carrotjuice

I just called the UK GGL line to make a (rather complicated) business class booking that uses a joker upgrade from PEY, and GUF voucher.

First call was made around 6 am UK time today; I was connected to the Manchester call centre. The lady kept putting me on hold to check with her supervisor... then said there was no availability to unlock flights on my chosen dates with my joker because she could not see D class availability (even though I could see that I class is widely available for all my chosen flight segments, implying they are rather empty).

She then said because my BAEC account is domiciled in Singapore, she could only check the Singapore booking system which does not have D class availability... but the UK system has D class availability, thus suggested that I change my address from Singapore to UK in order to use my joker!

Shortly after, she put me on hold again. When she got back on the phone, she did an about-turn and said I have to retain my BAEC account address in Singapore after all, because I had wanted to book an itinerary that originates from Singapore! I have never heard of anything like this because surely I have had my BAEC address in Singapore since moving here, and have been able to book BA flights that originated from any city so far.

By then, I thought she was really ill equipped to make my booking and decided to HUACA.

A few hours later, around 4 pm UK time, I called the GGL line again. This time the lady (in Newcastle?) was very professional and clued on. She could not have been more accommodating, and did the entire complicated itinerary without a fuss, duly unlocking the same chosen flights, applied my joker and gave me the expected price quote for Avios, taxes and surcharges.

Questions: Does BA have multiple GGL call centers in the UK? Is one more competent or better trained than the other? What time is best to call to ensure that I do not get routed to the more "clueless" team?