Sorry, deadly dull topic, but I know many of you have been through this..

Put it simply, JFK-LHR-NCL route, Landed at LHR in the evening to find the flight to NCL was cancelled.

Had to find my own hotel, and get the train home in the morning.

Compensation due, clearly.

Is it best to use the compensation claim section on the BA website, or send in a letter for compensation of my own?

WWSTWD?

Why was it cancelled? You can only use the compo claim system if it was the airlines fault, so not for weather reasons.

don’t expect a quick response from BA. I filed a claim with BA over a week ago for missed connection due to late take off/arrival.

Online form wasn’t too bad to complete, you get a ref number at least to use for updates. I’d use that, if you send a letter (how quaint) that’ll probably bounce around departments long enough.

They’ll do everything to fob you off. It might be easier and less hassle to use one of the companies that does the claim for you (and takes a 20% fee for their troubles).

It was due to their IT issues, not weather or the other get out clauses.

Bags lost (now found), no other flights available, BA App and website simply sent me to a phone line that never answered to arrange rebooking.

Just unsure if the BA website option will just fob me off until I give up.

I’ve claimed a couple of times for EU flights. I would always go through the website as at least then your claim will end up in the correct system straight away. In my experience it has taken less time to get a return than it does to claim for late trains at least…
edit – have never claimed with BA though

BA are a bit of a shower atm. Mrs Kilo flew in from NYC with them last weekend, it was an hour and a quarter after landing at lhr until they finally reached a finger and started disembarking and then they still had to get a bus to the terminal so god knows where they parked up.

BA are notoriously hopeless with this stuff.

I got stranded on the runway at LHR for five hours a few years ago when a few flakes of snow fell in London, and missed my flight to Sydney – all checked in all the way to WGTN from EDI with boarding passes. I would have made it as we eventually pulled in at the international terminal, but they wouldn’t let me off the plane there and I had to get in a bus to the domestic terminal then a bus back to the international terminal. Even the air crew member was pleading with the gate staff for some common sense.

I eventually found a BA staff member who handed me a piece of paper with a landline number on it. Called the number – answer message saying the lines open at 0900! Called Qantas who told me the flight hadn’t left. Wandered about – found it – still at the gate but all closed up so couldn’t board.

Never did manage to get through to BA, a friend collected me and I called Qantas again in the morning who were super helpful and got me on the same evening flight to Sydney the next day, explaining that they didn’t actually have to do that it was BA’s responsibility. Absolute useless shower BA! Qantas every time from now on.

Compensation due, clearly.

Not necessarily.

Remember we are not talking about EU261 anymore. You started outside the EU, finished outside the EU. You will be claiming under whats called the ‘retained regulations’ which is what we (the UK CAA) have copied and pasted from EASA post brexit, except with some modifications.
UK261, effectively.

It depends entirely on the cause of the delay, and whether the airline could ‘reasonably’ be able to do anything about it. If its weather, or the plane has broken down, or some other such unforeseeable event, then this is not what the regulations are for – thats insurance.

I’m not poo-pooing your claim – it sounds like you may well be deserving of it – but just thought it useful to put some info on there.

You may guess that I’m an airline employee (not BA!) and the company puts an awful lot of effort into fighting the many, many fraudulent claims that come in.

Often the ultimate question in the coursts has been

“Did you want to be on late? Or dead on time? “

I would go through the BA system personally as they will know exactly what went wrong and to be honest, if it is claimable, I see no reason why they would fight it at all.

@snotrag

Thanks for the extra knowledge. TBH, I’m not so wound up about it as many people get. My employers are going to foot the bill for the hotel, extra trains and meals. So no financial loss.

Would be nice for them to compensate me a little for getting home a day later than planned…. And without my luggage.

Absolutely – and if its the airlines balls up, then thats exactly what its for – hopefully you get sorted.

Just as an aside, and a demonstration of just how shit people are:

‘An airline’ was operating a flight from the UK to a European holiday destination.
Part way through, a passenger, travelling with his wife, suffered a massive Cardiac Arrest on board.

The Cabin Crew, being highly trained and adept at First Aid, dragged the man into the galley area and performed CPR continually. Members of the public assisted. The Flight Crew, following procedures, performed an Emergency Descent and landed at the first available site, having declared an emergency and an Ambulance and steps were waiting on the end of the runway such that as soon as the aircraft could brake to a stop (on the runway) the man could be removed and delivered to a hospital, along with his wife. Even so, this all took around hal an hour.

However, it was all in vain and he did indeed pass away.

You can imagine just how traumatic this was for the crew, who were unable to safely continue their work, being mentally and physically broken from the CPR, and the passengers, who had watched this all unfold, and many had tried to help.

With no cost to anyone, the passengers were looked after, refreshed, and offered options of continuuing or returning home. Replacement crew were sourced for the onward travel, the Wife and her Husbands body were later also repatriated home at no cost to them.

Please now imagine the reaction within ‘the airline’, when a few weeks later a claim was received, from a passenger on board their flight. They had been, quote, “Unreasonably delayed” and this delay had caused “their trip to be ruined”.

The man had died.

People are c*nts.

Please now imagine the reaction within ‘the airline’, when a few weeks later a claim was received, from a passenger on board their flight. They had been, quote, “Unreasonably delayed” and this delay had caused “their trip to be ruined”.

FFS, In my experience airline staff are amazing when there is a medical emergency, its happened once to a person seated beside me!

They were also amazing when I walked onto a long haul but could not walk off, the co-pilot herself helped me hop up to the airport cart!

The person in this whom feel most sorry for was the bloke at the ticketting/transfer desk.
A queue of 100-200 people, and it looked like he was the only one there. FFS British Airways, this was at your terminal at your busiest airport? Surely more staff should have, or could have, been called in.

Miraculously, my bags turned up today, I thought they’d be gone for longer.

JFK-LHR-NCL

I had a very similar experience a month ago during their IT issues. Arrived from SFO to find the flight I was meant to be on cancelled, but I was rebooked onto a flight the following morning so I got a hotel. That flight was also cancelled so I took the train. Luggage turned up 4 days later. I filed a claim on the website using the link they sent and they paid in full within 24 h.

To add to the above: they paid for the hotel, subsistence and the train. The train wasn’t cheap (£175 walk up fare).

I eventually found a BA staff member

That’s an achievement. Support staff on the ground are cut to the bone. I feel a bit sorry for them, as when an employee does turn up they are often swamped by quite cross people looking for help. This was the baggage “desk” at T5:

This may help, it did for us:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/flight-delay-compensation

Just to be clear there are 2 aspects to your claim. 1) the duty of care and responsibility under BA’s own Conditions of Carriage. So the hotel, food, water, train, and transport in London. You should be claiming these back from BA. 2) Compensation for delayed arrival. This is where the UK261 equivalent comes in. I would expect BA will pay out for this since it’s well known their IT keeps failing because of massive underinvestment, i.e. it is the company’s responsibility. But you may get initially rejected and have to instigate small claims court to get them to pay up (they virtually never get to court because they don’t want to set legal precedents). The compensation may take month(s).

If I wasn’t clear, expenses are a separate claim to compensation but can be filled in the BA system at the same time.