Originally Posted by
Frequentflyer99
There is a process called "TCP" (or something similar) by which BA can link bookings and this seems to be the only way of overriding the block which the system put on you having one of the bassinet row seats. However the CS agents that you speak to on the phone cannot do that - they have to send a request to "seating", which is probably what the first agent that you spoke to did, or intended to do.
I have this self-same issue if I have a booking and, as a Gold Card holder am entitled to exit row seat pre-selection, but my famly are not if travelling on separate bookings (tghere are all sorts of reasons why we might not be on the same booking and the reason is really completely irrelevant to what should be done).
The knowledge of CS agents about this issue ishighly variable, which is unsatisfactory, although one might say that the apparent complexity of the system is the underlying cause of the problem.
Had you posted this earlier, there might have been solutions, but as advised above, your best bet is to go for the seat release that occurs at T-72. You may not be able to do that online, but if not call up again and the CS agent can do it, whatever they first tell you !
Thanks to you and a few others for some very helpful input. It's going to be hard to swallow paying for a seat that we were already promised we would be switched to free of charge a month ago, but it's still clearly the optimal play (along with changing future purchasing habits away from BA when possible). I'll look online later today when we're within 72 hours.
Originally Posted by
LondonAndy
Do you not think that this could come across as threatening? There have been a
number of stories recently where tourists have threatened hotels with bad trip advisor reviews if they didn't give them free upgrades etc. - how different is this?
Well, in my situation I was promised that I would be given something a month ago. The company didn't deliver and treated me poorly in the process. I then informed them that I would be passing along to others an accurate summary of my experience, not a falsified bad review, and I did so at a point where I had lost any hope of being accommodated by the phone-in customer service.
You're talking about a situation where a person hasn't been promised anything, hasn't been treated poorly, is threatening to post false (rather than true) reports of bad service and is trying to extort value through their threat. How different is this? Very, very, very different.
Note that my report here truly is an accurate summary; I knew that including the bit about saying I'd spread the word wasn't get me anything but scorn but there it is nonetheless.
Originally Posted by
LondonAndy
Hanging-up or getting cut off three times in a row can't be bad luck, and your experience is, in my view, unacceptable in that. However, BA are doing what they have promised in their
seating guide - that a traveller with an infant can select seats for free. Maybe they could make it more clear that if there are people travelling on different bookings that it doesn't apply to all travellers in the party.
I hope that you get this sorted out to your satisfaction, but the only issue I can really see is getting cut-off three times.
Perhaps you missed the part about calling a month ago and being told that they'd passed our issue on to seating who would have our seats changed within the day. I wouldn't be nearly as peeved if it were not for that.
Even still, it's interesting to see the different attitudes here about customer service. There's a difference between what a company is legally obligated to do based on the terms on their website and what constitutes proper/acceptable service.
BA clearly has a policy to allow families traveling together to have the seats we've requested. It's been quoted to me over the phone multiple times in that way: "families traveling together". It so happens that BA's own systems won't support recognizing that we are 'traveling together' because not every flight on our itinerary was shared. Technology is imperfect; that's why we have humans to recognize this weakness and act to ensure that the intent of the policy and in my opinion most accurate interpretation of 'traveling together' are honored. I strongly doubt that you'd see a BA exec come in here and say that they don't want parents in this spot sitting next to each other with their kid and that this is an acceptable response. It's an egregious customer service failure, plain and simple.
Additional Info: The UK call center a month ago did just fine up until they actually needed to act on what they'd promised. It was the US number that resulted in such dismal service yesterday. Perhaps others can benefit from that information in the future.
Thanks again to those who offered warm welcome to the forum here, and to the mod who edited out the name that I posted in apparent inadvertent violation of the rules.