To be really p****d off with British airways and my travel insurance

[NeedSomeAnswersPlease]

Long story short our flight on Monday into Gatwick was cancelled. Instead we were booked to fly into Heathrow.

So we lost £250 on train tickets from Gatwick to home - train company and ticket issuer won't refund. Travel insurance refuse to refund as BA should be refunding. BA have refused to refund. Same with the £250 we spent on new tickets from Heathrow into London and then on to home.

So now we're basically £500 out of pocket without any recourse to receive a refund! Wtf do we do?!

I know people don’t like the Daily Fail but they have a really good consumer champion- Sally Crane. I’d try her.

The Guardian is also really good on this kind of thing if you don't want to sully yourself with the Mail.

May well get in contact with both of them as this is just ridiculous!

Why won't BA refund?

Why won’t insurance pay? Or, indeed BA?

What was the reason for cancellation?

Cancellation was "operational reasons", BA say we're not entitled to be refunded as we accepted the new flights - but no other flights were leaving with two seats available and we were a two! Not sure what they expected us to do

Travel insurance say no as it's BA's responsibility to refund as they cancelled our flights

I wouldn't bother contacting newspapers and hoping they do something about it. You need to read the regs and find out if BA should be paying your travel or whether your travel insurance should.

I would think this is BA, when we had the same with easyjet and got stuck in France they paid all our accommodation and transport to the airport until we were able to get on their next flight. Of course you had to accept the flight otherwise you'd have been stuck abroad. I would find out who the ombudsman is and make a complaint, Civil aviation authority perhaps, also complain to BA - try to speak to someone if you haven't already.

I can understand why insurance won't pay. Did BA offer you the option of waiting for another Gatwick flight?

Have you looked at BA cancellation policy online?

@

There wasn't another Gatwick flight that day, they said in their email that they would cover all incidental costs such as trains

A few years ago flying Melbourne to London, our flight was cancelled due to a cracked windscreen, we were all moved onto the same flight 24 hours later. For us that wasted a nights accommodation, and the potential to miss a show we had tickets for (depending on how long it took us to get across London) The airline made all the right noises on the day, gave us all the necessary forms (so they claimed!) to allow us to claim on our travel insurance. Of course the travel insurance said we're not covered for that sort of issue, go back to the airline, who said no, we don't compensate for this, that's what insurance is for 🤦‍♀️ gave up in the end, but we did make the show, although my youngest slept through most of it having not had the rest day we'd planned 😆

This is exactly it! If we'd said no, we would've been stuck there and would've had to have forked out £500+ for the eurostar, we were left with no option

So are they saying you should have got the train from Heathrow to Gatwick, then used your tickets home? What would that have cost

Could you not have just used public transport from Heathrow to Gatwick and used your original train tickets? Presumably yo didn’t buy tickets for a specified train due to the risk of delay.

@NeedSomeAnswersPlease if they've said they'd cover trains they should, what reason have they specifically given you as to why they couldn't?

Is it because you changed your tickets to your home? When the same happened to us we got an Uber to Gatwick (we had to, our car was there) that was accepted no issue. I wonder if you were supposed to travel to Gatwick and use your original tickets and it would be the journey between Heathrow and Gatwick that would be covered? Only guessing, but I'd keep pushing.

Actually I've just remembered that heathrow to Gatwick is £15 on the coach. I had to do it last year.

We'd booked an advance ticket out of Gatwick as we had 5 hours gap between scheduled landing and train departure - plus if you miss that you can use it on the next one (I double checked).

If we had travelled between Heathrow and gatwick it would've cost us nearly the same as the train tickets home and taken two hours - nowhere does it say we had to do that!!

Not being funny but they can't expect us to get a coach across London when they cancelled our flight in the first place?

You’re £250 out of pocket not £500 as it was going to cost you £250 to get home anyway of your flight hadn’t been changed.

What have BA said when you quote their own email back to them saying they would cover trains? And what do they state you should have done to get home in these circumstances? Have you spoken to an actual person or just sent emails? BA are actually very responsive on social media so maybe also worth trying that.

Well no, £250 for new trains and £250 for the cancelled trains

They're just saying that the outcome letter is what we get. I've asked to escalate it but they're not replying

How are you contacting them?

Twitter

That's still "only" £250 out of pocket as you got home using the new tickets instead of the old tickets. You're out of pocket just for the old tickets. They should reimburse you £250

@Carwashcath

They should reimburse for both surely?

Why on earth would they pay both? It was always going to cost you £250 to get home from the airport.