Can I just skip the last leg of a BA journey?
Back to Forum- This topic has 109 replies, 32 voices, and was last updated 31 Dec 2015
at 17:48 by jjlasne.
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MartynSinclairParticipant@simonS1 – but the passenger wouldn’t have completed the journey. Depends on the required Dr’s letter that would be needed….
30 Aug 2015
at 19:29
MrMichaelParticipantI am pleased to say my old buddy has made a full recovery and is really upset he missed his trip to Oslo;-) , he may have ,met Martyn there I understand!
Surely a few things are required here, airline needs to contact my old buddy and make a claim… As he did not see a doctor or get any form of sickness certificate it is doubtful the insurance company would pay up….no proof he was ill. So they are left with chasing up MrR….who surely did them a favour by not flying when he did not feel fit enough to do so. They could I guess take him to court for the missed leg money……but I cannot see a court upholding BA on a passenger actually doing them a favour and not flying…..and not asking for any money back from BA for the lost last leg.
30 Aug 2015
at 23:09
ninnicabParticipantSorry if this is a question covered elsewhere. I am a regular reader but it’s my first time posting.
I am BA bronze and only travel for leisure but I have noticed that flights departing from CDG or FRA via Heathrow are much cheaper than booking to leave from Heathrow.
Is there any rule that stops me buying, say CDG-KUL and not taking the flight from CDG to Heathrow? This would save me £250 rtn in WT+ and also allow me to use Avios to upgrade.
7 Sep 2015
at 01:29
stevescootsParticipantYou have to start the Journey in CDG, or you are listed as a no-show and the onward journey is invalid
7 Sep 2015
at 06:29
LuganoPirateParticipantIs there not a double risk here? Referring to the Oslo trip, not only are you not completing the Oslo – Oslo long haul part by not flying the last leg, but presumably also the return leg of the positioning flight (assuming you’ve used BA) which is much cheaper than buying a single fare?
7 Sep 2015
at 06:59
AnthonyDunnParticipant@ ninnicab – 07/09/2015 02:29 BST
If you go back to the OP, you will see this topic done to death.
If you don’t take the flight from CDG-LHR (or from wherever), then your ticket will be annulled. You are also strongly advised to complete the entire itinerary on the return because there is also a risk that non-completion will lead to BA recalculating the fare basis and demanding an additional sum to pay. Beyond that, try using ITA Matrix software to find out where the cheapest ex-EU jump-off point is. AMS often scores well and, for fares to the USA, both DUB and OSL appear to come out well.
7 Sep 2015
at 07:09
SimonS1ParticipantThe risk of being penalised for not flying the last leg is so small as to be non-existent.
No-one on here, FT or any of the other airline forums has ever come up with an example of a fare re-calculation taking place.
Returning to the OP your best bet is to ensure the final leg back to (say) Dublin is from a different London airport. That way you can collect your bags, forget the last leg (unless for some reason you want the TPs) and head home.
7 Sep 2015
at 10:31
Ah,Mr.BondParticipantMrMichael – I hope your old buddy is not expecting to turn up at LHR for a trip straignt back to HKG and BNE. Ain’t going to happen.
7 Sep 2015
at 11:04
TimFitzgeraldTCParticipantThought I post this from FT which highlights the issues of booking an Ex-EU via an agent and not taking last leg. Can put agents in a precarious position. If you plan to drop last leg then must always book online.
“Hello everyone,
To those who don’t know me, My name is xxxx and I run an agency called yyyyyyyy that serves a specific niche of very frequent flyers with complex itineraries. I have the honour to have served many of you.
This is my personal EX-EU horror story. Of course, this is different than the passenger perspective but I feel I should share it with you none the less as it is important to me.
One day this November, I find out, just after issuing a ticket for a fellow FT member,that I can quite literally no longer issue BA air tickets. I was inhibited from “plating” on BA,
A few hours later, I received a letter by email accompanied by a letter alleging, among other things that I have been part of “Ticketing Abuse”, “contrary to IATA resolution and IATA ticketing manual” by “ticketing from fictitious points of origin or destination”, done “to gain substantial financial benefit by creating fares that are not within the airlines systems”.
The letter was issued to me by the general manager of the company I was ticketing through who claimed BA insisted on that and that I am exposed to ADM’s, agency debit notices issued by the airline, in the amount of £1000’s for every ticket that has dropped last segments in it.
Irrespective of the merits of the letter or action alleged, at least for me and everyone who works for me, this started what has been 6 weeks of on-going hell, especially considering I serve so many BA customers,
My business has went from going quite well to what is literally stand still. This is of course my personal problem and I have been working around the clock to resolve issues,
aiming to offer customers full service which is slowly coming back together though still without the ability to issue BA tickets ourselves.I am sharing this with you for two reasons.
The first one is because many in the forum have used my services and might have been wondering why we have been slower to respond and honestly not provided good service over the past 6 weeks while we were in “$%!£ hit the fan” mode. Thankfully we now back to serving air tickets and have even more preferred hotel partners, but without a doubt failed with communicating our inability to serve during the crisis.The second reason is t if you purchased a ticket from us for an EX-EU, and promised to us on the phone that you are taking the last segment, which was a question I or zzzz asked everyone before selling, please consider the fact that BA has actively threatened to go after myself with charges for the fare difference (which legally, unfortunately, they have the right to as part of the agency agreement)
At the moment, I have lost £68,000 over the past 6 weeks trying to cope with the situation. My exposure is shockingly over £480,000 if everyone who booked ex-eu’s who came from FT does not take the last segment and BA actually issues ADM on each ticket.
I will be contacting everyone who has tried to purchase from us or received slow and poor response in general during the crisis before the holiday personally to apologies. However, I wanted to issue this letter publicly so that you are aware that BA is now actively seeking damages from agents who issue ex-EU tickets – even if so far the airline has held back from going after individuals who booked on ba.com – and that your actions, if you did book through an agent, may have serious consequences for them.
As I mentioned above, yyyyyy is now trading again under a new agency agreement and I hope that I can continue to help FT members with their complex flight itineraries going forward.
As always the choice of course is yours, but the pleasure is all ours.
Safe travels
xxxxx”
15 Dec 2015
at 13:20
TimFitzgeraldTCParticipantHi FDoS
Absolutely agree – but the contracts via IATA mean the airline say we are abusing the fares (as in past has been known for agents to book returns to Europe without travellers knowing and pocket the “savings”). So the airlines have the right to cancel our contracts with them and bill us for the difference in fare (which they can’t do if you book direct) if a ticket is not fully used. We get ADM’s for everything these days as airlines trying to raise their revenue. 1 minor error can lead to substantial charges being levied by carriers.
you never know – EU might pick up on it at some point!
15 Dec 2015
at 15:23
SimonS1ParticipantIt’s an interesting discussion on FT, Tim, in which a number of people are participating.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/1731641-our-ex-eu-horror-story.html
Part way through there are some interesting posts about how the TA was mentioned on the Head for Points blog around July/August and the admitted that the number of Ex-EU bookings went up by 300-400% with an accompanying spike in people skipping the last leg.
It seems to me incredibly harsh that the TA is held to account, equally I do have a nagging doubt over the TA’s business model if they are based in the UK and marketing that many ex EU trips to travellers.
The best outcome all round would be for BA to take someone to court and for some form of legal precedent to be set.
15 Dec 2015
at 18:14
MartynSinclairParticipantWould it not be sensible for the TA to create a Terms of Business whereby any re pricing of a ticket due to “irregular use” would be charged back to the client.
If the TA held the clients credit card details, then they would have the right to use the card to cover the re pricing.
15 Dec 2015
at 18:20
TimFitzgeraldTCParticipantEvery agency I have worked for in last 10 years or so is aware that BA and others will ADM an agency if not all sectors are flown and in previous Roles we made clear in rules that we reserved the right to bill the client the difference if we were charged by the carrier. However the problem is that even if you do this you stand to lose the right to issue the airline at all, lose all your discounted and tour operator fares and your business effectively be wiped out if you can’t sell principle carrier in UK.
I think in this case the guy is quite naive to think that all would have been OK selling masses of ex-EU tickets if he didn’t have a good enough relationship with his clients to trust their word (or he should have booked online and charged a service fee). However I do feel for him and I think FDOS is right, ideally needs to go to court but no big agency will lose all the access to BA fares and I doubt this gentleman could afford to go up against BA (who I think would lose and in doing so could massivlely affect there profitability as every return to LHR, tag a Paris/AMS on the end on a J class fare and hey presto £2k saved – guesstimate). So BA will bully the TMCs who are booking the massive proportion of high revenue corporate tickets.
But every agency I have worked at has been pinged by BA for this, more and more carriers are doing the same and cracking down on every behaviour they don’t like. In Uk at least if you want a one way fare on BA longhaul they often charge silly money. So used to be able to book say Business out, cheapest economy return a few days or weeks later and save a fortune. You do that and as a TA you’ve guessed it, we’ll get a bill for the difference if you don’t turn up.
15 Dec 2015
at 20:56 -
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