British Airways Advice

EuanW1

Hi, Hopefully this is the correct location for this, if not please advise where it would be better located. 

I have booked flights and hotel to New York through BA for the 1st week of March this year. We are in Edinburgh so the original flights were EDI-LHR, LHR-JFK and the same on the return leg. 

Originally our flight from Edinburgh arrived at 8.30 and the flight to JFK departed Heathrow at 9.40, so plenty of time to make a transfer as it is all in the same terminal at Heathrow. 

I then received an email from BA saying they had cancelled my original flight from Edinburgh to London, they had however rebooked us. The problem with this new flight is it gets into Heathrow 10 minutes before the flight to New York leaves! I have tried calling them many, many times but I go through the automated options to the correct line and get met with a message "We are unable to take your call right now" and get cut off. 

To make matters worse when I now log into my booking online it only shows the hotel and the flights on the return leg, the outward journey is nowhere to be seen!

I'm sure you can imagine it's quite stressful not knowing if we will be able to make the transfer or not! I have looked around and I can get the same stay/flights through other providers for roughly the same price. 

I think the best course would be to cancel my booking with BA and rebook elsewhere but then obviously would be if I would be eligible for a refund or not from BA? 

Sorry for the long read, any advice is gratefully appreciated!

jon81uk

If you booked it as one ticket, Edinburgh to New York, via LHR then BA need to amend all the booked flights to get you to New York.
If you booked seperate flights then its your problem and you need to find new flights and pay any applicable change fees.

Sandtree

Hopefully you bought a single ticket of EDI to JFK in which case its BA problem... a phone call to them may help give you more confidence as its one thing being their problem to fix but clearly better not to have a problem.

If you bought two separate flights then its your problem. Do you have hold luggage? You'll need to collect your luggage and then check in for your international flight which clearly isnt going to happen in 10 minutes. This becomes a change of mind cancellation and so it will be down to if you bought a flexible ticket or not and whatever BA's current Covid promise is but in normal times then it'd be forfeited flights for which you could only get the taxes back.

bagand96

EuanW1 said:

To make matters worse when I now log into my booking online it only shows the hotel and the flights on the return leg, the outward journey is nowhere to be seen!

I'm sure you can imagine it's quite stressful not knowing if we will be able to make the transfer or not! I have looked around and I can get the same stay/flights through other providers for roughly the same price. 

You have to remember that much of this is done by IT without human input.  By default when your EDI-LHR has been cancelled the system would book you on the nearest flight.  But obviously that has caused a mis-connection at LHR.  The fact that your outbound flights don't currently show in your booking is actually a good thing.  There is probably a flag in the system showing that the automated re-connection is unachievable and something needs to be done.

You would be entitled to a refund from BA, but they will offer alternative flights first so you should give them that opportunity.  I know that doesn't really help with the practicality of actually getting in touch with them.  might be someone on here who knows a better number to get through.  When I go on the BA help pages you can start a web chat, have you tried that?

Westin

bagand96 said:

EuanW1 said:

To make matters worse when I now log into my booking online it only shows the hotel and the flights on the return leg, the outward journey is nowhere to be seen!

I'm sure you can imagine it's quite stressful not knowing if we will be able to make the transfer or not! I have looked around and I can get the same stay/flights through other providers for roughly the same price. 

You have to remember that much of this is done by IT without human input.  By default when your EDI-LHR has been cancelled the system would book you on the nearest flight.  But obviously that has caused a mis-connection at LHR.  The fact that your outbound flights don't currently show in your booking is actually a good thing.  There is probably a flag in the system showing that the automated re-connection is unachievable and something needs to be done.

You would be entitled to a refund from BA, but they will offer alternative flights first so you should give them that opportunity.  I know that doesn't really help with the practicality of actually getting in touch with them.  might be someone on here who knows a better number to get through.  When I go on the BA help pages you can start a web chat, have you tried that?

Exactly this. 

Check MMB in a day or so, or if you are determined to hang on to contact BA then perhaps research in advance what options you would like such as fly down to LHR the night before, or route via another airport. That way you can get straight to the point when the agent answers. They are normally amenable. 

Sandtree

bagand96 said:
might be someone on here who knows a better number to get through.

There are numbers out there that you'd assume may be prioritised, not hard to spot, and BA no longer tell you to go away if you ring a number you arent entitled to use.

Had to call them at 22:30 on Saturday (yes, my life is that exciting these days) and the recorded message/IVR too longer to get through than the call waiting time! Was confused when someone answered as was expecting the normal 20 minute wait so was in the process of putting it on speaker phone