I’m having difficulty getting a refund from British Airways after it cancelled our honeymoon flight to Japan with 14 hours’ notice. We were not offered an alternative flight and, by the time we received the notification, the BA call centre was closed. We therefore had to buy new tickets with another carrier. In Japan we also incurred £125 in roaming charges when calling BA to ensure it did not cancel our return tickets.
On our return, I demanded BA refund the £566 price difference between the new and cancelled flights, and pay the £520 compensation due to each of us under airline regulations. I heard nothing for weeks, and was told that my complaint could not be escalated until 90 days had passed. In the end, it took 16 weeks to send a reply, which merely offered a refund of roaming charges.
The statutory compensation was only offered when I complained again. They continued to refuse to refund us the price difference in flight tickets despite admitting “concern” that they had been unable to rebook us themselves.
LOB, London
It seems unlikely you are the only one in this situation. Airlines are obliged to offer a refund or a rebooking, with another carrier if necessary, when a flight is cancelled at short notice. But you say there were no options in your booking portal, and you couldn’t call as its helplines shut at 8pm. Nor did the cancellation notice mention the compensation you were due.
BA tells me it was your fault you incurred the costs of a new flight because you did not call it. It claims it provided a 24/7 helpline number in the cancellation email.
That’s not the case. The email, which I have seen, simply provided a link to the customer service lines that close at 8pm.
With staggering insouciance, its response rejecting your claim stated your feedback had “made a difference” to customer service improvements, and it hoped that you would book with BA again. Finally, six months after your trip and two months after I began hassling BA, it stumped up the £566.
CS of Chilton, Buckinghamshire, was also left grounded and out of pocket by BA. “There appears to be a black mark against my name on its system and, despite my bookings looking fine at my end, they won’t let me check in,” she writes.
“I was recently unable to board a flight to Edinburgh for a wedding, although my husband, whose ticket was on the same booking, was able to fly. I had to pay for another flight from another airport, which invalidated my return, so I had to buy a new ticket from BA to get home.
“The system failed to recognise my booking on that journey, too, and on a different trip I made to Geneva, although in both cases check-in staff were able to resolve it in time to board. I have asked BA to refund my £457 expenses, but it just sends automated messages saying I was a no-show.”
BA first told me you had issued a chargeback via your bank for the Edinburgh booking, which had invalidated your ticket.
You say you did no such thing. At which point BA changed its story and blamed the fact you and your husband had upgraded to business class, which caused your ticket (but not his) to “drop out of the system”.
This also seems an unlikely explanation, but BA is sticking with it. It has, at least, now refunded your additional costs, and added a gesture of goodwill.
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