British Airways - Compensation Claim

Rocket_Dog_2

Recently had a bad experience with BA when going on a 2 week skiing holiday to the USA. They cancelled our direct flight out of Heathrow Terminal 4 and then we ended up being rerouted via LA from Terminal 5 (and having an overnight stop in LA as BA took caused us to miss our connection). They then lost most of our luggage, we were reunited with it at check in at Denver for our flight home. They have replied to our compensation claim letter with a very bog standard BA letter which totally ignores all the points that we made. We're very angry and don't want to give up our cause. Just wondering if anyone has any advice or has had any similar experiences. If we have to go through the Small Claims Court then so be it. If what you read in the press is true, it seems BA were happy to fork out GBP10,000 to Kate Moss when they lost her baggage but clearly have a complete disregard for regular "non-celeb" travellers !

cundall

what have they offered you?

Rocket_Dog_2

GBP861 which is in accordance with the Montreal convention according to BA. As our claim exceedee that amount they just told us to claim from our travel insurance.

jonesMUFCforever

They have offered you £861!
What was the total cost to begin with?

Rocket_Dog_2

Holiday cost was around GBP3,500 but we have GBP1,400 of out of pocket expense (ski gear etc and flights from LA to Denver which they told us to book ourselves and then claim back from them !)

jonesMUFCforever

Bank the £861 but make it clear that it is part payment only and not a full and final settlement.

Is there any reason why you are not claiming on your travel insurance?

Rocket_Dog_2

I don't feel that we should be out of pocket due to policy excesses etc etc but apart from that, I had told BA we wanted compensating for the overall loss of enjoyment of our holiday due to their screw ups. We were shopping and sorting out ski hire etc day after day when we should have been skiing (had our ski equipment and luggage been with us).

Hagar_uk

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

Bank the £861 but make it clear that it is part payment only and not a full and final settlement.

Is there any reason why you are not claiming on your travel insurance?

This is very unwise!. Once you take their money the game is over, as my accepting payment you are agreeing to their compensation. And once done you will not have a leg to stand on in trying to get more

Rocket_Dog_2

Hagar - Yep, agreed. I think they are just trying to fob us off, after all there are no doubt plenty more letters in the system similar to ours where customers are looking to be compensated by BA. Guess utimately we respond and reiterate what we feel is due and stick it out.

robledouk

might be worth a post on Flyertalk. They`re frequent flyers with BA and know the ins and outs of this sort of thing

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=446

headpin

Was it the holiday or just the flights with BA?

If only the flights their only obligation is to get you to the destination - in your case (sorry for the pun!!) Denver. They only appear to have got yiou to LA and then suggested you make your own arrangements to Dever and they would reimburse.

So what exactly does the £861 supposedly cover? How did they arrive at this amount. How much were your internal LA - DEN flights. Personally I think you will be lucky to get anymore out of BA if they have covered the internal flights plus a bit mor3 for loss/late arrival of clothes, etc. Your travel insurance is what you need to claim on for delay of luggage and the like. Unfortunately international law is not very good at compoensating for lost/delayed luggage at the moment and with the T5 fiasco it is highly unlikley BA will want to pay out too much more than a compensatory sweetener over and above what they are legally required to pay. Of course had you been delayed at this end or had your flight cancelled EU law gives you much stronger rights and remedies and sets down compo levels.

Keep trying, but I would suggest that you put your insurers on notice in case you do not get anything out of BA and your time limit for submitting a claim is past. Better to get a few hundred £££ from the insurer less the (£50?) excess or whatever, than nothing from BA and/or the insurer surely?