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?!

So you were told by an airline that the destination you booked and paid to go to was being changed to a different destination….and you just went there? Just got on the plane and went to the new place, didn’t speak to anyone or ask about logistics etc?

We were at the Dutch Grand Prix - got a text to say "the 10:50 has been cancelled, you're booked onto the 11:45 to LHR", there was no option to speak to anyone and no BA desk at schipol that we could see - what were we meant to do? Say no and be stuck in Amsterdam?

Trying to work out what costs £250 from heathrow to the south west on an off peak day in standard class - lhr to penzance is £107 on the day price, if you had booked specific trains on an advanced would have been less. If you had to go via London anyway, you just needed 2 tickets to london and then get on original train (you can board anywhere along a valid journey) - and if you were going to the South West, normally would be covered by Paddington which would make your journey easier and if Waterloo only slightly more difficult as would need to use tube in London anyway, which is 2 tube lines/ change at Westminster.

They should maybe refund the cost of travel to London from LHR and unfortunately as you had by the sound of it an advanced ticket so no refund, you have lost out 5 hour delay on a bank holiday is not uncommon and only days before flights were cancelled due to high wind.

Same thing happened to my husband - if you accept a new flight after a cancellation, it is in their T&C that they won't cover getting you to your original destination.

Your flight was cancelled for “operational reasons” 12 hours before departure. You are, therefore entitled to UK 261 compensation of £220 per passenger. (BA should have informed you of your right to claim at the time of the cancellation.)

Articles 5 and 7 of Assimilated Regulation EC261/2004

www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2004/261/contents

Interesting, thank you

So you had plenty of time to get an uber from lhr to lgw and get your prebooked train then.Which BAwouldve reimbursed So you CHOSE to cough up for new train gickets from Heathrow. Your own fault

If I got that text the first thing I’d do is look for the customer service number, call it, ask wtf is going on, and figure out my options via an actual human being.

Come on, be reasonable. Whether I was at Zandvoort or Imola or Silverstone: if a train company or airline or Uber told me it was taking me somewhere I didn’t book, pay or want to go, the absolute LAST thing I’d do is just go there without asking! Seriously. You have to take responsibility for your actions.

DH had this twice a couple of weeks ago. Lost out on train tickets North to South and then petrol and parking down South a second time.

@Vabenejulio so I was meant to call them in the middle of a race? They said we had to accept or lose our seats, in which case we'd have been stuck in Amsterdam?

The maths ain't mathing. You're out of pocket by £250 because you would have paid £250 to get home anyway but ended up paying £500. So that is £250.
Yes they should pay this.

We had a very bad experience with BA this year. The flight was cancelled the night before, and then immediately reinstated, but we lost our reserved and checked into seats (which cost extra to reserve). On boarding, I was told to suck up the fact that i wouldn't be sat with our 7 year old twins, one of whom is ND, on the 10 hour flight. It was shut up or get off the flight. Or ask customers to move ourselves but many were sat in their own groups. We were profusely apologised to after take off and they reported themselves to customer services. The result was a £100 voucher for 'next time.' I've tried taking it further but there is basically one tier of customer service and they aren't authorised to give more than £100. Absolutely appalling company.

I can't see myself flying with them again to be honest

Oh and to be clear DH was also put in yet another row. The twins were expected to sit together but separated from their parents by some rows (same cabin)

But you had already paid £250 on advance train tickets. - which surely should've been cheaper than the ones bought on the day, so instead of pay £100 for a train or £80 for an uber you decided to pay another £250 on train from Heathrow?

Really makes no sense.

@Gogogo12345

I was with my 70 year old father. We'd just had an active weekend. We were both exhausted and wanted to go home, we weren't going to spend another two hours traipsing across London to just go back on ourselves.

Agree that you're only £250 out of pocket. You were paying £250 to get home. You couldn't get that train, so instead you paid another £250. Getting home (from Point A OR point B) has a cost you £250 more than it should. No insurance would cover both of those-you'd then have got home for free, and would be in a better position than you should have been, which is not their job.

What would your insurance excess be? Worth checking on that before you decide how much effort to put into this. Would definitely raise a complaint with BA though

BA will sort this out on twitter actually Have done that when abroad with no call allowance on phone

A taxi from one airport to the other would neither take hours or involve going in and out of London.

They know they have you over a barrel and take advantage of that.

@DappledThings it would also cost a fortune and take an hour, and again mean going back on ourselves! Why should we have done that because BA couldn't be bothered to run our flight?

@Gogogo12345 again - at a Grand Prix.

A taxiing traipsing. So you chose to drop your original train ticketsfor your own convenience. If lhr never home why did you fly from Gatwick anyway as if it was to save a few quid than that didn't work well did it

Couldn't be bothered?

Why should they get you home for free?

You could have got an Uber to Gatwick for less than £100 and would have been quicker. We had no problems getting BA to pay for extra hotel and any extra travel expenses (including Uber to Gatwick to collect our car) when we had to be re-routed last year. But I wasn’t cheeky enough to claim our petrol home from Gatwick too.

But if you are requesting that BA reimburse your original train ticket as well your replacement no wonder they are saying no.