SALLY SORTS IT: Forced to book a new flight but BA won’t cover the cost

I have claimed almost £600 from British Airways but am struggling to get a response.

The amount includes refund and compensation in respect of a January flight from Portugal to London that was delayed by 18 hours.

I have provided the airline with all the required paperwork, but they have not responded to my repeated requests for an update.

I would be very grateful for your guidance.

AG, Perthshire

Sally Hamilton replies: After a weekend break in Faro, you would catch a British Airways (BA) flight to London Gatwick early on Monday, January 30. You booked the early flight so you would arrive in time to start your Monday shift at 1:30 PM. .

However, your plans came to a halt when it turned out that one of the flight crew had fallen ill and there was no one to replace them.

The flight was canceled and after a long wait you were offered a courtesy bus to a hotel 50 minutes away, a late night snack and the promise of a BA return flight at around 5pm on Tuesday.

Concerned that this would mean you would also be late for Tuesday’s service, you voluntarily booked an alternative flight with Portuguese airline TAP for early Tuesday morning for £191.

You hopped in a cab and headed back to the hotel you stayed in before – and made it back to London in time for your Tuesday shift.

When you made a claim against BA for the statutory compensation due to passengers when flights are canceled (£350 for medium-haul flights like yours), plus your extra costs, you were met with icy silence.

You made repeated requests for a response via BA’s online portal and contacted the airline via the social media platform Twitter. You were told staff were busy and your case would be dealt with in a timely manner.

But you had a sense of humor and you contacted me. Airline refund claims often get stuck in a holding pattern, so I wasn’t surprised to hear about your experience. However, what I found intriguing was that BA resisted paying the cost of your alternative air ticket because technically your BA flight was not cancelled, but simply ‘delayed’.

Apparently you weren’t supposed to take matters into your own hands and buy a ticket from another airline and claim it back.

Under BA rules, in the event of delays, passengers must ask staff to explore alternative airlines rather than waiting for the rescheduled departure.

However, you felt that this was not made clear and found it easier to take control of the situation yourself.

While BA will happily pay your taxi bill and other expenses and pay the official £350 flight delay compensation, under normal circumstances BA will not refund your ticket.

But after my intervention, and as a gesture of goodwill, BA agreed to pay you the £191 TAP ticket price, giving you a total compensation of around £600.

With the summer holidays just starting, it pays for travelers to be aware of the rules for where they stand if flights are delayed or cancelled.

Most airlines offer vouchers for food and drinks, and for a hotel room and transport if there is a long wait.

Passengers should keep all receipts, but make sure they keep their spending at a reasonable level – three course meals with expensive wine are unlikely to be accepted. As we saw in your case, the law says that airlines must pay special compensation for long delays (usually three hours or more), but only if the delay is the airline’s fault. Bad weather or a strike by air traffic control, for example, is beyond the control of an airline.

In your case, BA was responsible because it should have arranged a replacement for the sick crew member. How much a passenger receives depends on the flight duration and distance, with £220 paid for short haul, £350 for medium haul and £520 for long haul.

To be eligible, the flight must usually be on a UK airline or departing from or destined for a UK airport.

William Hill called off my £444 winning bet

At the end of March I placed a £2,000 bet on the William Hill bet in Cleveleys, Lancashire.

On April 29, the bet won and the next day I went to collect my winnings. However, after the cashier spent 20 minutes on the phone with someone at head office, I was told there was a ‘security issue’ and I was not given my money.

My emails and phone calls are ignored. I am shocked and feel cheated. Please help.

JB, Lancashire

Sally Hamilton replies: You’ve placed your £2,000 bet – with a 2/9 chance of winning – on AFC Fylde to top the National League North division at the end of this year’s football season.

This happened and the team was declared champions after a 2-0 win at Bradford Park Avenue.

You were over the moon as this meant your bet paid €2,444 – a net profit of €444.

William Hill, owned by 888 Holdings, kicked the ball around in his home territory, delaying payment by more than two weeks by asking for photo ID, passport, proof of address and eventually a copy of your bank statement.

Instead of enjoying the excitement of your win, you remained deflated and scavenged for paperwork to send to the company.

I sympathized with your point of view as such procedures should have been carried out before you placed the bet. And if something extra was needed, it should have been done faster.

I was intrigued to know why you had to wait so long when you were a true, undisputed winner, so I asked William Hill to investigate. Within 24 hours, it issued a vague response referring to security checks behind the robbery.

But I am happy to say that after receiving your bank statements, which she may rightly request, your winnings have finally been released.

A spokesperson says: ‘We have legal and regulatory obligations that we must comply with. Our request for additional information and our processes for dealing with it are designed to comply.”

Such strict controls are there to fight crime. The Gambling Commission is keen to ensure that the industry is free from money laundering.

This is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money obtained from illegal activities, such as drug trafficking, by converting it into a legitimate source.

Betting offices must verify the identity of customers to confirm that the source of funds used to place bets is legitimate.

Delays can also occur as companies need to check whether customers can afford to bet at all or whether they have self-excluded themselves from betting.

Some people opt for self-exclusion when they realize they have a gambling problem and need help staying on the straight and narrow.

It seems likely that William Hill is generally extra vigilant. A month before you won your bet, 888 was fined a record £19.2 million by the Gambling Commission for ‘widespread and alarming’ social responsibility and anti-money laundering misconduct at three of the companies in its stable, including William Hill.

Following the fine, 888 said it was related to a period when William Hill was previously owned and operated, and that after being acquired in July 2022, the company “promptly addressed the issues identified with the implementation of a rigorous action plan.” .

• Write to Sally Hamilton at Sally Sorts It, Money Mail, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT or email sally@dailymail.co.uk – include telephone number, address and a note addressed to the offending organization giving them permission to talk to Sally Hamilton. Please do not send any original documents, we cannot take any responsibility for that. The Daily Mail assumes no legal liability for answers provided.