Coming home......check in opens in two hours I predict a riot....

[EllenWaiteourkid]

We are were flying Malaga to LHR tomorrow at midday.

BA have cancelled our flights, we found out yesterday by checking the app, so we were twenty four hours ahead of the information for a lot of people we were only twenty four hours ahead of everyone else, because we checked the app to figure out what time we needed to give the car back. Most people are only checking in online about now.

They have yet to email me and manage my booking, not the app is still showing as on time. Just checked it updated overnight.

Cue mass panic, staying in Nerja had gone to Competa for lunch, a long way up on windy roads, lots of calls to BA needless to say none of which were answered, long road down thinking on our feet.

There are only two of us, we have managed to sort out a hotel in Malaga for Saturday night and a flight at stupid o'clock on Sunday.

We are both retired and in a position to sort this (I will pursue BA for the difference when I get home,) but FFS,😡 I have been to Neja manythimes before with my brother and sister and their families when all our kids were teeny tinies and on the last day, you would tire the kids out around the pool until 5.00, give them pasta, butter and parmesan because there was no real disposable income, we would then take them out for a walk and finish the holidays with an icecream each.

WTAF is going to happen to families who have scrimped and saved all year long and here on a budget, how the fuck do they sort this out, if their cards are already maxed out.

Like I said retired, nothing to do, and all day to do it, so I will get our extra money back and the extra car hire and the extra parking at LHR, I will get it sorted, but I say again. FFS

Come and feel my pain......................purlease...............😊

Did they rebook you on to the next days flight? I agree it's so stressful but I think these cancellations are due to Heathrow not having enough staff and asking airlines to cancel flights again rather than BA although the lack of info / call centre response is BA. It's chaos in the airline industry at the moment. I wouldn't fly without a plan of what to do if my flight got cancelled at the moment.

BA have been awful, cancelled some of our flights and not bothered to answer phone at all. Will never book with them again, your right what happens when you can’t talk to them and all you get off them online is call the helpline.

@Weepingwillows12

All the app said was your flight is cancelled, click here for a list of phone numbers that we will not be answering.

Whenever BA have cancelled one of my flights, it has given me the option to do either one of:

1. Be moved automatically to another flight
2. Rebook at a later date
3. Get a refund

More often than not, these options are not available on the app. I always double check on a desktop browser.

Have you tried ANY BA number, including the ones with an overseas prefix? The Exec Club ones? Not just the numbers they gave you on the app. I very often call their German numbers or Czech or whatever, because the waiting times are shorter and you can actually speak to a human, and they’re all trained in English.

Yes, it’s a nightmare for those on a budget or families who don’t have the flexibility to change dates if needed. This is why good travel insurance is needed, and why I would NEVER put a holiday on credit, or trust that I can access emergency money that way when abroad. This is controversial and people won’t like it, but if you don’t have an emergency fund for being stranded somewhere abroad, don’t go. I didn’t have a proper overseas holiday until I was 17, because my parents couldn’t afford to pay for one, and they refused to go into debt so we could all go to Tenerife. It’s a principle I still have today - non-essential activities don’t go on credit cards unless I already have the money in my bank account. In this scenario, no family would be stranded because they’ve ‘maxed out’ their cards. It’s called financial responsibility.

It doesn't sound like you are in pain OP. You've got ahead thankfully and sorted it out.

As a previous poster said, not having any available funds for instances like this is very foolhardy. An emergency credit card or cash in the bank is sensible.

Annoying that the app doesn't have the same info and options as going online. I can't understand why they would do that. I'm surprised BA haven't contacted their customers to let them know though. Shabby.

Enjoy your extra day of holiday, you may have a fish latter on BA instead of cheesy pasta.

I cannot understand why anyone bothers to go abroad it is too much hassle
There are plenty of fantastic places to visit in the UK

Well that was impressive, I submitted our claim for flights and compensation ten days ago, we have received the EU compensation and our expenses.

We have yet to receive the price of the flights (£1,200) but touchwood it would appear that the system is working, even if the airports are not.

I’m confused, assuming you took the delayed flights the next morning, why would you have a claim for your flights?

Because we only used 50% of the original booking, we had to book new flights, so they owe us for the new flight as it was more expensive than the original flight which we had booked in a timely manner last year and was a reasonable price.

I am so sorry your relaxing holiday ended in a mad scramble! Fair play to getting the EU compensation and expenses.
The 12 hundred quid, that is the BA flight home you took, they haven't paid it back yet? Cheeky feckers.

They’ll owe you the difference potentially, but not the full
flight price and it depends if they offered (and you took) a different BA flight.

To be quite vulgar, they offered Jack Shit, they weren't answering phones in any country we called the Spanish call centres, nada, we called the UK centres, nada we received no emails, it was every man for himself. The app told us it was cancelled, when you logged into my BA it said flight on time. Hours and hours of calling and getting recorded messages that then cut off. Standing up on our own hind legs and getting ourselves home was not rocket science.

@Getoffmyshoes Are you being deliberately obtuse, because it is not a difficult concept. 🙄

Reading all your posts again, did I understand correctly that BA have paid you compensation (the 300 or 400 quid each or however much they pay now?) and expenses incurred - extra hotel, parking etc?

If yes, then they just have to give you back the return flight costs now, I believe? Which may be less than half of that £1200 as it depends on how much each leg was valued at when you booked it. Or it could be more, who knows.

Glad to see it’s not taking them months, at least!

Dear Customer,
Reference:
Thank you for bearing with us whilst we respond to your query.
Our Customer Relations team are extremely busy and have very high volumes at the moment, which means it’s taking longer than we’d like to get back to you with a full response.
Please be assured, we’re doing everything we can to make sure a member of the team will be in touch as soon as possible.
We look forward to speaking with you soon.
British Airways

We are not waiting on this money,it came out of savings but there are people who are, who have credit card bills falling due.

This makes me so mad.😡

So annoying for you, and yes, those without further resources like you were able to call on will be feeling the pinch

Such a shame, your lovely hol tainted by this shambles. You'll need another one to get over it! haha, joke!

They don’t even have to give you back the return flight cost if you took a later flight with them (i.e. you accepted a later flight to get you back home), just the compensation.

@EllenWaiteourkid no I’m not being deliberately obtuse, I just think you’re going to unfortunately going to be disappointed with what money you get back from BA. Clearly it is a difficult concept for you though! Suggest you do some research before being so condescending and implying that because you are retired you’re more likely to recover your money.

I had similar last year - I’d won a flight voucher booked via a travel agent.

Flight cancelled on a Sunday - only knew because DH checked his flight and looked at mine - he quickly booked me a ticket on another flight - but the travel agent would’ve have been given the cancellation text and request for a rebook/refund etc - which as they were closed couldn’t deal with it.

Never again.

Also I didn’t get compensation as it goes to the person who booked the flight.

If you booked your own flight with someone else, they will return the cost of the flight you had to book to replace the cancelled one NOT the cost of the original flight.

I booked the flights with them on line as I couldn't get anyone to answer the phones, they used the same original booking reference when they confirmed them, so as far as I am concerned they owe us the £1,200, obviously not the cost of the return leg of the original flight but as they were booked a year in advance this sum would be considerably less than the monies paid to get ourselves home.

@Getoffmyshoes Email received from BA just now, they have agreed the£1,245 for the two flights and will repay in 21 days.

This is fine we can carry this, but it makes me angry for people who were pushed to find the extra money for flights to get home.

Airlines were not answering their phones and people had to sort it out themselves.

@Getoffmyshoes Compensation and reimbursement landed in the bank this morning.

Well done!

@FlibbertyGiblets

Thank you, my request for compensation and recompense was stiffly worded, it may have had an impact.

Irrelevant to the problem you posted about but I can't get over the price of your flights. If you often travel to that area I would look at another carrier / regional airport another time .