Monday, June 08, 2009

Many years ago, I travelled to the USA with British Airways on a job. I forget the year, as it was so long ago. I think I was on the way to Japan, but I'm not sure... around that time, the airline was charging fuel surcharges as the price of fuel was higher than they had expected it to be... although this cost was included in the price that I was quoted when I booked the flight, so I didn't feel it was an "extra" charge. Then, a while ago, it came out that BA had been working in combination with Virgin airlines (I'm reporting all this from memory, and I might be wrong about some of the details...) to ensure that both airlines charged the same level of fuel surcharge. This was breaking American anti trust laws. I saw an article somewhere (I have a vague memory it was in BA's in flight magazine that the courts had made them publish) with a procedure to claim this (or some of this) surcharge back from BA. They were also fined a whopping amount of money. I seem to remember that Virgin got off without being fined as they were the one's who blew the whistle on themselves. I made my claim, despite only having the dates of my flight and the credit card number I would have used to book the flight with. Frankly, I then pretty much forgot all about it. Every now and again it has come back to mind, but the whole thing took place such a long time ago, I had presumed that it had faded into the great administrative black hole that these type of things often do. However, today, as if by magic I got my cheque from BA. The grand total of £10.74...

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