BA - no refund and no return flight when late for outbound leg

RecycleYourDroids

Hi All,

I booked a return flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh for work.

I left home in plenty of time, but there were some issues with the airport coaches and I ended up being late (before the flight took off, but with only about 25mins to go, I couldn't get trhough the barrier to get to security).

I rang BA customer services - they wouldn't rebook by outbound flight or refund it (not so shocked by that)... but they also cancelled my return flight without any refund.

So I have to book (and pay for) the whole thing again. Instead of just booking a single on a later outbound flight. (It's their policy apparently...)

How do they justify this - it's theft! I feel completely ripped off. Has anyone challenged it and won?

Should I book all my journey's as singles from now on....?

Niall.

eDicky

It's the common policy of pretty much all airlines that if any sector of a multiple flight booking is not flown, then all subsequent sectors are automatically cancelled. It doesn't apply to budget airlines such as easyJet etc who sell only individual sectors.

Caz3121

it is covered in the terms and conditions and is common in the case of non-low cost carriers
Section 3c
3c2) Your ticket is no longer valid if you do not use all the coupons in the sequence provided in the ticket

think someone took action against Lufthansa who, from memory, will now give you the option to purchase a more expensive ticket that does not need to be used in sequence (probably similar to pricing 2 x one-ways together)

silvercar

BA can sometimes be obliging when it comes to events beyond your control. it's a shame they weren't on this occasion. I would appeal.

martindow

Is there any chance that travel insurance could cover this?  It's geared up for international rather than domestic journeys, but it may be worth asking if you have an annual policy.

DullGreyGuy

With flag carriers you buy a return ticket which is notably cheaper than the cost of two singles (in fact when looking at flights a while back a return was cheaper than just a one way inbound ticket). It's different to budget airlines which typically only sell one way tickets and dont do any return discounting. 

Its normally a term of service that the return leg is only valid if the outward leg is used otherwise to return to the UK having not bought a ticket it'd be cheaper to buy a return ticket from the UK and just use the return leg than to buy a single ticket back to the UK. These terms avoid people doing this.