Stephen Kirk

Hello,

I have been trying to redeem my Amex Companion ticket online for the past month but there is a software bug, that BA acknowledge, but they seem unable to fix.

I could ring the UK call centre, but I am in Indonesia until April and ringing London is expensive and time consuming especially as I am trying to get flights to Singapore from London in December and availability has so far been non-existent - so I need to check every day.

BA have an Indonesain based call centre but they are unable to book BA Amex flights and tell me to call London.

Moreover, emailing BA customer services does not help as they tell me to call London despite me repeating that doing this every day is not realistic.

My question is does anyone have any idea as to how I can find out when this problem will be fixed? Or is anyone happy to call BA from the UK and ask for me. If this issue is not fixed soon it will affect more and more people obviously.

Thanks!

Stephen

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Welcome to FT!

You should probably alert a moderator, and request that your thread be moved to the FT BA forum. Your problem really has nothing to do with your American Express card or with the Membership Rewards program; it has everything to do with BA's booking engine.

Stephen Kirk

thanks for the advice but I assumed this was a specific problem with redeeming my BA Amex card companion ticket. Have you heard of general problems with the BA booking engine? Obviously this would make a crucial difference.
Thanks.
Stephen

mia

Welcome to Flyertalk. Even though the voucher is earned by using an American Express card the redemption is handled by British Airways. I have move the thread to the BAEC forum and edited the title to describe the specific problem.

You may wish to review this thread to see if it discusses the same problem:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...r-booking.html

kryten22uk

As there is no difference between availability for AMEX companion bookings and for normal award bookings, you dont actually need to call BA every day. Just look online for two awards (as if you were booking without the AMEX voucher), and on the day which they become available then you can call BA for the AMEX booking (and stomach the one off cost).

peck

Stephen, if the website is showing no availability (and frankly this is not a surprise considering your desired route and date) why would you bother phoning on a daily basis anyway? Just continue to check daily online, and if (and that is a big 'if') availability crops up just call and book. Yes it might cost you a few �� but surely worth it. The call centre staff do not have access to additional availability. Or am I missing something?

Good luck finding flights however

Stephen Kirk

Thanks Kryten22 and Peck.

My problem is that there is a bug online and I cannot check availability or book online.

That's why I posted the question.

But thanks for trying to help.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Unless the "bug" is also affecting BA's oneworld partners, you should easily be able to check BA award availability on aa.com -- no log-in required.

peck

Hi Stephen. If you log on to BA.com, and you ignore everything to do with your 2-4-1 voucher, can you check availability?

GavT_london

what is the bug? Is it simply that you cannot use the 241 online - which we know is the case or do you have other problems.

Personally i find it easier to use avios.com for availability as it shows you all 4 cabins per date and the weeks calendar usually colours the tabs blue for availability, green for click to check and grey for no availability. I find its a bit quicker than BA website and having to look at each cabin individually although as you can see a month at time on BA.com it can be a bit quicker if you are only looking for one cabin (Although that calendar has its own bugs)

kryten22uk

Can you explain what this bug is; i.e. exactly what you had been entering when it occurs and what happens in the process in more detail? As the booking engine is working fine for everyone else so should work fine for you, as its not location specific.

As mentioned above, there is no special AMEX availability its all the same, so wishing to use an AMEX voucher or not is irrelevant to the booking engine search. So, what happens if you try a dummy booking but make sure you check the "Dont use any vouchers" button, and not the "American Express.." button?

Stephen Kirk

Thanks again for your replies.

Yes you can check availability of Reward flights using Ba.com if you do NOT try and redeem the voucher. I assume these are the same flights that I can redeem the voucher against - so it's some progress at least. (Needless to say no availabilty). I would still need to phone London to book but at least I'd know there was some availabilty.

I tried aa.com - and maybe I'm being thick - but I couldn't see how you'd check BA Avios availability.

The Avios.com idea sounded good but it asked for my BA numbers andirected me to the BA site so I was back to Square 1. However if you alert me to how I keep on the Avios site so I can see all the cabins that would be great.

Good news - I contacted Amex who say they will investigate the problem with BA and get back to me. I was directed to another thread in FT that had many people complaining about the same problem.

nux

You would need a seperate Avios.com account (free to signup).

You can also signup on Qantas.com for free, and search for dates there. It will show month by month availability.

I think you'll be lucky if availability comes up LHR-SIN for December, you'd have needed to be looking 12 months prior when they are first released.

kryten22uk

Ok good. So at least theres no issue checking availability online, which is the money saver. Given that you can do this on BA.com, then theres no benefit to messing around with other partners or avios.com. Hopefully by the time that availability for your desired journey appears, BA will have sorted their problem with the online booking otherwise its a phonecall.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"I tried aa.com - and maybe I'm being thick - but I couldn't see how you'd check BA Avios availability."

You simply use the regular booking engine, tick the box that indicates that you want to redeem AAdvantage miles (even though you actually want to redeem Avios), and then enter your origination, destination, and dates of travel. The aa.com booking engine will then show award availability (if any) for each class of service. If a BA award seat is available to BAEC members, it should also show up at aa.com (except for possible special availability for BAEC Gold elites).

You cannot book an award seat using Avios at aa.com, but you can easily check availability there.