[AllOverTheGaff]

Foolishly, because I found a cheap fare I booked 1st with BA. My take off time was 12:45 and I arrived at the 1st class desk at Heathrow airport 13:10 due to my separately ticketed Loganair flight being super late. *The de-icing machine was broken.

I spoke with an agent at the check in desk but as my ticket was with an agency, they refused to help. 3 hours of speaking with the agent (who was super helpful) a supervisor who could care less and a manager who proclaimed “you are not our problem Sir” I reluctantly gave up and booked another flight with another airline.

I did, of course, speak with the agent but BA would do diddly squat and promptly cancelled the entire ticket leaving me almost £5K out of pocket.

I tried to call BA 3 times pre-flight to tell them I would be late to be met with “we’re too busy to take your call, please try later”…click and also asked the agent to tell them I was running late but here I am, a few grand out of pocket.

I imagine writing to them will get the usual lacklustre response, I am curious if anyone has any legal action against them? Because it says so in the T&C’s does not make it fair business practice or legally binding, just wondering if anyone has any ideas?

And yes, I know it is my own fault for ditheringly booking with them again in spite of all I know, the very very last.

Thanks un advance.
AOTG.

[AlanOrton1]

I’m not sure it’s your fault for booking with BA, much as it’s hardly their fault your entirely unrelated prior flight was late.
Try the gold line and plead your case, they may issue you a credit for the return leg, but that’s pure guesswork.
BA are widely panned and often it’s justified. I’m not sure it really is here. As an experienced flyer you would have likely known the risk in booking a BA flight with a relatively short layover from another flight. (Unless you were on a through ticket).
If you’d flown into LHR the night beforehand, I’d imagine this wouldn’t have occurred.
I’m sorry for the situation you are in and being quids out. I hope you are able to get some redress.

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[BackOfThePlane]

While I fully appreciate how frustrating this whole situation must have been (and clearly still is), and regardless of past problems with the airline, I’m not really sure it’s a BA issue?

The same rules will apply to pretty much every airline in the world?

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[Nick Pike]

Yes, I’m not sure what the OP expects. The whole point of a cheap ticket is that you have to be there for boarding. If you pay (much) more for a flexible one you can usually take a later flight. That’s the same with planes and trains the world over…

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Montysaurus

[fqtvgla]

I had a similar problem a couple of weeks ago. My Lufthansa flight was delayed in Munich due to fog and the aircraft having to be de-iced. I was late arriving into LHR and had a separate ticket with BA. No-one would help me. I tried a few people if I could be put on standby for the next flight. I was told to either call my travel agent. I didn’t book through an agent. I had booked an Avios ticket. BA no longer have any ticketing facility at Terminal 5. How ridiculous is that? I had to call BA Avios team who could only book me on a much later flight with available Avios seats in their system even though there were seats on earlier flights I could not be put on standby. BA customer service is the pits.

[MartynSinclair]

I hope I am not tempting fate, but for my forthcoming trip to Asia, I am out of London City to Amsterdam (on a separate ticket) where my long haul ticket starts. This will be my first post covid split ticket.

My safety net in the event of my flight having a problem, there are 4 flight options subsequent to my London City departure plus I could dash to Heathrow. I also have an overnight stay in AMS, before the separately ticketed long haul sectors begin.

I will only buy multi sector trips through my trusted and very professional travel counsellor, Tim Fitzgerald who is always on hand to resolve issues.

@AOTG – a few years back (pre covid) when I bumped into a client in the T5 lounge and missed the first sector of a BA ticket, due to BA’s ‘liquid’ hospitality, they did offer to reprice the ticket for a later departure, which did cost me. Out of interest, did BA offer to re price the ticket for either a later departure or a re routed flight. I recall that ticket was also purchased via Tim F so was not a direct BA purchased ticket. And like your situation, i also got no sympathy from the Forum 🙂

[AndrewinHK]

I concur with many of the points here, While frustrating, this is not a BA issue and Loganair seems spared from blame. Bagging a cheap fare is all well and good, but when doing so build in as others have mentioned backup options, (Loganair has a sparse schedule into LHR, so any cancellation or delay made you very vulnerable to missing the connection). I always find booking directly to be much easier in the event of any issues. You made the BA staff sound horrid, and your agent lovely, but you had to speak to your agent for 3 hours? This would indicate it wasn’t a particularly easy problem to fix for anyone. All being said, I do hope you are able to recoup something, perhaps travel insurance might cover?

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[AllOverTheGaff]

My Loganair flight was meant to land 09:00 for a 12:40 connection, I did assume this would be ample time. When the deicing palaver was occurring I booked and paid for a BA flight out of EDI only for taxis to not appear in spite of 20 minutes wait, meaning I could not make it to EDI in time.

And I accept “their t&c’s say so”, and that everyone seems ok with obeying unfair rules of their ticket cancellation, my point was / is that this business practice is stacked heavily against the consumer and BA’s response was, as I have always found it to be, awful.

I’ll redress myself, was hoping someone on here had actually shown some backbone and taken BA to task for what is a pretty awful way of treating high-fare-paying customers, even retaining my return leg would have been *something* but to cancel the entire ticket for being 40 minutes beyond boarding is nonsense.

Rgds,
AOTG.

[LondonAndy70]

I can understand the frustration of the OP, but that’s the risks of booking separate tickets. I nearly always book a back to back for positioning flights, with the logic being if the outbound is delayed then the inbound will be too, or build in an overnight stay at the start of the long haul trip….

The only similar experience I had was when I was due to travel CW with my brother, and as I was leaving the office I rang to see if he was on his way. He was convinced our flight was the following day. At LHR the agent said that if I said that my brother had forgotten his passport then he’d put him on the same flight the next day. They didn’t have to do that, but I still appreciate that they did some years later.

EDIT: Having seen the post just above, did you try speaking with BA to see if they would protect the return journey?

[AllOverTheGaff]

Yeah, bad writing to make the travel agent seem nice. I was speaking with the desk agent for 3 hours, he also spoke directly with my travel agent trying to help but it seems “computer says no” is the only mantra BA have.

The check in desk agent was great, but everything he tried no one within BA seemed to want to help. He also managed to get 3 different answers from 3 different BA back-of-house ticketing agents he spoke with as to what they could do.

The travel agent was little-to-no help, the pitfalls of booking a cheap ticket were not at all lost on me following one of the most frustrating episodes I’ve had in 20 years in the travel business.

Rgds,
AOTG.

[AllOverTheGaff]

EDIT: Having seen the post just above, did you try speaking with BA to see if they would protect the return journey?

Yes, I conceded it was indeed not BA’s fault I missed the flight but could they please reinstate the return leg.

Computer says no x 5 different channels.

1) BA exec club
2) Check in agent
3) Travel agent
4) Check in supervisor
5) Check in manager – not only was “computer saying no”, his exact response was; “Sir, you are not even our customer so not our problem, speak with your agent”.

Rgds,
AOTG.

[BackOfThePlane]

@AllOverTheGaff – sorry, but what are exactly are the “unfair rules of their ticket cancellation”?

Again, despite your attempts to frame this as a BA issue, these are industry wide rules.

All airlines have booking conditions so, if you didn’t like the rules relating to your specific flights, you should have either have (a) flown in the night before to be safe (b) flown in the same day and booked a fully flexible fare or (c) flown with a different airline.

Once you made your booking you were accepting the terms and conditions of that booking.

This forum is full of posters, rightfully, castigating airlines for not living up to their own T&Cs. We / you can’t have it both ways.

As far as the airline not helping you, well, they barely have enough staff to sort out problems that do demand their attention.

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[FaroFlyer]

Like every one else on this thread I do not feel that BA is in any way to blame. You did not pay for a through ticket so there is no link / connection between 2 separate bookings. You did this to save money, and it backfired on you.

You mention that you bought these tickets through a travel agent. I am amazed that a professional travel agent would make 2 separate bookings without making very clear to you the risk that you were taking. After 20 years travelling you should also have been aware, and a professional travel agent would certainly be aware, that being a no-show for BA will cancel the entire itinerary.

In a couple of weeks I am returning from China to Portugal on BA. My origin will be in Fuzhou where CX have an evening flight with 65 minutes to connect with BA. I had planned to buy a separate ticket earlier that evening on an unrelated airline, but instead have booked a through ticket on BA stock, safe in the knowledge that if CX is delayed then they, and BA, will protect me on the next available flight.

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[JD_84]

While I totally agree with the crowd, AOTG, it was your issue and not BA’s – they have played by the T&Cs, I can only think of times where BA have not acted in line with their own T&Cs. How many times have they cancelled flights, and not rebooked PAX? How long have customers had to wait for complaints/EU261 issues to be resolved?

AOTG you have some sympathy from me, there is always something that can be done if a company wants to, but BA is not really one of those companies.

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cwoodward

[christ]

I think you would have had a better chance if you booked directly with BA as I understand it is more complicated when with third parties.

However i think if BA do anything which are outside of the terms and conditions, that is a bonus and should not be expected. I am sure they have to explain any exceptions and otherwise all would buy cheap tickets.

I have had exceptions made but these have generally been in Scotland (they used to have a BA manager…..not sure if still do or if all outsourced) and also at the First desk at Heathrow and JFK. However i would not expect and if connecting on a separate ticket, I would usually stay the night before.

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