The HfP chat thread – Thursday 7th January

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• kitten says:

  7 Jan7 January 17:03

  Call them and ask is No their final answer because they failed to provide duty of care, in particular rerouting, but the rest of duty of care obligations as well. Ask if they would like any more time to review this in which case you would wish for their answer within 14 days.

  Unlikely they will do anything other than repeat their refusal because BA are $hit at equipping contact staff to provide the full duty of care they are required to.

  When they refuse tell them without prejudice (important to open with these 2 words) you are prepared to accept just the 350 euros reimbursement for the actual replacement transport you were forced by their denial of duty of care to buy, provided they agree within this conversation and provide you the reimbursement within 14 days. Failing which you will make a money claim online which will additionally include meals for the extra travelling /waiting day(s) (?), phone expenses, transport between airport(s) and station(s), time spent excessively having to communicate with BA and arranging alternative transport at passenger’s professional rate, all plus 8% statutory interest and of course you will also claim filing fees if they force you to claim in court.

  Regardless of whether they agree or not (99.9% they wont), following the call send email headed Letter Before Action saying the above giving them 14 days to pay otherwise you will proceed to court. Get the email address off them or screenshot a website contact if that’s what they force you to do.

  You dont need to detail any exact cost in the conversation just mention the sorts of costs that were also incurred -except the 350 ticket cost – save the fill exact costs for your moneyclaimonline dot gov dot uk submission.

  BA likely to settle in full near court decision after MCOL and anecdotally too stupid to agree to the 350 euros so dont leave out any reasonable cent you can add on MCOL since they’re putting you to the trouble.

  If you could have flown on, say Ryanair for overall very much less, better have why you didn’t ready eg close enough reasonable market cost, exigent circs mean running out of time so just took something reasonable, other airlines also close enough to that expensive, etc.

  please post for us how you get on

  • Aston100 says:

    7 Jan7 January 17:15

    Who was this a reply to?

  • kitten says:

    7 Jan7 January 17:32

    Ps pete, case is strong and not ambiguous so could do /threaten CEDR as well

  • Pete says:

    7 Jan7 January 17:34

    Thanks for the detailed response! I am tempted to try the CEDR route first, though, as it feels a lot simpler, quicker and cheaper – as long as I get the 350 Euros back I’d be quite happy!

    • kitten says:

      7 Jan7 January 17:48

      yes, cedr probably a bit quicker than mcol and yr case very unambiguous other than why 350 euros instead of £8 Ryanair that we are used to seeing. so provided 350 reasonable answer why then cedr instead of mcol

      • Pete says:

        7 Jan7 January 17:59

        Yea – will definitely explain that. Mainly that it was unclear whether the EZ/FR/LH flights would go. We could go down the route that EZ and FR don’t have J, but not sure that’s an ideal angle! 😛

    • kitten says:

      7 Jan7 January 18:23

      if they make you do cedr or mcol then they win if you only claim the ticket cost.

      the whole point of their refusal is to intimidate you so as to deter you from going through to completion of a court claim (done by mcol if under £10k) or CEDR. If they don’t intimidate you they aim to wear you down also so you fail to complete a claim.

      BA do this even in slam dunk cases. They do not train or enable contact agents routinely to provide the duty of care nor compensation the passenger is often clearly entitled to. This is deliberate and even in these times, especially as people are being abandoned by BA overseas illegally when BA has cancelled their return flight, deserves the attention of the regulator.

      If these deliberate illegal responses by BA to justified claims fail to deter the abandoned passenger from claiming, then BA wins because they kept the passenger’s ticket money in their own pocket for longer and did not have ro borrow so much money, because they could use the passenger’s money in their business meanwhile. Either to avoid borrowing costs or to increase their returns in BA’s business meanwhile.

      So long as passengers exchange emails or keep calling BA or just fall into despair trying to get BA to pay the ticket money they are legally obliged to, BA keeps their money. For that 1% or less of customers that still files a claim, BA is probably keeping their money for 9months for MCOL? 3-5 months for CEDR? as well as all the time the passenger tried to get their money off BA before claiming. So BA still wins.

      If compensation is also due as well as duty of care (temporarily airlines have a getout on the compensation part due to Covid) then on this is also true about the extra compensationn figure of up to about 600 euros they may also legally owe you.

      So if BA forces you to CEDR or MCOL, the least you can do is add everything possible that is vaguely reasonable for you to add, such as the list I gave above, to your claim.

      I am aware some of the above could be slanderous but it is my personal opinion based on numerous public reports of BA’s behaviour and that of other airlines here and elsewhere. So there.

  • Wollhouse says:

    7 Jan7 January 17:52

    That’s really helpful Kitty as despite calling 3 times for a cancelled flight edi-bkk BA refusing to reroute me on Qatar (same dates, and BA is NOT flying at all until the next month). I live in Scotland so think or MCOL procedure is slightly different, but suspect I’ll be headed that way. Just feels slightly risky to have to buy 2 business class flights w Qatar as it’s coming in over £6k for me as I don’t have their agreements!

    • Wollhouse says:

      7 Jan7 January 17:52

      Sorry, Kitten!

    • Pete says:

      7 Jan7 January 18:00

      Yea, that’s quite a commitment, isn’t it…! Ours feels like a nice, relatively small number to test it on! 🙂

    • kitten says:

      7 Jan7 January 18:29

      Section 75 on your credit card Wollhouse if you can do it should provide cost of replacement flight without you having to find money you dont have or be out of pocket. Amex charge card Platinum level might provide same. Sometimes life’s just too short for MCOL if you can get it the above way.

      Have no doubt in most cases the card is recovering from BA as your card has bigger lawyers than you.

    • Clive says:

      7 Jan7 January 21:04

      I know everyone loves their Avios and tier points but have you looked at Swiss via AMS. It was pricing around £1000 ea

      • Rob says:

        7 Jan7 January 22:02

        Lots of people have had trouble with ex-EU Swiss and Lufty deals during corona, with the airlines insisting that a rebooking was done from the same starting point – and with no offers on, the fare difference was huge.

    • kitten says:

      8 Jan8 January 12:25

      Kitty’s fine.

• Wally1976 says:

  7 Jan7 January 17:41

  Anyone know if the new Amex PayPal £15 off £70 offer is cumulative or has to be done in one go?

  • Rob says:

    7 Jan7 January 18:17

    The wording implies ‘one go’ as it says ‘a transaction’. You can never be sure with Amex though.

    Business cards get £50 by the way.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      7 Jan7 January 18:19

      £50 off £70?

      • Andrew says:

        7 Jan7 January 19:14

        £50 off £250 I saw

      • Rob says:

        7 Jan7 January 22:06

        £50 off £250

    • Steven says:

      7 Jan7 January 22:39

      Nothing showing in my Business Platinum.

  • mark2 says:

    7 Jan7 January 18:52

    This morning I bought a £70 John Lewis/Waitrose gift card using PayPal. You cannot buy an e-card so have to pay £3 postage.
    (Please prove me wrong)

    • mark2 says:

      7 Jan7 January 18:53

      should have said received a confirmation email from Amex almost instantaneously!

  • TechnoT says:

    7 Jan7 January 20:40

    I got a 70 quid M&S e-gift card. Got the AMEX confirmation e-mail instantly. Still waiting on M&S to send the actual gift card 🙂

• Alex says:

  7 Jan7 January 18:13

  Looking for any suggestions, I currently have the Virgin+ Card which is due for renewal in February as I got an email reminder today. Is the £160 worth it? I have 2 x 241’s I have to use in coming 18 months plus earning another 1 at least in that time. I have circa 90K of VS points and currently 1 voucher. If I call them could I potentially get price reduced? Any retention offers like Amex?

  • Dan says:

    7 Jan7 January 20:13

    Very few companies are like Amex in their approach to loyalty – as they are a membership based company – so will do more to retain you hence the offers etc.

    Given that there’s a free version of the card that you are talking about, I”d say the chances of getting any goodwill gesture are unlikely.

  • Daryl says:

    7 Jan7 January 21:43

    I called Virgin+ Card team on the 1st Jan with the same question, the answer I got from the agent, after he spoke with his supervisor was no waiving of the card fee, or any extra bonus points to keep the card, I cancelled there & then.

    But I had the exact opposite with Amex Platinum a few days earlier, called to cancel saying not worth the fee with no travel likley during 2021, & straight away she offered me 35,000 points to keep card for another year, I did try my luck asking for double points for the next few months , but she said they are not offering that.

• kitten says:

  7 Jan7 January 18:34

  Wollhouse you cant choose the exact airline BA reroutes you on. provided they come up with the most reasonably close available alternate proposal up to them to choose not you.

  Of course if they outright refuse to reroute you then you can make any reasonable choice

  • Wollhouse says:

    7 Jan7 January 20:21

    They’re not offering ANY reroute… and Im in Scotland so Im more limited. Qatar would be great as they go from EDI, but we just need to get to BKK (assuming that’s going to be happening in sep!)

    • kitten says:

      7 Jan7 January 20:32

      glad to hear that Wollhouse. I’d be booking Qatar quick as a rat up a drainpipe 🙂 too.

      See above for ways of funding it if there’s enough time.

      • kitten says:

        7 Jan7 January 20:33

        er.. below

• Jas Gill says:

  7 Jan7 January 19:09

  OT
  Happy New Year all. Please can anyone advise if there is any way of extending a 2 4 1 voucher. I have three due to expire later this year and don’t want them going to waste but don’t see any real opportunities to use them either.
  Many thanks

  • Genghis says:

    7 Jan7 January 19:24

    Book a cheap RFS then wrap it in a FTV to be used and travelled by April 22?

    • TGLoyalty says:

      7 Jan7 January 20:52

      Only issue could be it locks in the +1

  • Rob says:

    7 Jan7 January 22:05

    Yes there is. Book a random trip (London to Manchester) and then cancel it for a Future Travel Voucher. This extends your 241 for the life of the FTV, which is 30/4/22. All travel must be completed by 30/4/22 though. You can change the destination when you redeem the voucher by paying extra Avios and taxes on top.

• kitten says:

  7 Jan7 January 19:59

  you can also claim in mcol or cedr before you pay if there’s enough time. In that case pay a travel agent’s reasonable reservation fee (that you add to your claim), say someone like Trailfinders or a work travel agent if helpful, and get them to make the sort of reservation that doesn’t have to be ticketed, ie wouldnt have to be paid, until, say, 1 week or 72hrs before the flight (on another airline would be best). Some even used to be ticketable till the last minute. Must be cancellable if not ticketed without charge. Not impossible to find these. Just put in writing instructions to agent not to ticket without your specific written instruction to ticket that particular ticket and to hold the reservation until they receive this written instruction.

  The higher price this will likely be, if you are seriously going to be out of pocket though, is not your issue if that is your only option if you are going to be seriously out of pocket / under financial stress otherwise. Why should BA’s financial stress be yours? That would give you the cost to claim and protect you from further price rises meanwhile.

• James says:

  7 Jan7 January 20:41

  Ladies and gentlemen of HFP, another EU261 question here. I’d booked a flight with Swiss to Johannesburg (via Zurich) on 28 Dec. On 24 Dec Swiss notified me that the flight was cancelled, so I rang and took a full refund (I had wanted to move to much later in 2021 but the agent refused without paying a fare difference despite me protesting my EU261 rights…).

  I probably wouldn’t have pursued €600 EU261 compensation as I figured Swiss would claim ‘extraordinary circumstances’ due to COVID but later noticed that both the LHR-ZRH (LX317) and ZRH-JNB (LX288) flights seemingly operated on 28th Dec as normal (at least according to Flightera).

  I’ve pursued it with Swiss who have refused (oddly on grounds that by taking a refund I gave up my rights to compensation…) so I’m looking to pursue further. Two questions – I appreciate the help in advance:

  1) Any views on success chance? It’s a slightly odd one in that I was notified of cancellation but the flight went ahead (so more like involuntary offloading)

  2) Swiss complaints go through SOP instead of CEDR; does anyone have any experience of them?

  • ChrisC says:

    7 Jan7 January 21:37

    Because you took the refund and didn’t fly compensation is not due.

    This thread on flyer talk looks like it could have some useful info (but I’ve not read it all)

    https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/swiss-international-air-lines/2030889-flights-uk-south-africa-cancelled-rebooking.html

    As an aside whilst Switzerland is signed up to EU261 not all aspects of it – especially those that have been implemented or clarified by court rulings – apply so it’s not as cut and dried as other countries are.

    • James says:

      8 Jan8 January 00:10

      Thanks Chris; useful link and information on Switzerland’s EU261 involvement

      On your point about not being eligible for compensation because I took a refund, this is not my read of EU261. Article 5 is very clear that the compensation entitlement is only waived for a cancellation within 7 days if re-routing if offered allowing me to depart less than 1hr before/arrive less than 2hrs after OR if there are extraordinary circumstances. As mentioned, I naturally assumed that the extraordinary circumstances would take hold due to COVID until I saw that the flights had departed on schedule.

      • kitten says:

        8 Jan8 January 11:59

        hi James

        having seen Nick_C’s link I think especially as you chose to claim to the SOP – whom without knowledge I would suspect of having been partial to Swiss/Switzerland regs even if they shouldn’t apply without verification to citizens of other countries – this is getting a bit stickier.

        If you were offloaded due to flight loadings then much better hence my suggestion not just to verify agaim that the flight went but how many passengers.

        If loadings very light then it looks like Switzerland might have banned even transit passengers from UK if not Swiss/Swiss residents on your day of travel. They shouldnt have assumed you didnt have those rights or another valid reason to transit and in cancelling you but the flight going they have laid themselves open to a claim for compo if they did not clear this and as they cancelled before you would have had to anyway, technically it’s their cancellation so they should have given you a reroute when you asked.

        But Swiss has got away with a lot even before Covid so I can only think they succeeded in this under the eyes of the SOP.

        So could be worth looking into was transit banned on your day and when and recalling if they checked your citizenship/residency status with you before cancelling. The fact you had British passport details on your bookibg IMV should not mean they could assume without checking with you whether you had Swiss rights as well

        However I think the SOPus going to take a narrow “Swiss view” and did what was best for Switzerland at the time so tough. Subject to your checking into the above of course but maybe even then.

        So you may still be able to MCOL it in the UK and I think the UK court (not necessarily CEDR) would decide on the tevhnical facts.

• ChrisC says:

  7 Jan7 January 21:13

  National Express Suspending services

  “From 23:59 on Sunday 10 January 2021 all of our coach services will be temporarily suspended”

  https://www.nationalexpress.com/en/help/live-service-updates

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