I know this might be hard to understand, but BA's failure to deal with EC members who travel internationally revolves around, as others have pointed out, the inability to get anything dealt with by a human being unless you ring up a country other than the one you're in (since you've travelled away from home on BA - duh), only to be given a huge amount of unnecessary runaround.

Further, usually one ends up speaking to someone in yet another part of the world anyway (my English speaking reps on the French number almost always seem to be based in the US, but I can't ring them up directly when I'm in the US - I have to wait until the French lines re-open, and hope the English speaking North Americans are still on their lines). So it's not that BA hasn't figured out international outsourcing yet... just that they do their darndest to ensure that their average European Gold member who's travelled to the other end of the world has as short a window as possible to reach somebody with a brain on a number that (1) they're allowed to dial, and (2) will have someone with a clue pick up.

As for your vacuum, I suggest to empty the bag. I know your cleaning lady doesn't like to do this with any seriousness - mine doesn't either. But you have to get your hands in there, pull out the crap, put the bag back in, seal the machine up, and get on your way.