Refund for "significant" change in scheduled flight time

Suffolk_Farthing

TL;DR – following a significant change (six hours) in the timing of a scheduled flight, and contrary to promises made by agents when we were obliged to cancel, we are being offered only a partial refund.

The full version is a VERY long saga with BA.  Not ideal timing but as Christmas approaches I’m closing in on the last resort of a Court Claim.  I will attempt a simplified summary and would welcome any thoughts, particularly if I’m missing something which makes it less black and white than it appears to me!

Thanks in advance.

 

• late January 2023 – we booked two return tickets, London Lusaka, for travel in September.  £2700 each.  I didn’t note the details of breakdown, but it was slightly more expensive outbound than return, due to higher UK taxes.
• Mid February  2023 – BA advised a six hour time change for the return flight, making it incompatible with our pre-booked ground and internal flight arrangements.  It took a while to be reflected in their systems, but when it did they were unable to offer a suitable alternative.
• Late February 2023 – Multiple BA Agents confirmed this was a significant change to the schedule and we could opt for a full refund on the return leg (estimated by them to be £1200/ticket).  We were advised it required back-office processing, but would be sorted in days or at most weeks.
• Early March 2023 – We agreed to cancel the return leg and rebooked with an alternative carrier.  Not ideal, but these things happen.  That should have been an end to it….

April/May/June 2023 – the refund didn’t appear, and on chasing multiple times, including letters to BA Head Office, we were advised that no refund was possible until after the outbound leg had been flown. Again, far from ideal, particularly given the sum involved, but sounded like some internal system issue and too much hassle to keep challenging.

September 2023 – we flew the outbound leg, returning with Emirates.  And yes, we had a great holiday – thanks for asking!

• October 2023 – the refund didn’t happen automatically.  On chasing, a refund of £700 was eventually made for each ticket.
• November 2023 – I requested a breakdown.  This revealed that £30 had been deducted as a service fee and approximately £500 of taxes were “unfortunately non-refundable”.
• December 2023 – BA have accepted that the service fee is inappropriate and promise a refund (I’m not holding my breath), but continue to deny a full refund, leaving us approximately £500 out-of-pocket on each ticket, as a consequence of their original major schedule change.  Not to mention multiple  promises of full and prompt refunds made back when cancellation was agreed.  They even had to nerve to suggest we might like to claim on our travel insurance!

My proposed next step is to advise them that I will raise a Court Claim.  It feels disproportionate, but is not an insignificant sum.  I cannot accept the principle that they can effectively fail to deliver a contracted service and then deny a full refund.  There is also the principle that agents explicitly advised us that there would be no deductions at the point the cancellation was made.

Before I take the next step, does anyone feel I’m barking up the wrong tree and should calm down?  I’ve tried very hard to remain patient and rational in many months of phone and email exchanges with BA.  I’ve never even mentioned interest or compensation.

eskbanker

Suffolk_Farthing said:

• December 2023 – BA have accepted that the service fee is inappropriate and promise a refund (I’m not holding my breath), but continue to deny a full refund, leaving us approximately £500 out-of-pocket on each ticket, as a consequence of their original major schedule change.  Not to mention multiple  promises of full and prompt refunds made back when cancellation was agreed.  They even had to nerve to suggest we might like to claim on our travel insurance!
  

Any court claim would need to be based on your legal/contractual entitlement, as governed by their Ts & Cs, rather than what you were told verbally, so you'll need to ascertain what the actual value was and the extent to which any deductions were permissible from a refund.

Suffolk_Farthing

Thanks for your comment - I will review the T&Cs: the closest I can find at present is "cancel your booking and claim a refund (incl. taxes) to the original form of payment." for flights that are cancelled or delayed over five hours.
When I made the decision to cancel, I was advised by two different BA advisors that we would receive a full and immediate refund.  I would assume that has some legal standing, since it's the basis on which I made the decision rather than looking further into other options?

Caz3121

it does sound like their estimate of the refund amount was off. You can use ITA Matrix and get a full breakdown of all taxes and fees by route/airline. Although I cannot find the exact fare, some random searches show that the return leg fare and taxes is likely around 23-33% of the total cost of a return ticket so the amount refunded may actually be correct (the ex-UK taxes and carrier surcharge are high...the return taxes are all low amounts)
With hindsight it would likely have been better requesting a refund of the entire ticket and rebooking a return with Emirates to keep things much cleaner.

Suffolk_Farthing

Thanks for your comment: I will be requesting a breakdown of the "unfortunately non-refundable taxes" between outbound and return, and am aware that outbound is significantly higher.
It's the "hindsight" element that is indeed frustrating.  I was mis-led by the call centre agents with advice that a full and prompt refund was an available option.
Let's see.  I remain minded to take this further.

Suffolk_Farthing

A postscript in case anyone should stumble across this: following the "final response" from BA, I raised a case with CEDR for resolution.  Whilst that was processing, I received a further refund out-of-the-blue of nearly £1000 from BA. 

I have tried by web, email and phone but they can offer no explanation beyond "delayed refund" of a cancelled ticket.

I can only assume that someone, somewhere in BA eventually saw sense and had a change of heart.  Maybe prompted by the CEDR case. 

Anyway they aren't saying, but I have the full refund that should have been made almost a year earlier.  Worth persevering!