Missed flight - now £1,000 down!

MrsCT86

We booked return flights from Glasgow to London far in advance in order to make a pre-Christmas trip affordable for my family. A last minute issue meant we had to make our way to London at a different time but planned to get our return flight home. Tried to change it on the app but wouldn't let us. 

Never in a million years did I think the return part of our booking would be cancelled which we found out when we arrived at Heathrow a few days later. They charged us £1,103.45 for 3 seats on a plane that we had ALREADY paid to be on!!

I'm not sure at what point during the booking process they make passengers aware of this rule, but had we known it was going to be an issue, we would have persevered on the phone to the airline (BA).

We also didn't receive any communication from BA to tell us that our booking had been cancelled.

Is there anything we can do to recoup this money? It feels completely unethical for a reputable company to do this. 

eskbanker

It's standard industry policy for inbound legs of return flight bookings to be invalidated if the outbound ones aren't used, so I'd expect that to be mentioned somewhere in BA's booking terms.

Edit: yes, it's here:

3c2) Your ticket is no longer valid if you do not use all the coupons in the sequence provided in the ticket.

DullGreyGuy

They make you aware when you have to tick the box to say that you understand and agree to the terms of carriage with a link to it if you actually want to read it before clicking yes. 

It's a fairly traditional way of doing things but common with flag carrier airlines, ferry companies etc. These companies also sell returns much cheaper than two singles (unlike budget airlines). A decade or maybe more ago there was a fair bit of news as some ferry companies was doing a heavily discounted promotion for people visiting the UK but not for the UK visiting France. People thought they'd be clever and buy a pair of return tickets each then ignore the initial France - UK leg and catch the UK - France return leg and similarly only use the outward France to UK to get back as double the tickets was much cheaper than a normal return. Well lots of disappointed travellers as they were refused boarding because the return had been cancelled after they failed to show for the outbound leg from France. 


What efforts did you make at the time to advise them you wouldn't be on the outward leg?

kazwookie

Standard

My OH had this happen to him, as he didn't take the outward trip, but turned up at the airport for the return trip, which he found was cancelled, so he had to book and pay again for a trip he had aldready paid for, by memory he didn't  get any money back, but did write a couple of emails to the CEO of the airline, but it made no difference.

He just kept on about it to me and our NND, and on, and on..............................

eskbanker

kazwookie said:

He just kept on about it to me and our NND, and on, and on..............................

What does NND stand for here?  A search brings up an array of abbreviations, some quite colourful, but nothing obvious for this context - is it one of those Mumsnet ones?

Tescodealqueen

eskbanker said:

kazwookie said:

He just kept on about it to me and our NND, and on, and on..............................

What does NND stand for here?  A search brings up an array of abbreviations, some quite colourful, but nothing obvious for this context - is it one of those Mumsnet ones?

Nearest ‘n’ dearest? 

Pollycat

Or NDN for next door neighbour...

NoodleDoodleMan

Maybe it could be both of the above ?

kazwookie

 NDN for nice next door neighbour..

NoodleDoodleMan

kazwookie said:

 NDN for nice next door neighbour..

You are light an N !!!