the times | Saturday April 30 2022 63
Money
days he spent about 15 hours trying to
speak to someone.
“I checked online and watched seats
become available before disappearing. I
am unable to book anything because no
one ever picks up the phone,” said
Josephs, who lives in London.
He said that without the voucher he
would not be able to afford the £3,000
cost of four standard return flights from
Cape Town.
Ian Townsend, from Milton Keynes,
had booked a holiday for him and his
wife to Antigua for £4,150. Townsend
said BA cancelled his holiday. BA said
that he cancelled.
He was given a voucher for the full
amount and followed the company’s
instructions to try to redeem it, but it
did not work so he emailed BA again.
He had a response seven weeks later
saying that he could not use this vouch-
er against this holiday because it was
not a new booking.
Townsend said: “When I try to call I
am cut off because I am not travelling
immediately. I have no way of querying
the decision.”
BA has since apologised for acciden-
tally deleting Townsend’s original
email and has applied the £4,150 vouch-
er to his new booking.
It has also allowed Josephs to redeem
his voucher.
British Airways Holidays said: “Our
contact centres are extremely busy
at the moment and we’re working hard
behind the scenes to address this
issue and improve our customers’
experience.
“We are prioritising customer service
calls so we can assist individuals with
existing bookings or those who need
our help urgently. We value the loyalty
of our customers and we appreciate
their patience as our teams work
around the clock to help them.”
Martyn James from Resolver said the
problems with contacting airlines were
bad enough when booking a trip, but far
worse if you are having a problem at the
airport. “I’ve always been of the school
of thought that you shouldn’t sell things
if you don’t have the staff available to
solve problems,” he said.points on his BA American Express
card. This had earned him a companion
voucher that allowed him to book a
flight for his partner.
He planned to use it for a holiday to
South Africa at the end of this year, but
could redeem it only by calling BA,
which proved impossible because he
could never get through. Over three
220
BA flights cancelled
from Heathrow
on Thursday and
FridayA
lan and
Patricia Wood
are almost
£500 out of pocket
after taking their first
holiday in more than
two years (David
Byers writes).
The retired couple
from Swindon paid
£208 for a BA flight
from Heathrow to
Venice in February.
Their return flight
cost £261. The day
before their outbound
flight, every short-
haul BA flight out of
Terminal 5 was
cancelled because of
an IT problem so
they were naturally
worried about flights
for the next day.
They tried to call
BA to find out if their
flight would be
cancelled too — but
could not get any sort
of answer. “If the
flight was changed,
we would have missed
our three-hour
transfer from Venice
to the resort, which
would have cost us
hundreds more
pounds to rearrange,”
Alan said.After hours on the
phone unable to get
through, the couple
decided to book an
alternative flight with
the budget airline
easyJet, which cost
them £228. While in
Italy, Alan went to
check in for their
return flight on
March 9, but found
that this flight had
now disappeared
from his online
account. Again he
tried to contact the
airline by phone and
email, before giving
up and booking a new
BA flight back to
Heathrow which cost
a further £261.Eventually on
March 15, more than
a week after their
return to the UK, the
Woods finally had an
email from BA telling
them that as they had
failed to attend their
outbound flight, their
inbound one had
been cancelled
automatically.
As compensation
for inconvenience,
BA agreed to give
them £100 worth of
Avios — the airline’s
air miles. They have
not been refunded for
the Venice to
Heathrow flight that
they were bumped
off. Alan wrote back
to say that this was
unacceptable. “You
pay hundreds of
pounds and don’t get
even bare minimum
customer service. If
we had managed to
reach BA on February
26, none of this would
have happened — it is
disrespectful to long-
standing customers.”
BA said: “We’re in
contact with our
customers directly to
resolve their issues.”‘You don’t get even the
bare minimum of service’
How to claim from your airline
6 If your airline cancels
your trip, it must offer a
refund and has to pay it
within seven days of the
date of your flight. If your
flight is cancelled by a
package holiday operator,
then it has 14 days to
process refund payments.6 If your flight from the UK
or your arrival flight to the
UK with a UK or EU carrier
is delayed, you may be
owed compensation.
If your plane is between
three and four hours late
and the trip’s distance wasless than 1,500km, you
should get £220. If the
distance was between
1,500km and 3,500km you
get £350, and if the delay
was four hours or more for
a distance of more than
3,500km you get £520. For
delays of two to three
hours, you should get free
food and drink. If the delay
is less than two hours, you
get nothing.6 During the months of
cancellations in the
pandemic, many airlines
began to break the rules byrefusing to pay refunds and
offering vouchers instead,
or making it difficult for
passengers to find refund
buttons on websites. If you
feel you have been badly
treated, write a formal
letter to your airline (or
fill in an online form). How
long the airline has to deal
with this depends on its
complaints procedure.6 If you’re not happy with
how the airline deals with
this complaint, request
mediation from an official
dispute resolution service,which all airlines must sign
up to. Find the one your
airline uses by searching on
the Civil Aviation Authority
website: caa.co.uk.6 If you’re still not happy,
the CAA, the industry’s
watchdog, is the last line of
resort, although beware
that this body has no power
to force airlines to pay out
and must drag the carrier
through the courts to make
it pay passengers — a
process that can be hugely
costly and take years.
David ByersPRESS ASSOCIATION