BA Conditions of Carriage?

You do not have to accept their proposed change. You can ask for a full refund and start over if you like. You can continue to negotiate for a better option or start over. That is pretty much the choice.

They took away what they sold you. You are entitled to a full refund, no questions asked, no need to pour through their boiler-plate.

Two thoughts. First, I do not understand why they will not put you on an Edinburgh flight if available--you see, we were just flying from PHL to Edinburgh, and our specific LHR-EDI flight was canceled 3 days beforehand. Their solution, which they did not even discuss with us but simply emailed that AM, was to put us on a Glasgow flight an hour later, which we ultimately accepted as that, plus airport bus, plus train, was now the fastest way to get to Edinburgh (the next flight to EDI was way later).The direct trains between the 2 are about 38 minutes.

Along those lines, since you will be carry-on only and immigration at T5 is quick if you have the biometric passports, is how about take the Piccadilly line to Kings Crossing and then a train, of which on a Sunday there are many, to Glasgow? No need to get into the "missing a segment" issue, you tell them that that is the only acceptable alternative. And, since they have disaccomadted you with their change, I believe (let those in the know correct me as need be) that you are entitled to compensation for the expenditures you make to come,te the trip that they have taken away.

Yes, calling BA is unfortunately pretty hopeless these days. I had to call to cancel a flight (I wanted a refund, not a voucher) and I tried more than 20 times over a period of weeks. Most of the time I got a busy signal or cut off with a message that they were too busy to take the call unless my flight was imminent. On the first six occasions where I did reach the “queue” to wait, I was cut off after exactly 60 minutes on hold. I finally got through the 7th time in the queue after 50 minutes on hold—-only to be cut off at the 60-minute mark while I was talking to a very helpful agent. Fortunately he called me right back. 😊

I understand your anxiety about the Heathrow to Gatwick transfer. It is not fun, but it could well be OK. And if it isn’t, they are obliged to put you on the next flight to Glasgow. . . . Which could be the next day for all we know. Very inconvenient.

You are correct that you cannot just skip the flight to Glasgow as that will cancel the rest of your ticket (the flights home). And a full refund could just lead to a much higher price for the new trip you book.

I think you should register on FlyerTalk and post your question in their British Airways Executive Club forum:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club-446/

People there are extremely helpful with problems such as this, and can explain your options and how best to proceed.

I had examined all the all new rebook alternatives and the prices were almost double my original booking. I'll try calling BA at odd hours and see if there's any more agents working.

I'm so sorry about BA's changes to your flights, jjgurley. This thread is most helpful/of particular interest to me because I will be flying on BA to Edinburgh via LRH in late July. I have noticed that recently BA has cancelled several LHR-EDI flights each day. My question is: how much advance notice did BA provide you of the change? Did BA notify you via an email...or did you just happen to notice a change when you looked at your booking on the BA website?

One month exactly. I had read about cancellations on The Scotman website and went and looked a week ago and my status looked good. Yesterday (1 month before departure although the subject flight was one day later) I got the ugly email. Nothing automatic about it.

I really recommend going to the FlyerTalk BA forum (the link I gave you) to read, even if you don’t want to post your own question. There is lots of discussion about the short-haul flight cancellations, wait times on the call lines, and possible work-arounds. Some people have had success calling with Skype, but I did not try that. Others suggest trying other country’s call centers, and Mexico is a popular one. I did try that, as their number is a US area code (San Jose, CA) so it is not expensive. I was all prepared to ask in polite Spanish if we could speak English, but never got through to a person. The automated message was in rapid Spanish which I could not understand, and I gave up.

The time I finally got through on the US number was late on a Monday afternoon. The US call center closes at 8 pm Eastern time, so 5 pm Pacific time. I called at 4:04 and made it to the waiting queue. The agent answered at 4:54 and the call was dropped at 5 pm closing time, but as I said, the agent called me back. He was very nice and helpful.

Just put your phone on speaker and read a book or something while you wait.

Another thought. If you go into your booking on the BA website, you should see a button for “change my flight”. You can press that and see if it offers you any options. It won’t change anything unless you confirm that you want the change. But it may be that they have already offered you the best available substitute, if they won’t let you change the destination from Glasgow or lower the class of service. There are limited numbers of business class seats on the short-haul flights.