BA1489 LHR-GLA 17 JUL 24 (ET)

So we’re now transferring between Gatwick and Heathrow (for the third time this trip) with 24 boarding passes now in my bag. What a shambles. BA this time gave us bus vouchers so we got the National Express, which wasn’t as good as the Oxford bus. We weren’t due to check-in our bags until 2 hours before the flight but thankfully BA did accepted them very early to allow us to go airside and get some lunch, paid for by their vouchers. I am still very disappointed that, given everything they’ve done to us in the past 24 hours, or the past 2 weeks or the past 2 years, they didn’t put us in the Galleries lounge since we had to sit about for 6 hours.

8pm came and went, the plane was late, eventually boarded and pushed back at 9.10pm. Plane was fully of business type day trippers and 4 very tired travellers who checked out of their hotel 31 hours earlier. No service on the flight, or if there was they didn’t reach us. Landed at Glasgow and by the time we picked up the bags it was 11pm, some 10 hours late. No chance we’re getting the bus back at this time of night, got a taxi and BA can pay for it.

So in summary for this whole fiasco:
Flight 1 was late because it was unbalanced.
Flight 2 was cancelled
Flight 3 lost my bag
Flight 4 was ok but had to return to Tampa to collect my bag
Flight 5 amateur hour at check-in, and the fiasco collecting bags at Gatwick
Flight 6 denied boarding, transfer to Heathrow, and it was still late.

I have submitted the following claim to BA:
4x EU261 for the cancelled flight
£600 of additional costs for cancelled flight
£300 of costs for the missing case
4x Eu261 for the denied boarding
£540 refund on car hire overcharge

Never again.

So in summary for this whole fiasco:
Flight 1 was late because it was unbalanced.
Flight 2 was cancelled
Flight 3 lost my bag
Flight 4 was ok but had to return to Tampa to collect my bag
Flight 5 amateur hour at check-in, and the fiasco collecting bags at Gatwick
Flight 6 denied boarding, transfer to Heathrow, and it was still late.

I have submitted the following claim to BA:
4x EU261 for the cancelled flight
£600 of additional costs for cancelled flight
£300 of costs for the missing case
4x Eu261 for the denied boarding
£540 refund on car hire overcharge

Never again.

Wow, just wow. What an absolute nightmare from beginning to end. When BA drop the ball, they really do it in style.

Thats a confirmation for me that if VS go back to Gatwick, our future trips would need a huge rethink. Connecting from Scotland with BA is now a nightmare although slightly better into Heathrow as there are a few more options available. We’ve had a few issues in the past with crashed computers, cancelled flights etc but nothing like the total debacle that you experienced on this trip.

Hopefully BA step up and don’t delay or dispute any of your claims and you’re able to put this behind you.

Thanks for your time documenting your issues.

David

Thanks for the unbelievable reports. How can a major airline get so much wrong! Thankfully you had a good time once you eventually arrived. Hopefully your claims will be met in full

Thanks for the TRs which document every travellers nightmare. I thought I had it bad when flying from Larnaca to GLA via LHR with BA and they bumped us from the LHR-GLA flight (after moving me from my exit row seats on both flights) but I least I was put on the next flight an hour later and when the luggage didn’t follow us, it was at least delivered to us the next day. Your experience maker mine look almost trivial!

We were also on an Avios flight with a companion voucher and I’ve been led to believe that these passengers are the most at risk for being bumped. They did refund my expenses in 7 days and also sent us a £300 voucher. I don’t think we were due EU261 as we eventually arrived in GLA under 3 hours late.

I hope that you are refunded soon and I would advise that you don’t buy a lottery ticket anytime soon

Thanks for all the comments. The reason for posting in detail was cathartic, and also I see a lot of slightly negative comments about Virgin on this site. We have high standards, we hold them to high standards. Making you very aware the grass is definitely not greener on the other side!

Thats a confirmation for me that if VS go back to Gatwick, our future trips would need a huge rethink. Connecting from Scotland with BA is now a nightmare although slightly better into Heathrow as there are a few more options available.

Covid dropping the Gatwick flight from 3x daily to 1x is what made this route untenable for us. We only made this trip because they issued us flight vouchers from before. As we are DVC and will be flying to Orlando for the foreeable future, I think our options are:

1) direct from Edinburgh, unfortunately (or wonderfully!) as I've changed careers to teaching , the cost of this will be a huge deterrent.
2) drive down to Manchester, probably our most likely
3) drive down to Heathrow. Yup, I really don't want to risk not having a thru ticket with EasyJet. And the LHR-TPA Tampa service is so good.

Hopefully BA step up and don’t delay or dispute any of your claims and you’re able to put this behind you.

I'm already expecting a fight, and them to offer flight vouchers. Which they can ram.

I’ve been led to believe that these passengers are the most at risk for being bumped.

I believe that we got bumped because we part paid the holiday with flight vouchers. Additionally, we booked via BA Holidays as a package (with car hire) and so they tend to be low in the pecking order. We were also flying back up the day before the Open Championship so I guess quite a lot of people wanted to be in the west of Scotland!

They did refund my expenses in 7 days... you don’t buy a lottery ticket anytime soon

I'm expecting 7 months not 7 days! And I might start the lottery. My luck must change soon.

Just caught up with all your TRs. Dear oh dear! I wouldn’t blame you for avoiding BA with a barge pole after lightning struck again with losing cases on top of the cancellation, rerouting and being bumped. I think if it was us with BA, VS or anybody else we’d be the same.

Glad you had a good holiday nonetheless.

To put an end to this sorry tale...
In September British Airways paid me £2125, I have no idea how they came to that sum. It didn't even cover half of what I claimed. They then closed the claim.

I had to take them to CEDR.
Only after I raised it with CEDR they then phoned me and agreed to pay what I claimed, and then explained that I was due more as my final delayed leg LHR-GLA actually counts as transatlantic so the EU261 was greater.

Interestingly, Simon Calder from the Independent is gathering cases for when BA put passengers on standby and don't ask at the gate if anybody would like to give up their seat. He took my details.

It's a difficult situation as I own property in Florida and I'm a teacher so I'm restricted to school holidays. Virgin from Edinburgh is just prohibitory expensive during the school holidays so we're still searching for a cost effective way to travel. It certainly won't be BA.
Madly our preferred option for next year is drive from Scotland to Heathrow then fly Virgin. Can't do transfers at Heathrow. We had a good run of 10 years flying to Florida, what a shambles.

It's a difficult situation as I own property in Florida and I'm a teacher so I'm restricted to school holidays. Virgin from Edinburgh is just prohibitory expensive during the school holidays so we're still searching for a cost effective way to travel. It certainly won't be BA.
Madly our preferred option for next year is drive from Scotland to Heathrow then fly Virgin. Can't do transfers at Heathrow. We had a good run of 10 years flying to Florida, what a shambles.

I've experienced BA's failures whilst trying to connect in the past although nothing to compare to your debacle. I agree 100% that the new pricing model makes Edinburgh completely undoable and genuinely worry for the routes' future unless some things change.

I kinda hold out a little hope that 1 - it might take a little time to settle down and hopefully the algorithms will sort themselves out, or 2 - there will be so much backlash (have a read of HFP's article today) from multiple angles that they will be forced into making changes.

The problem with using only BA is that after they cancelled EDI-LGW (why, only a few will know as the flights we were on were always rammed) connecting from EDI to LGW to grab an MCO flight is a nightmare.

Lets see were the future takes us. I have a horrible feeling that it will be indirect flights and a whole lot of money.

David