On Sunday my Mother & Father-law were set to fly back to Nashville after visiting the UK for a couple of weeks. Being the good son-in-law I’am I paid for their tickets 😉. Due to the dates they wanted to fly I paid $6,600 for the direct economy flights. I know its crazy money for an economy flight but its the only days they could fly and we had not seen them for 12 months. Also I didn’t want them getting lost or confused by adding any stops in. When they got to the desk at Heathrow for there return flight they were told that the flight had been overbooked by 60+ people and that they were not going to be flying on the direct flight back to Nashville. Instead, they were offered an indirect flight that was 6 hours longer via Chicago. Or a direct flight the next day, but BA could not guarantee they would get on the following days flight. My parents took the indirect route which they say felt was being pushed on to them by the team at the BA desk. As a gesture of goodwill the person on the desk offered them a refund of $500 each. They did not know at the time that this is a statuary amount dictated by EU law and was not a gesture of goodwill out of the kindness of BA’s heart. BA have today confirmed that they will not refund any of the original ticket price even though the indirect flight could have been booked for $3,300 cheaper. Surely this has to be one of the biggest Bait-and-switch cons of all time. If BA did the same to the 60+ people bumped off this one flight then they would have managed to legally steal $198,000 just off this one flight. Now let's say this happens on 1% of BA flights out of Heathrow a day. That would mean it happens on 7 Flights a day. 7 x 198,000 = $1,386,000. Now don't get me wrong my numbers might be way off because Im working from an expensive route and 60 people being bumped off the flight but the fact remains the same "This is a massive pain in the ass for customers, but a huge money earner for BA.". British Airways essentially get to overbook an expensive route, then push unsuspecting passengers on to a cheaper route at the higher ‘direct’ price, this seems on the face of it a classic Bait-and-switch con.