BA Compensation - stick or push for more?

cuccir

Hope this is the right place - not sure if it is but my query doesn't quite fit neatly into any of the categories!

In August, I flew with British Airways and I prebooked some food. I'll spare you the details, but the long and short of it was that they weren't able to provide the food because the menu had changed and they didn't have a suitable equivlaent. Staff were very kind and accomodating, but still, I'd paid for something and so emailed afterwards asking for a refund of £18.

BA replied by offering a £45 eVocuher off flights. While that is more than the £18, I wasn't overly impressed. I don't live near London and where most of their flights go from, and have to travel in the more expensive school holidays, so they are relatively rarely a convenient or particularly good-value option for me (this was the first time I'd ever flown with BA for leisure, though I have used them with work before). £45 is not much of a discount on their products when I'm buying family flights, and I felt I'd be unlikely to use it

So I replied asking either for a full refund or, if they'd rather use eVocuhers, that I'd like £200 of them (I thought I might as well ask big!). They've now sent a second £45 voucher, so I have £90 in total.

Should I quit there? It is still quite a bit short of what I asked, and still leaves me in the position of having to book with BA in order to get recompense for their failure to deliver I product I had bought. But £90 is starting to get into meaningful discount territory. If they had offered a little bit more I'd be pretty happy with the outcome. I am wondering if I should reply saying that to settle for vouchers ratehr than a refund, I'd take one more £45 voucher to use... or should I consider myself well off to have got an extra ~£70 out of them (compared to what I had previously spent) and leave it there...?

MattMattMattUK

cuccir said:

Hope this is the right place - not sure if it is but my query doesn't quite fit neatly into any of the categories!

In August, I flew with British Airways and I prebooked some food. I'll spare you the details, but the long and short of it was that they weren't able to provide the food because the menu had changed and they didn't have a suitable equivlaent. Staff were very kind and accomodating, but still, I'd paid for something and so emailed afterwards asking for a refund of £18.

BA replied by offering a £45 eVocuher off flights. While that is more than the £18, I wasn't overly impressed. I don't live near London and where most of their flights go from, and have to travel in the more expensive school holidays, so they are relatively rarely a convenient or particularly good-value option for me (this was the first time I'd ever flown with BA for leisure, though I have used them with work before). £45 is not much of a discount on their products when I'm buying family flights, and I felt I'd be unlikely to use it

So I replied asking either for a full refund or, if they'd rather use eVocuhers, that I'd like £200 of them (I thought I might as well ask big!). They've now sent a second £45 voucher, so I have £90 in total.

Should I quit there? It is still quite a bit short of what I asked, and still leaves me in the position of having to book with BA in order to get recompense for their failure to deliver I product I had bought. But £90 is starting to get into meaningful discount territory. If they had offered a little bit more I'd be pretty happy with the outcome. I am wondering if I should reply saying that to settle for vouchers ratehr than a refund, I'd take one more £45 voucher to use... or should I consider myself well off to have got an extra ~£70 out of them (compared to what I had previously spent) and leave it there...?

Personally I would. That is actually enough to get you a return flight to a European City for one and a half people when they have some deals on. They have given you more than five times what you missed out on, potentially more so if you account for some food you may have been given that was not part of the £18.

saajan_12

Simple question of how much value is the £90 credit to you? If the voucher has an expiry date and you likely won't travel on BA in that time, then it has deminished value. If you would otherwise pick a different airline which is £60 cheaper, then this is only worth £30 to you. If £100 cheaper, then this has no value to you. 

Ultimately I wouldn't feel bad about getting "more" out of them - evidently keeping the £18 cash is worth more to them than getting a repeat customer, else they'd have offered the cash. 

silvercar

You could always ask for compensation in Avios instead of cash. Then convert it to nectar and spend in Sainsbury or Argos. They may be more amenable to Avios. Do check, but I thought BA evouchers could be used by anyone not just the person who they were issued to, in which case it is just a case of finding someone who is planning on flying with BA and asking a favour.