British Airways cancelation[exclamations removed]4th or 5th time - maybe 6th coming?

Why don’t you make your way to LA and fly non stop to Zurich? Is that possible even on an other carrier? I see plenty going there.

Swiss air flies direct from San Francisco to Zürich. Seems to me that Southwest along with other airlines offer commuter flights to/from San Diego/LA/San Francisco. Good luck!

At this late date, business class on other airlines is double what we paid.

The first time BA canceled us, they claimed they couldn't put us on Swiss Air.

AND- I brought up flying out of SFO- British Airways said that was outside their 300-mile limit for changing flights.

Getting to LAX is hellacious , AND the connections offered [via American] after the first cancelation weren't very appealing, altho we may re-think that.

AND- BA still hasn't canceled our return flight yet, and I know that's a given now.

Thx to all for taking the time to respond. Safe travels!

Maybe try a British Air flight to Geneva and train to Lucerne- hmmmmm.....

Yes, when they said they cancelled the flight was it only the London-Zurich leg?
Business class is nice on transatlantic flights, but unnecessary on inter European flights, if that makes any difference. At this point, I think you are going to have to talk to someone at BA, no matter how long you have to spend on hold.

Many airlines are changing flight schedules, unfortunately. I think BA will put you on the next available BA flight, not Swiss.

My return flight from Spain to England was rescheduled SEVEN times, mostly when we were actually in Spain and we ended up returning 4 days later than scheduled. Flights were cancelled, reinstated and cancelled again all within a 48 hour window. It didn’t make for a relaxing trip.

If you want to travel at present, it’s just something you have to accept, unfortunately.

Oh no!!!!!! Pat, not again. ☹ You will make it to Switzerland!!!!!!

Getting to LAX is hellacious

Please, no more rants. Think outside the box, be flexible. Spend the night near LAX the day before (in Marina Del Rey, Santa Monica, or any of the beach cities) and it will not take you long to get to LAX (took me about 15 minutes from Ocean Park/ Santa Monica). LAX is a larger travel market than San Diego, so you will get better choices, prices, etc.

It looks like Swiss Air flies nonstop from LAX to Zurich - I would pick that option if you want to reduce risk.

Sympathy for your situation, but a seat in business class isn't worth anything if the plane doesn't leave the airport.

@Pat. Geneva is a bigger airport than Zurich and may give you more options. And, the train from Geneva to Zurich will take you right into Zurich's city center.

Geneva is a bigger airport than Zurich

Not hardly. Latest annual stats (2018 &2019) , 31 million passengers and 275,000 aircraft movements at Zurich vs 18 million passengers and 187,000 aircraft movements at Geneva.

Nonetheless, GVA is an option in a pinch. There is a direct train to Luzern every hour taking as shade over 3 hours and trains with connections at other times with similar travel times.

No advice, but one ton of sympathy. Hang in there!

Husband got up at 4:30am and actually got thru by phone fairly quickly, and we are going into Geneva, then train to Lucerne. The agent said BA is resuming flights to San Diego Sept 6, so does not expect our return flight to be canceled . Hope-hope!

Our house sitter is very busy, so we don't have the option of going up to LAX a day earlier, or staying a day later. We have a household of three dogs. And, from past experiences, prices are not better out of LAX, but there are more carriers. We have found that the drive home after an international flight, however, is just painful in the maddening traffic .

The prices to book another airlines right now is double what we paid for the BA flight.

BA will NOT switch a leg of a flight to Swiss Air.

Hopefully this is our last change. I'm surprised my husband is hanging in there; I thought he'd insist on canceling after this bump in the road.

Now waiting For the Sept 11 Covid-Status updates from the Swiss government.

Safe travels to all!

Is Munich an option? How wed are you to having this all booked through BA? Is there the opportunity to have the intra-European legs separated from transatlantic? I have done it both ways, but sometimes having them as separate bookings yields more flexibility. Also (and I have not looked this up), what are the options for American Airlines? They are a BA partner. Once, BA cancelled my flight to LHR and had me book much later. It was so disappointing. When I checked in at the airport, the BA rep asked why I was not going direct PHL-MUC instead - he arranged it! Life saver. I had to run through the airport to catch that flight, but it was so much easier.

Good luck. BTW, if you get delayed by overnight and need a room in Heathrow 5, Sofitel is a nice landing place - and uses BA miles!

I see now that this was resolved while I was typing my reply. Glad it worked out!

Jennifer, I think you have the record for changes . Thanks for sharing and giving us all courage to persevere . Again, BA said our return flight will be flying, but just in case, if we do get canceled, we have decided that just one of us has to get back by the designated date [for the dogs and house sitter] . We have our last two days in Bern, so are flexible. Hope we don't have to use that option .
Thx to all for the input.

Success! Hoping no more bumps in the road, or the air in this case.

BA just canceled our return flights. We are rebooked. This is our 3rd cancelation for this trip. So much for BA telling us last time that there would be no more flights canceled in Sept. Not even mad anymore- whatever.

We went through 4 cancellations and changes with them. But we used Avios. So the last change we gave up for the flight over and just bought expensive one way tickets with Swiss and got the Avios redeposited because we just couldn’t take any more changes. We did keep the return with BA but that is to LAX and those have been pretty regular.

One thing some people have said is that the minute you land all this stress will just fall away, I think that’s true! So hang in there!

Maybe just a coincidence that this happened on a Friday the 13th. Is the rebooking still with BA, and are the prices and flight times not too severe?

The more effort it takes to make flight arrangements, the more committed you might be to making sure the trip happens! Hang in there, Switzerland’s on the horizon.

For our flight to Italy last month I had booked a back up flight on AA, not going through Heathrow. I also paid for our return flight on Delta. (Tip- if you book flights round trip, originating in Europe they tend to be less expensive than the other way around.) I think it’s safe to say that avoiding BA for the near future will be wise. I know all of the airlines are struggling right now, but BA seems to be a guaranteed $h!+ show.

In the past four days, BA has canceled two more connections. It does not seem possible to get into Zurich, via BA, without an 8 hr wait. We rebooked the inbound to Geneva, and now maybe the outbound. I just returned from a domestic trip [another sh-show of flight delays, both legs] and am too tired to deal with this until tomorrow. I am seriously worried about not being able to return home. If BA cancels the Geneva connections, we are in some trouble.
We are supposed to leave in two weeks. The prices on all the other carriers are now prohibitive.
I know this is a first world problem, so just save those comments.
The adventure aspect of travel right now is fading with the sheer exhaustion involved.
Just an fyi to other travelers.
oh- and three weeks ago the BA agent told us that all of the BA September cancelations were done for the month.
Wishing you all better experiences.

I’m really sorry Pat. I have a feeling we’ll be in the same boat for our trip in Oct.
I know how disheartened you must feel.

Hi Pat -

I ran across your posts after receiving my own email today from BA cancelling flights in December and January. Based on your experiences with flights continually being cancelled, I am considering just cancelling and rebooking with another carrier.

Will be following you and seeing how your trip pans out!

safe travels,

amyk-
Dec and Jan? That is a really bad sign. I am amazed! We are too late for other carriers, due to cost, horrible long connections, availability.
I have no idea what we are going to do- OR- it may be out of our hands.
Thanks for sharing.

yes, we were leaving December 27 flying St. Louis to Chicago to Paris. The Chicago to Paris leg was on AA but I booked through BA.

We were flying back January 4 and the Paris-Chicago leg was cancelled. Again, it was on AA. I tried to rebook through the link sent but it told me there were no flights available to choose another day. Well, with a college and high school kid, my days are limited so I can't choose another day. But when I looked, there were all sorts of flights in the classes i booked. Rather than mess around with it after reading your saga, I took the refund. I will wait until the refund hits the credit card and rebook on United.

As one of the cancelations happened four days ago, and I was away, we didn't have time to check if the flights are currently being flown. Looks like the BA Heathrow to Phoenix flight we were given has not flown in the past few months, so that hasn't much chance of happening. And our Zurich to Heathrow flight was just canceled yesterday.
This is all madness. My husband has status with BA, so he originally didn't want to fly Swiss Air. That status hasn't given us much, except for a phone number that gets us thru right away.
Just sharing all of this to hopefully help others.
We will call tomorrow morning, and see what BA offers now.
This is all like a surreal dream. Wonder how it will all end?????

We were talking to our neighbor the other evening, as he was saying he's leaving for Spain, in a week, out of San Diego, on British Airways. The look on his face when we told him that BA still isn't flying in/out of San Diego was priceless. He ran back into his house and haven't seen him since. And- he booked through American Express, which I assume is a third-party booking. Will update .

Pat, I wish I could remember where I read it, but just this last week I read that BA was starting up its Phoenix -LHR service again. I think that this routing may actually be possible.

Edited to include link to a news report. They start service August 31
https://www.abc15.com/news/business/british-airways-starts-up-phoenix-to-london-flight-again#:~:text=British%20Airways%20will%20start%20the,1%20at%201%3A15%20p.m.

Pat, I wound up mentioning this on another thread, but BA officially cancelled our Denver-to-Heathrow flight (booked back in January 2021) that was scheduled to depart a month from today. That cancellation was this past Wednesday. Luckily, we’d already substituted with AA flights to Dallas and then direct to Rome, rather than London to Bologna, so we wouldn’t have to quarantine once reaching Italy. Was your friend going to have to quarantine in Spain, had that San Diego/Heathrow/Spain itinerary not gotten cancelled? Maybe Spain isn’t mandating quarantines if you transfer planes in London, assuming you could teach London in the first place.

And BA only cancelled the Denver>Heathrow part. The Heathrow>Bologna hadn’t been cancelled. It’s good, actually required, to have a Plan B. Except you’ve needed a Plan C, D, E, F, G, etc. Switzerland’s still expecting you, though, and will be he spot to see you when you arrive.

It looks like BA has canceled all BA 272 flights (San Diego to Heathrow) through Oct. 3. Flights are still listed beginning Oct. 4, but they may not have started cancellations for October yet.

You might want to check the FlyerTalk forums on British Airways for a complete discussion on cancellations, schedule changes, and options. This one if for September:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/2036157-september-2021-flight-cancellations-operational-changes.html

And this is a “wiki” covering the whole topic. Maybe TMI, but you can jump to the last page for the most recent posts.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/2031601-ba-covid-19-flight-cancellations-rebooking-refunds-help-advice-thread.html

Carol, thx, will keep that in mind if our current flight get canceled/delayed. We all do need back-up plans when flying these days.

PS - Haven't seen our neighbor yet- he's probably still on hold trying to change from his canceled flight.

Cyn, I've awoken five days in a row now without receiving a BA cancelation email. Don't want to get cocky, tho!

LOL, Pat - maybe the slew of cancellations is over, and flights will commence. Or (not to jinx things), maybe BA just cancelled notifying passengers about cancellations. Flights are still being cancelled, but no ones being told for awhile. Certainly, that would never happen, right?

At least Executive Club gold or premier members should be given first notice of anything awry.

BA was behaving like this long before covid. When we went to Namibia in 2013, we were LAX-LHR and then LHR-Joberg. BA cancelled that second leg 2 weeks before our departure. We had booked the tickets 9 months before. No explanation given when I called, and no rebooking. After a frantic search, we discovered that Virgin had flights from LAX to jo-berg through LHR whose schedules were within a couple of hours of BA's flights. We were able to book those flights for less than the BA ticket.

We concluded that BA simply cancelled the flights when they couldn't fill their plane. After this, I have a policy of not flying on BA unless I have to, and even then, it must be a route for which there is no significant competition or daily flights (e.g. LAX to LHR).

BA is not a trustworthy airline in my opinion.

The value of BA for us was that they HAD an overnight flight directly from San Diego to Heathrow. Supposedly, they are coming back into the city, but now there is no service by BA into San Diego. We are using their American partner.
We learned about Flight Aware and the flights we are CURRENTLY on have been flying and have a decent track record for dependability- but that still is no guarantee.
Keeping my fingers crossed.

Lola, thx, I hadn't seen those BA discussion sites, will also monitor those. Thx again.

“That status hasn't given us much, except for a phone number that gets us thru right away.”

Can you share that #?

Susan,
Sorry I missed this. My husband is BA Silver, and the # is on the back of the card BA sends out. If you're not Silver or Gold, the # won't help. I do not have that status, so don't have the #.
Safe travels!