Getting a refund after a 'very' last minute British Airways flight cancellation

ApolloHubble

This morning (8th July) my husband and I were due to fly from London Heathrow to Munich at 7.05am. We drove to Heathrow Long Stay Parking (pre-booked) and parked at 3.01am. We like to arrive early, check in and have breakfast at the airport. I got out of the car to take a photo of the Bay we were parked in and saw that an email had been sent to me by BA at 2.45am telling me our flight was cancelled. As you can imagine we were very unhappy! We drove back home as the email did state 'do not travel to the airport' (a bit late now) which clocked up a further 90 miles, and driving back onto the M25 is not good just before rush hour!
BA had put us on the next flight which was an evening flight the next day, (9th July) but this was no good to us as our trip was short, and we had already bought the train tickets needed to get from Munich airport to our final destination. 
Even though both our hotel and Heathrow parking were booked with cancellation policies, these of course are now out of date. So we are out of pocket for train tickets, petrol, airport parking and the hotel.
Our Travel Insurance (which is not a cheap one) has said that it is unlikely that we will get any money from them as the cancellation was not at the point of departure. They have said they are going to try to get our claim through as a 'delayed' flight but they are not promising anything.
We were unable to cancel our flights and get a refund online as we had already checked in (of course) so had to ring BA and spend more of our time (over 30 minutes) waiting for a representative to answer and cancel our booking and refund our flights.
As we booked the hotel through Booking.com, they have contacted the hotel to ask if they will authorise a refund, and I have also emailed the hotel to ask if this is possible, but the hotel is well within their rights to refuse.
I have just about managed to negotiate the EU261 compensation page on BA's website (and they don't make it easy),  for our compensation, but can I claim for our hotel and other losses? If not, what options are there? Any advice appreciated as I cannot believe that such a last minute cancellation by BA has left us so much out of pocket, as well as with no holiday. Thank you.

Westin

With 6 x LHR-MUC flights a day I'm not sure why they could not accommodate you on an earlier service. 

Even looking now there is space on Tuesday's flights in the morning and afternoon, much earlier than the evening flight you say they offered.  They also have space on this evening's flight. Perhaps earlier Monday flights are now full following rebookings.

I think if I had been standing in the car park at that point I would have gone to the terminal to speak to BA and look at alternative options.

Depending for the reason for the cancellation you may qualify for compensation under UK261/EU261 provisions.

The airline typically won't reimburse for associated costs like airport travel, car parking or even hotels booked overseas.  Your travel insurance may come into play instead.

saajan_12

Their responsibility is to get you to your point of origin to your destination per your ticket, including any costs of changing flights, food, drink, hotels and transport needed in between the origin and destination. They should really have offered an earlier flight than the next day, but did you push for this? BA have several, but you can also go on another airline if there's nothing for a reasonable amount of time. 

Then if the arrival at point B is over the number of hours and the cause was in their control, then they would have to pay the compensation. That's a fixed amount (depending on the flight and delay lengths), but it effectively covers their responsibility towards other incidental costs. The powers that be have effectively decided it would be impossible to calculate peoples' actual losses and divide up what would have been incurred anyway, get into the nitty gritty of whether it was possible to catch up with someones £x0,000 cruise etc. 

In your case, I'm not sure if you can get the compensation if you decided not to travel and get the refund (vs travelling later). In any case, the rest would be one for travel insurance. 

Hoenir

ApolloHubble said:

We drove back home as the email did state 'do not travel to the airport' (a bit late now) 

As you were actually there though. Would have made more sense to speak to someone directly on the ground. Than waste another 2 hours returning home before making contact. Which lost you a further considerable amount of time and naturally curtailed your options. Other airlines are also available. Given the importance of flying today. 

ApolloHubble

Thanks to all of you who left comments. Firstly there were no other flights to Munich today, from any airport. Going on Tuesday was not an option. Going on the 'very' late flight later today (8th July) also not an option as we had train tickets for today to get to our destination (which was out of Munich). The trains would not be running through the night.
We still would have lost money from our hotel as the booking was for the whole stay. I've already stated that our Travel Insurance will not cover us as the flight was not cancelled at the point of boarding. Oh well I guess that airlines have you over a barrel.

jimi_man

Hi. BA will offer you a flight to suit them rather than you and will just rebook you to any old flight - hence why you got one for tomorrow night. However flight bookings are a very dynamic process and change by the minute. As others have said you should have continued on to the terminal and spoken to BA and enquired about other flights. People move their flights about all the time and the picture is never the same for very long. The 1720 has spare seats on for example. 

I'm surprised about the travel insurance? I would have thought that it would cover exactly this?

Unfortunately pretty much all of the cancellations by BA today are weather related (causing ATC flow restrictions, causing BA to have to cancel services) which means that EU (UK) 261 is not payable. Sorry. 

Grumpy_chap

ApolloHubble said:

This morning (8th July) my husband and I were due to fly from London Heathrow to Munich at 7.05am. We drove to Heathrow Long Stay Parking (pre-booked) and parked at 3.01am. We like to arrive early, check in and have breakfast at the airport. I got out of the car to take a photo of the Bay we were parked in and saw that an email had been sent to me by BA at 2.45am telling me our flight was cancelled. As you can imagine we were very unhappy! We drove back home as the email did state 'do not travel to the airport' (a bit late now) which clocked up a further 90 miles, and driving back onto the M25 is not good just before rush hour!

You arrived at the Heathrow parking at 3:01 am.
You checked your phone while still at the parking, to note the bay number.
You never completed the journey to the airport, but drove back home.
What did you do between 3:01 am and driving back home, given that you did not drive back onto the M25 until rush hour?  Rush Hour is a good deal later than 3:01 am.

Given you were at the airport, why did you not go to ask at the BA desk?

ApolloHubble

jimi_man said:

Hi. BA will offer you a flight to suit them rather than you and will just rebook you to any old flight - hence why you got one for tomorrow night. However flight bookings are a very dynamic process and change by the minute. As others have said you should have continued on to the terminal and spoken to BA and enquired about other flights. People move their flights about all the time and the picture is never the same for very long. The 1720 has spare seats on for example. 

I'm surprised about the travel insurance? I would have thought that it would cover exactly this?

Unfortunately pretty much all of the cancellations by BA today are weather related (causing ATC flow restrictions, causing BA to have to cancel services) which means that EU (UK) 261 is not payable. Sorry. 

I've just had my EU261 payout as the reason was Operational.  The hotel has allowed us to move our booking, and we are still awaiting a response from our Travel Agent. 
If they refuse, we will have lost our car parking and train tickets - covered by 2x €220.

We have rebooked our Munich fights for later this year, looked at the other four going on the same day, and also looked at the Lufthansa flights that day too. We are now forarmed and forewarned. Thank you to all contributors to this discussion. We live and learn!

jimi_man

An excellent result. Well done.