Michelle7

I have been flying a lot in the past 6 months and have never encountered such a string of bad service.

I am not talking about the usual unhappy flight attendants, ridiculously long line ups or frequent delays, which I have sadly just come to expect, although I have been experiencing more delays due to mechanical problems of late.

What I am talking about is being on a 10 hour flight last month with only one working toilet. I am talking about flying business class two weeks ago and being asked to board the plane last because it would be easier and more time efficient to start with the rows at the back of the plane!

Last week, I purchased a flight online for my father to fly from Canada to London with BA. I am currently living in London and we are going on a road trip to Scotland this September which we have been planning for the past year. The only reason I booked him on BA was because I was returning to Canada with him at the end of our trip and I already had a return ticket with them, and we wanted to travel on the same flight because he is to be staying with me upon our return.

After booking my fathers ticket online, I tried to change the date on my return ticket, but the online service would not allow it, so I spent at least 20 minutes on hold waiting to speak to a representative here in Britain who informed me that they would not honour my ticket because I would be flying one month past the expiry date. I said, OK, just go ahead and change it and I will pay the fine. She said they couldn't change it, there was no fine, I would have to buy a new ticket. They suggested I should call Canada where I booked it, maybe BA had different policies there. So I spent even more time on hold trying to reach a BA rep in Canada and she told me the same thing, the ticket was useless. (I am really angry at this point because I knew I would be returning to Canada past the ticket expiry date, which is why I called the airline and asked them if there was a way around this before I even booked the ticket, to which the woman told me yes, but there would be a fine. I said no problem, I'll pay the fine.) So now I am asking this rep why I am being penalized for an error made by one of their ticket agents and asked to speak to a supervisor. She told me there was no point in talking to him as he would just say the same thing, so "write a letter" if you want to complain, there is nothing else we can do.

Next, I told her I needed to cancel the ticket I just purchased online for my father as we needed to travel on the same flight. She said she would talk to her supervisor and so put me on hold, on my cell phone dime of course, for another 25 minutes. She came back saying that, no, they would not refund me the ticket and if I had a problem I could "write another letter"!

Perhaps the most shocking thing about this whole interlude was that she actually asked me if I would like to go ahead and book another flight! I told her she had to be joking, I would never fly with British Airways again -- I’ll call someone like Zoom, they are cheaper and their service is better!

So I ask you, what is up with this? I can't recall service ever being this bad. You expect very little from a low-budget airline, but these more established airlines need to be doing it better if they want return customers. You think you are paying more for a better quality of service, but that no longer appears to be the case. I doubt if I had been flying in a higher class the outcome would have been any different -- I flew club world with them the summer before last and had an awful experience, but I thought it was just a one off.

Space-bunny

Oh dear. I flew with Qantas 3 years ago out to Oz I thought the service was v bad. So this time I booked with B.A to go from SDY-LHR-EDI BA16 for the 4th of Feb. I hope service will be better than Qantas, the staff where not very welcoming and service was poor.
Saying that I phoned B.A about my connection from LHR-EDI telling them that the connection time they gave me was not good and there was no way I could get from T4 to T1. The lady told me no 1 hour plus you 20mins is good even tho BAA website states 75min. I wasnt impressed. Just means when I get there I will have to go to the desk and get put on the next flight. Which she could have done for me.But I guess it was to much bother.
But she was probably just following the rules/guidlines given to her by saying 1 hour. As long as I have a seat to go home thats all that counts

edi-traveller

I'm sorry to hear about your problems - but there is a difference with "bad" service on an aircraft, on the ground, or in the airport - but here you have experienced the staff simply enforcing the fare rules for the ticket which you have bought online.

When you buy a ticket online it tells you the fare rules and whether you understand them and accept them. The screen would have told you that the tickets were non-changeable and non-refundable. If you didn't read these rules and accepted them anyway - then the phone staff saying you can change or refund the ticket may not have been to your liking - but it is not bad service - they are simply telling you the fare rules for a ticket you accepted.

Having said that - I agree airline rules can be a bit bewildering and I think that it would be fair for BA to offer a cooling off period for tickets for just such occasions as you have experienced.

PUCCI GALORE

You know, I was reading the United board yesterday and there was someone's rant/complaint about some service aspect that clearly fell short of his expectations.

My thought is - should this not be addressed to British Airways? I am not quite sure what the benefits of posting these except as a cathatrtic experience (I hope) for the writer. Clearly nothing except sympathy,advice , opinion, or reaction can be gained here. The BA crowd will say sorry - but tough. Some will say So What, and others will chime in and say that this shows how deplorable the airline hs become.

This is the first post - so I am curious to the motivation.

I have tried in recent months to become a little less parochial as far as the Forums go and read a bit elsewhere. Uniformly I read of similar experiences elsewhere. Not maybe mirroring this experience but others which is reassuring as far as BA are concerned in so far as these issues appear not to be confined to British Airways. Whilst that is no excuse for comlaisency, it does indicate that expectations are not always met in an industry run by human beings and, yes, we do have to expect that people wsill under such circumstances go elsewhere for what we all hope will be more positive experiences. However, I would be surprised if anyone here walked out of any airline as the result of someone else experiences. These are highly subjective and we only know one side of the story and no many of us would make decisions involving money based on these whilst we did have our own experiences to draw on.

I for one hope that the OP feels better for having got that out of their system and sends the same sort of letter to BA - no doubt Zoom or Air Canada will appreciate her custom which clearly BA will no longer enjoy.

DYKWIA

Something doesn't sound right here.

10 hours flight with only 1 toilet? It must have been a 747 or 777. I'm sure that the flight would not have been allowed to leave on H&S grounds with only one toilet.

As for the the other point, I've read the OP 3 times, and I've still no idea what the actual problem is. The assumption I'm making is that she booked a non-changeable, non-refundable flight, and then tried to make a change.

Where does paying a fine come into it? Is the 'fine' another name for a change fee?

It does sound like the OP is trying to apply the T&C's of a North American airline to BA.

Cheers,
Rick

continentalclub

I knew I'd have my Eureka idea one day and today's the day!

It's going to work in so may ways, I just know it:

You just tell me where you want to go and when.

I will book your ticket and I will come with you. If there's more than one of you, I will always provide someone to accompany you.

You will always be able to change your plans.

We will always provide international travel adapters and spare underwear.

We will always come and pick you up 8 hours before your flight and will search your knicker drawer for your passport for you.

We will check that you know your name, where you are going and who you are going to see.

We will check that they know who are they are, they know who you are, that they are where you think they are and that they know you are coming.

We will FedEx your luggage 24 hours before you leave, for guaranteed delivery 24 hours after you arrive.

We will carry reins to attach to you for passage through the terminal, and spare elastic to tie to your gloves and run through the arms of your anorak.

There will be only 4 terms and conditions for this service:

1. You must book a minimum of six months in advance of the first date that you may possibly wish to travel, so that we can arrange for the passport and visas that you may not have realised you need.

2. At no time during travel may you speak, other than to respond with yes or no answers.

3. This service will be charged at the base price of the prevailing fully flexible ticket, multiplied by a factor of 4.

4. This service will only be available from the USA.

I honestly think that this will work.

Alternatively, you could just follow the rules and do it yourself for about 92.5% less......

HIDDY

Hello Michelle,welcome to the BAEC forum. ^

First post ranting is not a good way to start your Flyertalk experience. You shall mostly receive a negative response rather than a sympathetic one, which is only to be expected from frequent BA flyers.
If you had worded your thread in a less aggresive manner and had asked for advice or help you would have found a completely different response from the boards members who are only too willing to help.

Please don't be one of those first post ranters who come, get it off their chest then are never to be seen again.^

Capricorn70

IME some agents on the phone are more knowledgeable/skillful than others. I've had to deal with a BAEC center multiple times on an issue with different agents who said different things about certain rules and procedures, which created a bit of confusion, to put it mildly.

If the OP genuinely had an agent who gave wrong information that led to the problem, then it would be a kind of 'he says/she says' situation.

Here's the question:

What's the best way when dealing with a call center to ensure everything is logged properly in your file, so that if problems - especially agent error - do occur you can go back and find out it's not your fault and that BA would need to own up to any mistake it might have made?

Cheers.

James S

Where I work all phones are recorded for ever in case transaction details are disputed. I haven't had to do it but colleagues sometimes threaten to go to the tapes when having problems with the UK service sector. You could try that with BA if you had a problem.

KenJohn

Firstly, folks in North America need to understand that the approach customer interaction (how you are dealt with on the phone) and meeting customer expectations (giving you what you want) are very different in North America (Canada/US) versus the UK and Europe. I do understand your frustration and dearly wish that side of american culture could be imported over here.

The ticket issue is unfortunately a common one on this forum and is a firm BA rule. You might have to invest more time reading FT.

You get what you paid for and you paid for a non-changable not refundable fare. This would have been made clear when you bought the ticket. Why do you think non-changable not refundable cost about 50% of fully flexible fares? Everyone would then choose to pay a change fee and not buy a fully flexible ticket (at double the cost).

Unlike the US, where you have to blatantly advertise that a cup of coffee is HOT, you do not have to do this in the UK. Having said that, I am sure the non-changable not refundable is made pretty clear on the web-site. You cannot assume that what one US airlines practices, all airlines around the world have to follow.

Rambuster

If the validity of the ticket has expired, it has expired. Quite simple really.
Depending on the fare type, tickets are for example valid for 3, 6 or 12 months. The fine in this case is to buy a new one !

If Zoom is cheaper and the service better why not book there for all of you in the first place ?

LeisureFirst

I was recently on a flight with four of the premium lavatories (one F, three CW) not working, as I posted previously. The CSD had been told that they would work once the aircraft reached 20,000ft, which turned out not to be true; he told me that if they had known they wouldn't work, they wouldn't have taken off for "Health and Safety" reasons, so thank god he was misinformed.

Rambuster

I was on a UA flight a couple of years ago from ORD-SFO where NONE of the toilets were functioning ...

PUCCI GALORE

You are a very very VERY naughty boy.

So, this naughty gorl is making you a Mucci for the "knicker drawer" remark which is priceless - simply priceless.

Moomba

What? Just a plain Mucci, no order of the knicker drawer or anthing?