Poor staff at CDG Customer Service desk

Subscribe
Little context

We travel to India from CDG on Air Seychelles( going back to CDG on 15 April Early morning), and we based at LHR
so we bought connection flights with BA

our return flight BA 327 on 15 April was cancelled by BA few months ago and we was recooked to BA 323 (moved 21.00 to 18:10)

we travelled 3 families 5 adults and 4 Children all on different bookings with BA
1 family decided to take day rate at Hilton CDG (65 Euro not much to get breakfast and better room with Diamond benefits, one downside evning food and drinks starts at 18.00 so we missed it because of flight change)


case
family nr 2. with my advice wanted to use advantage of flight change and take earlier flight at 10.30 (BA307) this should be free of charge!

so they went to Reebok this at checkin desk CDG, but BA Lady said what it will be costly, and tried to quote them 400Euro per pax, and said that it's no seats left at BA307, when I checked BA page they still selling tickets (4PAX), so I tried to say to it to this lady, but she replay way we don't want to buy this tickets?

pay for extra ticket when BA just cancel the flight and everybody was entitled to be move to another BA flight free of charge (cancellation was more than 2 weeks before flight so moved to another carrier was declined), it was ridiculous just to try to take advantage of this family by BA lady, I said to her what she was laying because seats was available for sell,
so I requested her to phone BA to sorted out it but she refused and said what it must be done for some other BA staff which was at gate at the moment, we waited 30 minutes nobody new show up, so I advice them to phone just BA customer service to sort it out,
they find out what at BA307 was 3 seats left (they have 1 more but it was taken half our earlier)
so family decide to split and take BA307 and 1 pax on later flight and they pay nothing for change...

for me it's sad what staff at check in is so useless when they have more power to fix things
but worst they wanted money to change flights in this situation.....
Reply
Quote: our return flight BA 327 on 15 April was cancelled by BA few months ago and we was recooked to BA 323 (moved 21.00 to 18:10)

case
family nr 2. with my advice wanted to use advantage of flight change and take earlier flight at 10.30 (BA307) this should be free of charge!

Can you confirm the timescales of this
usually when a flight is cancelled and you are rebooked there is the option to reject the rebooking option and request a flight more suitable for you (this may be at a different time or a different date)
The free change appears to be a one time chance and once the alternate flight is accepted then the original fare rules remain

However if this was a Plus ticket (including baggage) then a free change on the day should be possible assuming there were sufficient seats but I have found Plus rules not widely understood
This is different to using the schedule change/cancellation as a reason to change
Reply
first change of flight was only by BA, they just send email what flight was cancelled and move us to 18.10 service with out any choose option....
Reply
Is this a fair summary?

1. 21.00 flight was cancelled a few months ago, and all the party were moved from 21.00 to 18:00 flight.

2. On arrival at CDG early in the morning, some members of the party decided to they wanted to travel on the 10:30 flight as there were seats available. They assumed they could do this as their original 21:00 flight had been cancelled.

3. Check in staff at CDG refused to do this without paying a change fee.

If the above is correct, then I don't really see what the issue is. The check in staff at CDG would have no idea that they were originally on another flight that had been cancelled months ago.

The only way to get any any changes done would have been to phone BA. That would have been the responsibility of the people wanting to change. You can't just rock up at a check in desk and start demanding that the staff start phoning around.
Reply
check in staff was informed what original flight was cancelled,
BA moved everybody to 18.10 service without any approve from travellers

check in staff said wrongly what flight was full
Reply
OP, what cabin were the passengers travelling in? If it was Y, were they on a Basic or Plus fare?
Reply
Quote: Is this a fair summary?

1. 21.00 flight was cancelled a few months ago, and all the party were moved from 21.00 to 18:00 flight.

2. On arrival at CDG early in the morning, some members of the party decided to they wanted to travel on the 10:30 flight as there were seats available. They assumed they could do this as their original 21:00 flight had been cancelled.

3. Check in staff at CDG refused to do this without paying a change fee.
That seems to be about it. I also remember this thread from December, where the OP asked if BA would rebook on a later AF flight (or cover cost of overnight for BA the next day): http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...er-flight.html

Four months later part of the group turn up early and want an earlier flight due to the cancellation they knew about in December…

I wonder if the 1810 flight was accepted way back when, but the pax were trying to get a second go at things?

Quote:
The only way to get any any changes done would have been to phone BA. That would have been the responsibility of the people wanting to change. You can't just rock up at a check in desk and start demanding that the staff start phoning around.
Airport ticketing staff should have access to the same policies as Customer Contact, and abilities to rebook.
Reply
I think there's a policy of complimentary "fly on an earlier flight" on same route / same cabin subject to available space, but only on UK domestic flights and only in certain booking classes.
Reply
Quote:



I wonder if the 1810 flight was accepted way back when, but the pax were trying to get a second go at things?
nobody accepted flight change...BA sent just email which can be lost in mailbox, nobody from BA phone anyone from us to notice of flight cancellation,
for my family we took 18.10 flight because we had already day stay at Hilton, not so happy to fly 3 hours earlier (for us it was 3 hourse less of sleep) but OK things happens,

second family had just option to use this flight cancellation,
they could phone BA earlier to choose 10 o clock service but bad things can happen and flight from Mahe could be delayed for 3 hours and then they could miss connection flight, so for me it was smart to have option to change flight last minute for free, someone wrote what one change is allowed and they did one change, BA just put them on 18.10 flight earlier without they acceptation

point is that BA staff at CDG could do this change also they refused to call BA HQ to do it, it should be like this I always though that check in agents/gate staff have more power to make changes.....
Reply
Quote: I think there's a policy of complimentary "fly on an earlier flight" on same route / same cabin subject to available space, but only on UK domestic flights and only in certain booking classes.
It's not complimentary per se, it's a fare type that one purchases. Plus fares, to be exact. Point-to-point, one-way or return only. Applies to all Euro Traveller routes.
Reply
Quote: point is that BA staff at CDG could do this change also they refused to call BA HQ to do it, it should be like this I always though that check in agents/gate staff have more power to make changes.....
As you did not accept the schedule change you could call up and likely get it changed. The airport staff probably cannot do that - I'm not sure how much of the PNR they see to begin with, whereas the contact centres will have the full history.

Airport agents have more flexibility in the case of on the day IRROPS. For all other things, much unlike the US, the phone is best. Unless it's an on-the-day change you can are making according to the fare rules.
Reply
It doesn't seem a reasonable expectation to me that a schedule change a long time before travel effectively should change the ticket type to a flexible ticket that can be altered without penalty at the last minute to suit the passengers' needs on the day.
Reply
I agree, but it is the policy. If BA didn't want people to take advantage of it they could call up affected customers and ask what they want to do.
Reply
Yes emails can get lost in spam folders etc. But that isn't really BA's responsibility, I note that you haven't said they didn't know about this flight change well in advance. Effectively, - customer should ensure contact details are useable, if you find emails ending up going astray, :don't give your email as contact and then they will either write or call you to advise of the flight time change.

I may may be wrong but as I read it the flight was on a separate PNR, the other family had the opportunity to move their flight to an earlier booking But as you say they didn't wish to risk a misconnect. They could have protected the connection by purchasing a through ticket.

As much as I can understand the frustration,indeed I may have had more empathy if they had moved them to a later flight and they were trying to get an earlier one or vice versa but common sense would say that they weee given an earlier flight and tried to make it even earlier at last minutes which would effectively as others have said making the flight flexible.

in any case, it was outside of airprot control to move them except for IRROPS, but customer service may have moved them as a goodwill gesture.
Reply
Quote: nobody accepted flight change...BA sent just email which can be lost in mailbox, nobody from BA phone anyone from us to notice of flight cancellation,
for my family we took 18.10 flight because we had already day stay at Hilton, not so happy to fly 3 hours earlier (for us it was 3 hourse less of sleep) but OK things happens,
BA informed you of a flight change months in advance. If the change was not to your liking you should have objected then and there.

Quote:
second family had just option to use this flight cancellation,
they could phone BA earlier to choose 10 o clock service but bad things can happen and flight from Mahe could be delayed for 3 hours and then they could miss connection flight, so for me it was smart to have option to change flight last minute for free, someone wrote what one change is allowed and they did one change, BA just put them on 18.10 flight earlier without they acceptation
This all depends in the air sechelles flight was on the same ticket and it seems from your original post you booked the BA connection separately. If booked seperately BA would not take your connection into consideration and they are not required to.

If a non flexible ticket gets changed months in advance the only flexibility is at the time of change, not at your will and most certainly not at checkin.

Quote:
point is that BA staff at CDG could do this change also they refused to call BA HQ to do it, it should be like this I always though that check in agents/gate staff have more power to make changes.....
The point is, they could not. Not at time of check in.
In this case you can argue till the cows come home.. you have heard from other posters and decide to argue with them as well. Take it or not but it won't change your situation.

Globalist
Reply