Unbelievable Hold Times -- How can BA Justify It?
I just had to vent about the hours I spent on the phone today with Executive Club, and there are still problems. I have an award booking on RJ, booked with Avios miles on the BA website. The website won't let me make any changes to the booking, so I have to call Executive Club. i won't go into details here, but suffice it to say, I had to call three separate times during the day today, and the SHORTEST wait time I had was 35 minutes, and the longest was 57. How can this be?! At the end of one of the calls, I realized that the booking number they had given me was incorrect. It wasn't linked to my EC account either, so called in the regular reservation number, thinking the hold would be shorter, and all I needed was a booking number. That time I waited ONLY 20 minutes, only to be told that they can't look up an award booking...even when I told them the date, flight number, and name of passenger.
In the end, after my marathon 57-minute hold and another 20 minutes speaking to the agent, I was told my reservation would be cancelled and the Avios put back into my account. Not so fast. If I attempt to access the booking, it says it is being cancelled, but there are no miles added back to my account nor have the fees/taxes been refunded. EC has already closed for the night, and I'm already dreading another morning of listing to the endless BA commercials and god-awful music while I wait on hold.
Is this normal for BA? How can they justify such a third-world customer service set-up?
Thank you. Vent over...for now.