In late 2021, Mark from San Diego and his spouse had been flying residence on British Airways premium financial system from Split, Croatia, by way of London and Dallas, however missed a connection. They had been rebooked in financial system on Virgin Atlantic and tried for 2 years to get reimbursed when lastly, in December 2023, they had been instructed that they had agreed to the downgrade, which he denies. (It shouldn’t matter anyway, each Mr. Leff and Mr. Radchenko stated.)
They lastly acquired $746 from British Airways earlier this week. But the total value of their unique round-trip itinerary (two tickets from San Diego to Ljubljana, Slovenia, and again from Croatia) was $5,821, and it’s unlikely that their refund might account for 75 p.c of a premium financial system trans-Atlantic flight. British Airways confirmed they calculated the distinction in fare slightly than utilizing the parameters laid out by the British authorities and provided no clarification to me as to why.
A 12 months later, Cynthia and her associate had a really comparable state of affairs, lacking a British Airways premium financial system connection in London on their manner residence to Los Angeles, ending up in financial system. They had booked by means of a journey agent, who tried unsuccessfully to get a refund. Then Cynthia ran right into a brick wall when she tried herself. She has nonetheless not acquired a refund.
In the third British Airways case, David of Carmel, N.Y., and his spouse had been booked to fly top notch from London to New York when their flight was canceled. On their rebooked flight, they had been downgraded to the equal of enterprise class. Their preliminary request for a refund was rejected by somebody who nearly comically misinterpret their grievance, responding that they weren’t entitled to compensation as a result of their flight had arrived with solely “18 minutes delay.” Subsequent calls to buyer companies led nowhere. And even after I obtained in contact with the airline, one other consultant wrote the couple with the coup d’absurdité: They weren’t entitled to a refund as a result of “based on our research, your final flight was in First Class, hence there is no downgrade refund due for your booking.” (I can attest that their boarding passes say in any other case.)
British Airways did lastly ship the couple a refund, of $1,036, this previous Saturday. But their unique fare for top notch (plus a brief hop from Amsterdam to London on the return) was slightly below $10,000 for each, which presumably means the return flights from London to New York value a complete of near $5,000. Again, British Airways stated it calculated the distinction in fares slightly than the suitable share of the unique fare. I’ve suggested David to take a look at Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority’s steerage on rejected claims.
