We flew on QF from SYD-LHR return and landed in the UK just as the fog descended on LHR on 19 Dec 06. We stayed with friends for a few days and we were due to fly BA to GLA return (booked directly on BA.com) for a week in Scotland. We checked in online from our friends place before National TV showed LHR as some sort of war zone with 60000 passengers going nowhere while spending 2 days in the terminal or in a tent outside. All domestic passengers were advised all flights were cancelled and not to travel to LHR. The BA helpline was in meltdown. We tracked down a hire car and drove north.
National TV announced BA were refunding all affected flights so we eventually got through to customer relations and got a refund for that part of the journey. We were asked if we required our return GLA-LHR flight and I said of course as it was our connecting flight to meet QF back to Sydney. We got to GLA check in and were promptly told our return flight had been cancelled and refunded in full so if we wanted to fly we would have to buy new tickets on the spot at hugely inflated prices or not get back to Australia - end of story. Arguing never helped so we grudgingly bought 2 new tickets.
We put this into an email to BA customer relations and got a reply stating that BA had no option but to cancel the return flight as we had not used the coupons in the right order. I queried this but got the same response.
I have checked the BA general conditions of carraige and 3c1 states 'We will not honour your ticket and it will no longer be valid if you do not use all the coupons in the sequence provided in the ticket' However condition 3c9 states 'If you fail to cancel a booking before the check in deadline for your flight and do not show up for the flight, we may decide to cancel your return or onward reservations' I feel 3c9 applied to us and BA had the option of not cancelling our return ticket.
Does anyone have experience in dealing with BA on these matters or can advise on the best way to escalate this complaint to achieve a refund of the difference between what we paid originally and what we had to pay for our new tickets?
National TV announced BA were refunding all affected flights so we eventually got through to customer relations and got a refund for that part of the journey. We were asked if we required our return GLA-LHR flight and I said of course as it was our connecting flight to meet QF back to Sydney. We got to GLA check in and were promptly told our return flight had been cancelled and refunded in full so if we wanted to fly we would have to buy new tickets on the spot at hugely inflated prices or not get back to Australia - end of story. Arguing never helped so we grudgingly bought 2 new tickets.
We put this into an email to BA customer relations and got a reply stating that BA had no option but to cancel the return flight as we had not used the coupons in the right order. I queried this but got the same response.
I have checked the BA general conditions of carraige and 3c1 states 'We will not honour your ticket and it will no longer be valid if you do not use all the coupons in the sequence provided in the ticket' However condition 3c9 states 'If you fail to cancel a booking before the check in deadline for your flight and do not show up for the flight, we may decide to cancel your return or onward reservations' I feel 3c9 applied to us and BA had the option of not cancelling our return ticket.
Does anyone have experience in dealing with BA on these matters or can advise on the best way to escalate this complaint to achieve a refund of the difference between what we paid originally and what we had to pay for our new tickets?