British Airways v Expedia Cancelled Flight

Babiole

I hope you seasoned travellers can help.

I booked an holiday to Egypt with Expedia. They offer flights with different airlines and various hotels and we selected a package made up of BA flights and a local hotel. We were due to fly from Manchester to London Heathrow and then change to a flight direct to Cairo. This is a return arrangement with a change at London on the return.

This morning we woke up to find a text from BA telling us our flight to London that day was cancelled. There was no other flight that would have taken us to London to enable us to catch the flight to Cairo, the train was also too close for comfort so we threw everything into the car and drove down to London. Luckily a relative who lives close to the airport has allowed us to use their drive but we paid for a taxi to the airport (£50). We will have to do the same taxi trip on the return to London.

We went on the BA site to get a refund for this cancelled flight and also a refund for the return leg from London to Manchester as we do not need that flight now as we had to take our car to London. There is no facility to claim a refund just a link to change flights which is of no use. I did find information that said if we booked through another company we have to ask them for a refund. I contacted Expedia……and you guessed it……they said we have to claim from BA. I phoned BA. The first call was cut short after two sentences when I explained my flight had been cancelled that morning the operator put the phone down. I phoned back and explained our situation and was told I was being put on hold for a few minutes. 28 minutes later the phone cut off.

Neither company seem to want to accept responsibility for making a refund. I can see lots of information about claiming compensation for the cancellation ( if we qualify) but I just want my money back for the domestic flights.

Help, what do I do???

B

Westin

I doubt this is an easy one to unravel.

BA have been cancelling lots of flights recently, the main issue being staff resource (and IT issues).

Whilst the normal issue would be to deal with the booking agent, in this case you have already travelled and it wasn’t an Expedia issue.  I would go on to the BA site to look at the process for complaints and reimbursement for costs. There will be a web form. From there briefly detail the issue with the cancelled connection, your limited options and decision to drive to LHR and your reasonable costs. I suspect BA will accept your actions and reimburse reasonable costs to/from LHR. Unless you are a Gold Card holder forget trying to call. They are at breaking point.