Thank you both, ArthursSeat and The_Banking_Scot for your very prompt answers.

You have just corroborated what both my travel agent and the TAM customer service agent at Sao Paulo have told me, in Portuguese.

I would agree that it is alarming that BA customer service staff appear to be giving out spurious information. This is something that should perhaps be the subject of a set of test inquiries to them by a senior BA executive to test their efficiency.

By the way TAM answered my e-mail within one hour. You both answered within 27min but three of the e-mails to BA took 3 days for reply’s and one was better at 1 day.