My Philadelphia flight has been altered – am I at liberty to claim compensation?

Simon Calder answers your questions on replacement flights, inconsistent baggage fees, and how to get the best exchange rate for a trip to Canada

For whom the bell tolls: Philly’s main tourist attraction, the Liberty Bell (Getty)

Q I have a question around cancellation compensation. I’m currently in Dublin and was due to fly from here to London Heathrow on British Airways and connect to Philadelphia. BA have now cancelled. They have rebooked me onto another carrier, which is direct from Dublin to Philadelphia. Ironically it leaves Ireland later but reaches the US earlier. Does this rule out compensation?

Mick S

A You, like me, are evidently keen to save cash by booking a connecting trip rather than a direct flight. On the Dublin-Philadelphia run, the penalty for doing so is considerable: you would leave the Irish capital at 10.45am and spend 90 minutes flying in the wrong direction, followed by 85 minutes changing planes at London Heathrow.

British Airways flight 67 would then fly over Ireland on its way to your destination. On arrival in Philadelphia at 4.35pm, you would need to go through US Customs and Border Protection – unlike direct arrivals from Ireland, who are able to pre-clear frontier formalities while still in Dublin airport.

So you have lucked out by getting a direct flight when you were expecting to change planes. This has happened to me twice: on Lufthansa from St Petersburg to London Heathrow, where I was offloaded from an overbooked flight to a non-stop British Airways departure, missing the Frankfurt stop; and on Icelandair at Heathrow when the plane to Reykjavik “went tech” and I was, once again, placed on a non-stop BA aircraft to New York JFK.

In both cases, like you, I departed later than planned but arrived earlier than anticipated. Your American Airlines flight, aboard a comfortable Boeing 787, departs at 1.55pm and arrives at 4.02pm – at which point you are free to leave the airport as soon as you have collected your luggage. You will also save 600 miles of air travel. All of this is hugely to your advantage.

Unsurprisingly, European air passengers’ rights rules do not provide for compensation. The exact conditions that allow the cancelling airline not to pay out are:

1. Depart no more than one hour before the originally scheduled time of departure (you will actually leave over three hours later), and

2. Reach the final destination less than two hours after the scheduled time of arrival (you will get there half an hour earlier).

So no cash – but enjoy the satisfaction of having been given what I regard as a significant upgrade.

Since easyJet, Ryanair and Wizz Air dramatically shrank their cabin baggage allowances, hand luggage has been a very thorny issue (AFP/Getty)

Q A young man of my acquaintance collared me about a problem he’s had with easyJet on flights between Edinburgh and London.

Recently he flew from Edinburgh to London and went with his usual small cabin bag – but was charged £25 extra because they said it was unacceptable. However, on the flight back, there was no charge as it was deemed an acceptable bag. Then the next time he flew from Edinburgh they charged him an extra £40 – and again on the return there was no charge. What do you advise?

Name supplied

A Since easyJet, Ryanair and Wizz Air dramatically shrank their cabin baggage allowances – ostensibly to manage stowing items more efficiently, but also to increase “ancillary revenue” – hand luggage has been a very thorny issue. While the inconsistency in the application of the cabin baggage rules is annoying and perplexing, the key issue is this: was the “usual small cabin bag” compliant with the easyJet rules on its free allowance?

The airline says: “It can be a maximum size of 45 x 36 x 20 cm (including any handles or wheels) and needs to fit under the seat in front of you. That should be enough to bring all the essentials for your journey or for a short trip. Bags larger than this or any additional bags will be placed in the hold and incur the airport bag fee.”

At every airport served by easyJet, metal frames are in place (and at a busy hub such as Edinburgh, they should be readily available). When an item is suspected of being oversized, the standard procedure is for the passenger to attempt to fit the bag within the frame, in what you could see as a 21st-century homage to the story of Cinderella and her glass slipper.

If the luggage does not squeeze in, staff will then apply the stipulated gate fee – currently £39.99 – and may consign the item to the hold (although anecdotally I understand that the passenger, almost £40 lighter, can still take it into the cabin).

I am not sure how the £25 fee you mention was calculated; on Ryanair the cost is £45. Perhaps the young man is mistaken? Regardless, if he was wrongly charged a penalty, then he should have challenged it at the time – by now, it will be far too late to contest. All I can suggest is that, in future, he makes absolutely sure the bag fits.

Bureaux de change at airports, including Vancouver, are not the cheapest places to convert your money (Getty)

Q We have US$650 (£524) in cash that we obtained for holidays during Covid, which unfortunately we were unable to take. We’ve now decided to visit Canada. Can we buy Canadian dollars with our US cash at Vancouver airport?

Name supplied

A You can – but I advise strongly against it. According to the prevailing market rate, three US dollars are worth four Canadian dollars. That would make your American currency worth about C$870. As you realise, bureaux de change never give you the “mid-market” rate: they have a living to make, and so the best you can hope for is a relatively small spread between buying and selling rates.

The trouble is that change offices at airports traditionally have extremely wide spreads. They maintain this very profitable policy in part because the costs of operating in an airport are high: wages need to account for unsocial hours, rent is never low in a premium space, and often a percentage of revenue goes to the airport operator. They also have something of a captive audience, with many airports not encouraging competition between bureaux de change.

The foreign exchange provider ICE has a “click and collect” service in the international arrivals hall where, according to the test transaction I have just run, you should be able to get C$830 for your money at the airport. This will certainly be better than the “walk-up” rate. But downtown at Gastown Currency Exchange, you will get over C$860.

In your position, though, I would do something different. You have already lost a slice of your hard-earned cash when converting sterling into dollars for holidays that did not go ahead. So you might want to consider stemming your loss by asking family or friends who are heading for the US this year if they would like to buy your American dollars at the “mid-market” rate.

You will both benefit from the saving compared with using a bureau de change. Then decide how much sterling cash you want to take; with so many transactions taking place by card these days, I suggest a maximum of £300, which will conveniently buy you just about C$500 from the Gastown outlet.

Just ensure you have a “fee-free” payment card, such as Halifax Mastercard Clarity, for most of your day-to-day spending.

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