since June 2020?

jon81uk

Did you not contact the embassy in Bangkok once you couldn't get back to the UK?

jimi_man

BA stopped flying the BKK route mid last year. but they were rerouting people back via other destinations on partner airlines - via Maylasia, HKG etc, so you should have been able to get home. 

As others have said, the return portion is generally cheaper since it's the ex UK taxes (esp on LH) that add to the price. £268 sounds about right. Whilst the single fare is expensive, you can also buy a return and just use the outward portion, it's around £500 or so - still more than £268 though.