V-Flyer

Hi All
A bit of BA EU261 advice if anyone can help.
BA have cancelled my flight home from Nice tomorrow evening, I booked a hotel straight away and through the manage my booking re booked to LCY 24 hours later.
Am I likely to get BA to re imburse the hotel costs etc?
I believe the cancellation is due to ATC strike

Lee

ATC strike isn't within BA's power to resolve so it would count as extraordinary circumstances and EC261 won't apply.

You're best option is to look to your travel insurance.

This is the form if you want to try your luck with BA https://disruptionclaim.britishairways.com/

Actually BA do have a duty of care under EC261/2004 regardless of whether the cancellation was due to "extraordinary circumstances" so if you're forced to delay your journey overnight they must pay for a hotel and sustenance.

Make sure you keep your expenses reasonable and keep all your receipts to scan and send off to BA.

What you won't be entitled to is the cash compensation you'd get under EC261/2004 for, say, a technical delay.

While that true, the bit that makes me very worried is, "I booked a hotel straight away".

BA have contracts with hotels and you didn't give then the chance to offer you a voucher which is why I said travel insurance would be the way I'd deal with it.

As long as the hotel cost is reasonable and you've not booked the presidential suite then BA should cough up with little complaint. Same with reasonable expenses for refreshments / meals

Asit's ATC no EU261 available. shame as after Thursday and the change in the rate you get more £ than you would have done!

Thank you for your replies
I panicked and booked a hotel as I presumed BA were having to cancel a number of flights because of French ATC and in a city with 30 odd thousand England fans at the moment thought I better get in early
However it seems like it's just the last flight of the evening.

Be careful when booking a hotel without BA telling you to (pay and claim), their policy is to book a hotel for you, if they can't then will issue you with a letter detailing what you can claim and up to how much they define 'reasonable' to be. If they were willing/able to book you a hotel they may put up a fight about reimbursements.

Yep! That's my experience too. If you don't give them a chance to arrange something for you then they can get sticky later.

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

I got my assistant to call BA to confirm the reason and although they originally said ATC strike they changed it to operational reasons when challenged about every other Nice flight operating as planned.
They pointed her to the website to make a claim so nothing to lose I guess.

Far worse places to have to stay an extra night though.

If they aren't claiming ATC as the reason then EC261 should be back in play. Make sure to claim the delay compensation too.