Missed 65th birthday celebrations and 2 days holiday

urshieb

Unable to contact ANYONE at British Airways to help. As a long shot I have sent an email to one department but am dubious about receiving a response. Anyone on here PLEASE be able to tell me what to expect as recompense from BA and where to go to get a response? Copy of email here so you can see my problems.

Apologies for contacting you this way but I am distraught and at the end of my tether trying to speak to ANYONE from BA re: our horrendous BA holiday experience.

Booked full package to Las Vegas for my 65th birthday celebrations (Birthday 28th December). Should have arrived 27th December - you or rather American Airlines after your many flight changes got us there on the 29th December - the latter we had to find someone to help us in Los Angeles as no one available from BA who wanted to help in the baggage hall, just told when I was panicking about baggage taking time to come through "hell girl, you can't make that flight anyway, the gates closed and you have to go to another terminal when your luggage arrives". In floods of tears when I asked what do we do, we were told to go upstairs.

On arrival in Las Vegas we were told by the hotel (booked and paid for with you) "you should have been here 2 days ago, we will have to try to re-register you." 

Problems 

BA 1393  27th Dec 2024   Manchester to Heathrow, sat on the airplane for hours awaiting take off due to fog (which I did initially understand until 2 days later when fog far worse at Los Angeles and no delays) Told we would miss our connection to Las Vegas, given replacement connection. 

BA 0275 27th Dec 2024 Heathrow to Las Vegas Missed connection due to delays from Manchester. Sent to a hotel in London and given a flight via Los Angeles the next morning - heartbroken that I was going to start my birthday in London but hopeful of arriving eventually in Las Vegas before the end of my birthday. 

BA 269 28th Dec 2024 Heathrow to Los Angeles told 50 minute delay. Then apologies the engineers were having to get on the airplane, further delay. The captain announced on take off the generator that controls lights etc was not working and has to be started on the ground. Do not know the technicalities of this but on landing he explained that we had to wait for whatever starts this in Los Angeles. We were told to look for someone upon leaving the plane and follow their instructions. Given connection for Las Vegas. 

UA 679 28th Dec 2024 Los Angeles to Las Vegas met by someone on leaving BA 269. Handed an orange card each and told to go to a point that would fast track us through security but we must pick up our luggage as not checked through to Las Vegas due to flight changes! Waiting for luggage, noticed that we would not make the flight. Glanced at the orange label we had been given and saw we had been changed to AS 3309, BA must have realised we could not make the UA 679 flight, I was hopeful but noted that the time of this new flight was close and still no luggage. Panicking I showed a worker the new flight number and stated that I was worried as luggage still not arrived. She said "hell girl, you can't make that flight anyway, the gates closed and you have to go to another terminal when your luggage arrives." By this time I was in floods of tears and told to go upstairs for help. 

AS 3309 28th Dec 2024 Los Angeles to Las Vegas Connection missed due to having to pick luggage up so close to new connection time. Eventually found the BA desk in Los Angeles, nobody there. Told that the BA staff were out as they had a flight coming in but would return. Eventually an extremely kind American gentleman seeing me in floods of tears said he would try to help. He was gone a short while. When he came back he was full of apologies that there were no further flights available to Las Vegas that night, booked us on a morning flight and sent us to a hotel in Los Angeles. 

AA 2002 29th Dec 2024 Los Angeles to Las Vegas Thick fog had me worried after the Manchester debacle as this was even worse in LA. Thankfully absolutely no delays, planes taking off and landing as normal. We eventually got to Las Vegas, however I cannot get my missed 65th birthday celebration back. I am an end of life/palliative care nurse (formerly 37yrs in a large NHS hospital). I worked the whole of Christmas to get permission for the New Year off for my birthday!!!! One of my colleagues is married to a long haul BA pilot of I think its 30+ years service, hopefully his loyalty to you won't stop him pointing me in the direction of someone who may have some empathy for our troubles. 

New York New York Hotel, Las Vegas 29th Dec 2024 Arriving at the hotel we were informed that as we should have arrived on the 27th December we were no longer registered at the hotel. Luckily, I had emailed them on the 27th Dec just in case BA did not take the time and trouble to do so (they did not). I was in tears again, told them our difficulties with you and that we left home 62 hours previously, my birthday missed etc etc. The check in lady looked and agreed that she could see my email, I explained that I had not repeated the email on the 28th as I was too distraught to even think of it. I did point out that 11 nights including the 2 missed night stays were already paid for through BA. They stated that we have to take that up with BA. Thankfully they did re-register us at the hotel. 

BA 1398 8th Jan 2025   Heathrow to Manchester To add insult to injury, we arrived at Manchester airport, my suitcase came through in like a huge sealed plastic bag with the contents hanging out, my suitcase damaged (photographed at the airport) We were given a number 07502715595 to call. However this went to voicemail, I left a message last night and again this morning, still no response. 

We used to travel to the USA 2 to 3 times a year with Virgin, only trying BA 2019 (thankfully no problems in 2019). The difficulties experienced this time and going around in circles attempting to find someone to speak to or sympathetic to our situation have proved impossible. I would like to know where to go to receive some recompense please. My poor husband has suffered due to my intolerable miserable mood because the holiday I was excitedly looking forward to since booking in April 2024 was completely ruined. Incidentally, whilst in the London hotel, another couple also missing the same connection to Las Vegas as us, were given a new connection with Virgin to Las Vegas from Heathrow on 28th December WHY were we not given that one?? You could have got me there for my birthday. A stay in 2 strange hotels cannot even begin to make up for all these problems.

Hopefully, you will be able to get us some assistance or response to my email. 

I have kept all the flight bookings for future reference.

Caz3121

from your post it looks like there are possibly two different claims to be made
BA Holidays - I assume you have an ATOL certificate to request reimbursement of the missed hotel nights in Las Vegas
BA Airline - claim for delay compensation from London due to technical issues

maybe the other couple got the last seats available on the Virgin flight.

note: having to collect baggage on arrival in US and take it through customs is standard (there are a couple of exceptions for international to international connections at some airports but that would not apply here) from my past experiences the baggage has always been there before me but that had been due to one hour+ waits at immigration which it seems you got fast track for.

TELLIT01

Any entitlement to compensation for delays will be laid down in legislation and that element should be straightforward.  Hopefully the nights of missed accommodation will also be refunded.  Compensation for one of those travelling being in a filthy mood is less likely to be forthcoming as I suspect the entire planeload of passengers would be feeling that way.

Hoenir

Caz3121 said:

from my past experiences the baggage has always been there before me but that had been due to one hour+ waits at immigration which it seems you got fast track for.

At Atlanta last year all the priority luggage came off last ........ says it all. 

urshieb

TELLIT01 said:

Any entitlement to compensation for delays will be laid down in legislation and that element should be straightforward.  Hopefully the nights of missed accommodation will also be refunded.  Compensation for one of those travelling being in a filthy mood is less likely to be forthcoming as I suspect the entire planeload of passengers would be feeling that way.

Thank you for your reply. Thankfully for the other passengers, not many were attempting to connect in London to Las Vegas. The problems started in Manchester and continued in London. I should have removed the "mood" comment though, it was just an observation given for BA after 62 hours travelling. I was so upset at having missed my birthday. Most of the people we spoke to who were going to Las Vegas were given flights that would have got them there via other routes.

eskbanker

urshieb said:

Unable to contact ANYONE at British Airways to help. As a long shot I have sent an email to one department but am dubious about receiving a response. Anyone on here PLEASE be able to tell me what to expect as recompense from BA and where to go to get a response? Copy of email here so you can see my problems.

Apologies for contacting you this way but I am distraught and at the end of my tether trying to speak to ANYONE from BA re: our horrendous BA holiday experience.

While it's clear that you're deeply upset about the trip, it was only yesterday when you returned, so even if you contacted BA as soon as you arrived home, it's still very early days in terms of actually achieving any resolution, so best to manage expectations!

As I see it, there are essentially four separate issues where the regulations could come into play, where they should make defined payments:

1. Delay to original schedule on 27th - if this was caused by fog that was serious enough to impact on airline schedules then that's likely to constitute extraordinary circumstances beyond the airline's control, and therefore no compensation due, but no harm in trying a claim anyway
2. Delay on LHR-LAX on 28th, causing missed connection - if this was all due to a technical issue then the airline should pay fixed tariff compensation, claim via https://www.britishairways.com/content/information/delayed-or-cancelled-flights/compensation
3. Loss of two nights of holiday - the package provider (BA Holidays) should reimburse the value of these, under the Package Travel Regulations
4. Baggage damage - claim at https://www.britishairways.com/content/information/baggage-essentials/lost-and-damaged-baggage/making-baggage-claims

If you also wish to complain about softer customer service type matters then use the normal customer care channels but it will be worth differentiating between airline issues (e.g. desk staffing) and holiday company issues (e.g. not updating the hotel booking) - they may both be branded as BA but they're essentially separate businesses with different responsibilities....

bagand96

Claim for flight delay compensation for BA269 28th December here: British Airways | Feedback and Claims Portal | Select issue  This is for EC261 compensation in respect of the technical issue delay.  Note that BA269 on 28/12 landed 90mins late, and compensation only triggers after a 3 hour delay.  However it's your final destination arrival that counts, and as your missed the connection to LAS you should be eligile for the full £520 each.  This may need explaining to BA as they're not always the best.  My only niggle here is that you were already heavily delayed to LAS due to the previous delays on the 27th but I don't think that should matter.

Information on claiming for damaged baggage can be found here: Delayed, lost and damaged baggage | Information | British Airways

British Airways Holidays contact number is 0344 493 0787.  You need to talk to them to claim an appropriate refund of the hotel costs missed due to the arrival delay.  They are obliged to provide this under the Package and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018.


Sounds like a nightmare journey, especially when trying to celebrate a special occasion and missing that.  Unfortunately travelling in winter, and at a peak travel period conspired against you.

Edit: I started replying to this before seeing @eskbanker reply, which I've now basically replicated!

Westin

During your delayed travel did you at any point call BA Holidays to seek help?  Their 24/7 contact details on your holiday paperwork.