Woman wins case against British Airways over flight vouchers | Hacker News Reader

Woman wins case against British Airways over flight vouchers

bbc.co.uk

45 pointsbradwood22 comments

I’ve lost track of how many airline vouchers I’ve piled up in the last three years. Air Canada, United, Frontier, southwest. The worst part of the vouchers is that the reason I have them makes me not want to deal with that airline again, but I’m forced to do so.

Wondering when we'll read about venture capitalists swooping in on an airline that finds itself being crushed under "voucher debt".

At least Air Canada was forced by the Canadian government to pay back vouchers to people who asked for them, as part of a deal for financing.

I was able to claim the full value of the flight I had to cancel in April 2020.

Interestingly, even the initial vouchers took many months to be delivered to my email (6 months or more I think). But the refund was very quickly paid. The power of government coercion...

> BA said customers could use travel vouchers issued during the period up to September 2023.

Seems a shit trade-off compared to cash.

Would it be a similar case, when a game you purchased stops working due to the company shutting down their servers?

No. Their terms are highly unlikely to have promised to run said servers forever. If they never got the servers running, you'd have a case for a refund.

I am not a lawyer, but my understanding of my liability to my customers in the UK is this: I am bound by the contract of sale for 6 years to provide a physical thing that is 'fit for purpose' or to take 'reasonable skill and care' to carry out a service. Unless it was advertised before you bought it that the game wouldn't work without a connection to a server and that this connection would only be guaranteed to operate for a certain time then you might have an argument. Search Citizens Advice Bureau in the UK and browse their consumer rights section to see what you could do and where to get some actual legal advice.

Now do in-person college that was cancelled due to Covid.

Wait, so she requested vouchers, BA complied, and then later she demanded a refund instead of vouchers? I am not convinced we should be getting out the pitchforks in this case.

Those vouchers were rendered useless though so she had every right to get a refund.

She was entitled to a refund or vouchers. She opted for vouchers, possibly due to BA doing everything it could to not refund (long timelines, incentives for vouchers, dark patterns).

It seems perfectly reasonable to expect to be able to change your mind on this within the relevant time period, regardless of circumstances.

> She was entitled to a refund or vouchers.

Is this true? Many (most?) airlines offered vouchers en masse when they had to cancel most flights during COVID, with no option for full refunds.

In the US, airline-canceled or "significantly delayed" flights (as opposed to passenger-canceled) are entitled to a full refund. The airline will not tend to tell you this, and they'll resist quite a bit, but you're legally entitled to one, even on a non-refundable ticket.

https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer...

UK seems to be the same: https://www.caa.co.uk/passengers/resolving-travel-problems/d...

> If your cancelled is covered by UK law, your airline must let you choose between two options:

> 1. Receive a refund

> 2. Choose an alternative flight

Yes, the UK has good consumer protections for this.

Keep in mind UK law. The airline cancelled so the customer can insist on cash refund.

I spent a week or two messaging with BA via Twitter DMs to ensure I got a cash refund, rather than dealing with their website which was steering everyone to vouchers.

Under EU law (this was before Brexit) you are entitled to a full refund if the flight is cancelled by the airline. If the flight is cancelled less than two weeks before departure you are also entitled to compensation of a few hundred Euro.

I actually got a cash refund from Ryanair, although it took a long time and at every stage they recommended I take vouchers that would have expired after 12 months instead.

It's still British law for now. I've not heard that it's planned to be cut in the mass-cut of EU laws, but given that it's pro-consumer it may well be.

It sounded like the vouchers only worked to travel to japan, but when japan didn't open back up for tourists she asked for a refund on the vouchers.

It's likely the vouchers were good for any flight; it'd be pretty unusual for them to be destination-locked. IMO that shouldn't make a difference re: consumer protection, though. "I want to go to Japan, I paid you to take me to Japan, you have not taken me to Japan, I want my money back."

I think you're looking at it without any context and it doesn't do it justice. Here's the relevant piece from the article:

> Ms Barber said she had requested the vouchers - in effect store credit to the value of her flights - in March 2020, after Japan closed its borders to foreign travellers during the first wave of the pandemic.

> Her frustration began, she explained, when her preferred destination of Japan did not reopen its borders to visitors as quickly as other nations. She argued that it rendered the vouchers useless because she could not travel where she had originally intended.

> By December 2020, with Japan's borders still closed, she raised the issue with BA and requested a cash refund, but her request was denied.

Essentially, she accepted the voucher in lieu of a cash refund on the premise that she would be able to use the voucher towards a similar flight in the near future — i.e. a flight to Japan.

When it became clear that that wasn't going to be a viable option anytime soon, she wanted a refund. I think this is perfectly reasonable.

Let's say I buy a ticket to a film but the cinema gets flooded, and the showing cancelled. I might be perfectly happy taking a voucher for a future showing over a refund. A week later though if the cinema still isn't open, I think it's fine to say "Hold on, I thought I would've been able to redeem this voucher by now. I've changed my mind & want my money back instead".

I think what people are missing in my complaint is that the classic problem being faced right now is airline companies trying to force people to accept vouchers in lieu of refunds. In the US this is illegal as I understand it but they're doing it anyway.

But that's not what happened here. Rather, this person requested vouchers and changed her mind long after realizing they'd take longer to redeem than expected. Sure, BA ought to offer a refund even now -- but they didn't force the person to take vouchers it seems. She knew what the risks of vouchers were and asked for them anyway.

To me, this seems to be evil, but a rather lesser evil.

Need to have law that force refund in cash only and 4x penalty for refund in any form. Business also response to profit and lost. In this case if the lost is significant they will be motivated to do things correctly. Unfortunately, MPs arent that bright and focus. They do other things that outside of the benefits of their constituents.

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