British Airways’ failures deprived me of the chance to say goodbye to my dying grandmother. After she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, my mother and I booked flights from Hong Kong, where I was working, to the UK so she could meet my newborn baby. Shortly before our trip in September, we learned that her condition had deteriorated and she was asking for us. She was desperate to hold her granddaughter before she died. My mother called the BA executive club line and our booking was changed to the earliest available flight. We duly received confirmation emails. However, at the airport I was told there was a problem with my ticket which could not be resolved before takeoff. My mother, on the same booking, was checked in successfully and I was forced to return home. I was told I could not take my original flight, either, because my ticket had been resold.
BA eventually offered me a flight the next day for an additional £1,450 which I felt I had no choice but to accept. I was then told that my return flight from the UK had been cancelled when I’d amended the outward-bound leg. I booked on to an alternative flight at an additional cost of £1,750. My mother reached my grandmother just in time to say goodbye, but I arrived too late. The two flights home were also a farce, as BA told me my baby didn’t have a ticket despite having charged me £400 for it, we missed our connection due to delays, and our luggage failed to arrive with us. BA has since refused to refund either my original booking, or the subsequent one, and has told me I’m not eligible for compensation for denied boarding. Because of its errors I am out of pocket by £3,500, and my grandmother never got to meet her great-grandchild.
KC, Hong Kong
The most extraordinary aspect of your ordeal is not BA’s incompetence, but its subsequent reaction which was dismissive, contradictory and legally illiterate. In its first response, refusing reimbursement, it explained that your mother’s request to amend the flight was not processed correctly so you did not receive a valid ticket.
“When a customer doesn’t have a valid ticket, they are not entitled to denied boarding compensation,” it wrote blithely. It went on to state that it could not refund your original ticket (that it had since resold) as you had agreed to the rebooking (which its agent then botched). “We know the ticket failed to produce on this occasion, however the reason it happened is not eligible for compensation,” it declared. What it did offer, in view of the distress caused, was a £1,000 “goodwill” voucher, worth a fraction of the flights, and which is of no use to you since you understandably intend never to use BA again.
Bott & Co, a law firm specialising in aviation cases, confirmed that, under regulation 261/2004, passengers who are denied boarding because of an administrative error on the part of an airline, are entitled to set compensation, and a refund of either the original, or any alternative, booking. This helped focus BA’s mind. It decided, five months after the fiasco, to award you and your baby your rightful compensation for the missed outbound and delayed return flights. It amounts to £1,640. “We’re sorry for our customers’ experience and our teams are in touch to resolve the matter,” it said. But it took more pressure from me to extract a refund for the two last-minute flights BA’s errors forced you to pay for.
GY of Balcombe, West Sussex was also left footing a double bill in September after BA cancelled his family’s flight home from holiday with four hours’ notice. “We were told to go to the app,” he said. “That gave us the option of a refund or an alternative flight. “We attempted to choose an alternative flight but were only offered BA flights, of which there were none for another week.”
The family felt forced to choose a refund, then discovered they were entitled to request an earlier flight with another carrier. There was a Lufthansa one the next day. BA’s portal had omitted to mention this crucial right. BA told him his refund request was irrevocable. After checking his legal rights online he called back to argue his case, but after 40 minutes waiting on hold he saw the Lufthansa flight was selling out, so paid £3,000 to secure four seats.
He said that BA had since failed to refund the original cancelled flight, or to pay for the emergency booking. It remained intransigent, saying that if GY had only been less hasty it was “extremely likely” it would have sorted the Lufthansa booking itself. It ignored the fact that its agent had refused to do this and that its app had failed to state his rights.
My advice is to take the case to the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution which can order BA to pay up if it finds in your favour.
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