The HfP chat thread – Wednesday 30th December

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• Paul says:

  30 Dec30 December 06:05

  Does anyone have any recent experiences of how long BA are taking to issue evouchers when a booking is cancelled online? Is it hours, days, weeks?

  • ChrisC says:

    30 Dec30 December 06:22

    Have had them come through in minutes if it’s a flight only uncomplicated booking.

    • ee says:

      30 Dec30 December 07:27

      Minutes yesterday for a simple booking albeit part paid with a customer relations voucher, part paid with cash.

      • Paul says:

        30 Dec30 December 07:36

        Great. Thanks both

• Pierre says:

  30 Dec30 December 07:05

  We were stuck in South Africa earlier this week when all direct flights from there were cancelled. I called up BA to request a reroute on one of the many indirect flights still available, but 2 different CS agents said that they were ‘unable’ to rebook us on any airlines other than BA, even after I mentioned their responsibilities under EC261 as I understood them.

  We subsequently went ahead and rebooked ourselves on an indirect flight (with AirFrance) back to the UK, and have requested that BA repay us the cost based on EC261. As expected I suppose, they have responded saying that these are ‘extraordinary circumstances’ and as such no ‘compensation’ is due under EC261.

  I don’t believe that I am claiming compensation, but rather expecting them to honour their responsibilities to get us back to our final destination under comparable circumstances. I’m planning to respond to BA with something to that effect, but just wondering if anyone has any other advice on the best way to proceed?

  • Jonathan says:

    30 Dec30 December 07:21

    How long did you give them between calling & rebooking yourself? Normally it takes a few days for them to sort out arrangements with other airlines, especially in a situation like this which was a bolt from the blue.

    They definitely would have paid out (after a bit of pushing) for duty of care for hotel etc until they could get you home but if you went ahead & rebooked yourself immediately they may argue you didn’t give them adequate opportunity.

    Either way, you’re going to need to go through BA’s complaint mechanism then issue MCOL to have any hope.

    • Anna says:

      30 Dec30 December 07:23

      Pierre had 2 refusals from BA agents, not sure how long you expect someone to keep trying in these circumstances?!

      • Michael C says:

        30 Dec30 December 07:41

        …or why you should “expect” them to change their mind when they’ve just said No twice!

      • Jonathan says:

        30 Dec30 December 10:01

        I’m not saying they are right just pointing out the likely response!

        In this situation you will almost certainly have to escalate to CEDR or MCOL so I’d want to make sure my ducks were in order before shelling out significant sums.

        My advice to others in this situation would be;

        Keep records of call times & names.
        Ensure the call handler clearly refuses rerouting rather than merely saying they can’t offer at present.
        Consider if you need to return immediately, if not I’d give it 48-72 hours to let the dust settle before booking on another carrier.
        Keep screenshots from Google Flights or similar showing the options & only book the cheapest (excluding >2 stops or >12 hour layovers).

        At the end of the day the judge/adjudicator will be assessing which side acted more reasonably whilst recognising the right to duty of care down route & to get home.

        (Without reference to the OP’s situation) I wouldn’t rely on a favourable outcome if you just book any route/carrier home without giving original carrier a reasonable opportunity to resolve. Reasonable can obviously take into account any pressing work/care obligations so may be seen differently for a couple of pensioners vs a family with children needing to get back to school.

    • A says:

      30 Dec30 December 07:42

      Doesn’t sound like the agents said “sit tight we will help in due course”, sounds like they said “we can’t help” so not sure what else passengers could do

  • BS says:

    30 Dec30 December 07:21

    Yup. BAs policy is ridiculous, and wrong. You are entitled to the cost of the reroute – there is no extraordinary circumstances exemption. You will have to go via CEDR or MCOL. There is advice on the flyer talk forum on the sort of letter you have to send in order to do this. Make sure you keep all receipts/emails etc and charge them for all the calls, time spent, etc.

  • Anna says:

    30 Dec30 December 07:22

    You are right, this is not compensation but rather your re-routing rights under EU261 and BA as usual are talking nonsense. You need to get an email from them stating that their refusal to pay out is their final position and referring you to CEDR (or MCOL if that’s your preferred method). Once you get this you can submit a claim for your flights plus any other costs you feel you incurred (some people on here recommend claiming interest). I found CEDR extremely efficient when I claimed delay compensaton last year which BA tried to wriggle out of, but I know other people have used MCOL successfully. I think @meta claimed recently for replacement flights and was successful, though I can’t recall which method was used.

  • A says:

    30 Dec30 December 07:40

    As per posters above:

    – this isn’t a claim for compensation but for rerouting under EC261 (which duties are not suspended due to COVID);
    – they refused you twice, and the situation was potentially time-sensitive as you were already out of the country so they don’t really have a leg to stand on if they say you didn’t give them adequate opportunity – you called twice and twice they refused to assist
    – you will need to claim at MCOL or CEDR and should be successful as this is a fairly open and shut case
    – BA will likely only pay out once you’ve brought it to MCOL/CEDR and possibly only after the case has progressed

  • Harry T says:

    30 Dec30 December 07:51

    You are not entitled to compensation under EC261 due to the recent decision to allow airlines to be exempt from this if disruption is related to the coronavirus. However, BA should have rerouted you on another carrier or their next available flight, and have a duty of care which includes paying for your accommodation and food costs whilst you are awaiting your alternative flight. As others have said, BA are likely to be obstructive about this but you should destroy them in court if your account of the events is accurate. I wish you all the best with your claim.

    • Anna says:

      30 Dec30 December 08:06

      It needs reporting to the CAA that BA continue to lie to people and effectively leave them stranded abroad instead of fulfilling their legal obligations. There must be huge numbers of examples of this (even from HFP readers; I got “We can only re-route you to Dubai” when our AUH flights were cancelled, in the event it wasn’t a problem but it still wasn’t true!).

    • Catalan says:

      30 Dec30 December 09:06

      Out of interest, in situations like this, during the pandemic. Does the government or your travel insurance bare any responsibility in getting you repatriated? Last week a HfP reader was in the same situation with Virgin.

      • Anna says:

        30 Dec30 December 09:17

        It would depend on the Ts and Cs of your travel policy and many are not covering covid-related matters. I think the government would only get involved if people were truly stranded with no other options of getting home.

        • Nick says:

          30 Dec30 December 11:17

          This is a tricky situation, there’s a provision in law for ‘custom and practice’, which in airline world means it can take a few days to get reprotection agreements set up. But it does sound as if there was a breakdown in communication and the OP wasn’t asked to wait a few days, so (assuming his description of the calls is accurate), they should pay up. They won’t want it actually taken to court if there’s a record of a customer calling twice to try to sort it. On a tangent, I’m surprised AF was cheapest, but miracles happen I suppose.

        • Nick says:

          30 Dec30 December 11:20

          I personally would always start with insurance though. Much easier for them to sort out new flights (and claim cost directly from BA) than have to fight them myself. All my travel insurance policies allow for this.

      • Brian says:

        30 Dec30 December 11:19

        No idea but would travelling against foreign office advice mean that they don’t have any responsibility? There were some repatriation flights arranged in April/May for example

        (I don’t know what the advice was at the time the poster travelled so I’m not saying they did travel despite foreign office advice)

        • Nick says:

          30 Dec30 December 11:21

          Government has no formal responsibility for ‘repatriation’ at all. It’s not a standard consular service. They may do something as (effectively) a goodwill gesture, as we saw in March, but it’s not law.

        • Anna says:

          30 Dec30 December 12:17

          There is some sort of provision whereby holiday companies have to pay into a fund to cover repatriation flights in the event of an airline going bust, I think, but I’m not sure if it extends to other circumstances.

• Yuff says:

  30 Dec30 December 07:18

  In my quest to trigger Hilton diamond I did a points and cash booking at a Hampton earlier this month and it has processed under 3c payments rather than Hilton. I was also trying to trigger my Amex offer hence using the cash and points option, is it worth a call to Amex?

  • ee says:

    30 Dec30 December 07:30

    We did two UK Doubletree stays using two different Amex cards. Both billed as 3C then the hotel name and both triggered the Amex offer fine after a couple of days.

    • Yuff says:

      30 Dec30 December 07:59

      Thanks EE, I won’t call tthem 👍🏻😄

  • southlondonphil says:

    30 Dec30 December 08:40

    Don’t worry, anyone doing over ~£100k of business a year will have their own Merchant ID and should thus trigger any Amex offer, even when using payment platforms like 3C.

    It’s smaller merchants using services like Paypal, Square or iZettle to process payments that you have to be a bit more careful with, this is part why Shop Small transactions can sometimes go awry.

• Jab and Go says:

  30 Dec30 December 07:55

  Oxford vaccine approved
  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55280671

  • Rhys says:

    30 Dec30 December 08:53

    Only the double full dose. Will be interesting to see if the half-full dose gets approval at a later stage (and if it is actually more effective or just a statistical snafu)

    • DavidC says:

      30 Dec30 December 10:11

      Government suggesting 12 weeks between doses not 3…

      • Rhys says:

        30 Dec30 December 10:32

        Didn’t see that but interesting. I wonder if that changes the efficacy?

        • DavidC says:

          30 Dec30 December 11:10

          Who knows but it certainly changes the supply:demand ratio.

        • The Savage Squirrel says:

          30 Dec30 December 11:31

          As a rough summary…
          The 1/2 dose then full dose was an accident in the trial. There weren’t many people in that subset, so there’s quite a high chance that this is simply a statistical accident. There is a decent size trial running with this protocol but that will be a few months yet. As we don’t have any full trial completed with that protocol it can’t possibly be licenced as effectiveness has not been demonstrated with any sort of acceptable certainty.

          The more exciting news is, as Rob mentions, that waiting 3 months between two full doses (which was done on a much larger cohort as part of the original study so very likely to be a genuine result) appears to get to 90%, which is excellent. It also means that more people can get at least some protection from the first dose quickly, as you don’t have to stop seeing new people after 3 weeks to spend the next 3 weeks on 2nd doses; although this does trade off the much longer wait until “full” proitection – as well as the risk that people will think they are invincible/safe and behave accordingly for a full 3 months after the first dose.

  • Anna says:

    30 Dec30 December 09:18

    Jab & Go – that’s the current Ryanair slogan, which has surely got to be misleading customers!!

    • Dick Steele says:

      30 Dec30 December 09:55

      When has Ryanair not been misleading 😂

• Ceri Chaplin says:

  30 Dec30 December 08:23

  Has anyone bought one if the gift certificates for India. Currently offering 25% off flights by buying a gift voucher.

  Currently planning a trip to South America in November and wondered if this can be combined with using avoid to discount as well.

  • Anna says:

    30 Dec30 December 08:36

    It’s unclear what you’re trying to do here – which airline/s are you talking about?!

    • David says:

      30 Dec30 December 10:12

      I believe:
      India = Iberia
      avoid = Avios

      • C says:

        30 Dec30 December 11:04

        Someone said in the chat a few days ago that the Iberia gift vouchers can’t be used against avios bookings as per the T&C’s

      • Ceri Chaplin says:

        30 Dec30 December 16:52

        Doh. Thanks David!

      • Mco says:

        30 Dec30 December 19:23

        🙂

  • Toby says:

    30 Dec30 December 11:30

    I considered this but the terms are too restrictive for our 2021 teavel. It can be used only on flights operated by IB or their franchises, and must be used in 1 year. So we can’t use it on BA operated flights to the Canaries even when booked on the IB website with IB flight numbers.

• Anna says:

  30 Dec30 December 08:25

  Is there any way of getting a full points pricing on a Hilton hotel if you haven’t got the full amount of points required? I’m considering changing our Dubai booking from the Doubletree Jumeirah to the Hilton Jumeirah but most of my points are tied up in the orignal booking. Prices seem to change during the stay and the system will only show the price for the first night. Is the only option to search all nights separately?!

  • Anna says:

    30 Dec30 December 08:34

    Also, if I book 2 rooms on one booking, would this only count as one stay for the current promotion (so should I book 2 rooms separately?).

    • Rob says:

      30 Dec30 December 09:55

      2nd stay would need to be on the account of another person for it to count. Hilton IT will void a 2nd booking on same account for same dates.

  • AndyW says:

    30 Dec30 December 08:47

    I think if you log out of your account and search you can see the points rate for the full booking.

    • Genghis says:

      30 Dec30 December 09:03

      ^ This

    • Anna says:

      30 Dec30 December 09:20

      The problem is that then doesn’t show the 4 for 5 nights discount as it doesn’t know you’re entitled to it (so you would still have to know which night was cheapest to work it out).

      I’ve now cancelled the original booking and done 1 x 10 nights on points, 1 x 5 nights on points and 1 x 5 nights on cash. This saves me 3 nights worth of points and will hopefully trigger the current bonus points offer somewhere along the line!

• Green Plastic says:

  30 Dec30 December 08:32

  Any hotel recommendations for Winchester? Have a wedding to attend there in May. Tempted by Four Seasons Hampshire but it’s still a 30 minute drive from the venue. Open to more local suggestions if there are any 🙂

  • Pierre says:

    30 Dec30 December 09:25

    We spent a night at Lainston house a couple of years ago, and liked it. Alternatively, depending on what you’re looking for and how many people you are, earlier this year we stayed a few days in a super charming little cottage in Cheriton called ‘Peppercorn Cottage’. It sleeps 4 in theory, though we found it perfect for just the 2 of us.

    • Green Plastic says:

      30 Dec30 December 09:51

      Thanks Pierre will definitely look into those

  • Stuart Evans says:

    30 Dec30 December 11:03

    Hotel du Vin also very nice, although its been a few years since we were there

  • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

    30 Dec30 December 11:10

    Slim pickings in the city itself: Hotel du Vin and Wykeham Arms are probably your best options in town. Lainston House if you want something more rural.

• Heather says:

  30 Dec30 December 09:18

  Does anyone have experience of using virgin companion vouchers from the virgin money.
  I want to book the outward flights as soon as available, but wondered if I could call when the return flights are available and have the voucher applied and book?

  • dezbez says:

    30 Dec30 December 12:01

    I don’t think you should have any problems, Virgin has been ultra flexible when I recently used my voucher (not quite this exact situation).
    Worth confirming with them though when ringing to book the outbound leg.
    Tbh – there seems to be so much availability for next year that even if you can’t do it I’d be surprised if you miss out on the outbound flights.

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