Originally Posted by Birksworks

Howdy all,

I have flown BA LHR-FCO-LHR twice a year for many years since BA allowed me to take my guitar onboard. Evidently, the policy changed and I now either have to (1) check the instrument or (2) buy a seat on board. I decided to buy a seat.

The problem is that each BA CS rep I have spoken to gives a different account of how to do that. As of now, I have booked on the web and then rung to have them add the guitar to my booking (as the last CS rep said I should do). Amazingly, no BA CS rep can actually book the instrument. Instead the 'revenue department' -- some back office function that no one including CS reps can speak to directly --has to decide what the fare should be, despite the fact that all the BA CS reps say the fare should be the lowest Econ fare without taxes.

Since the fare applicable is the fare prevailing at the the time the BA revenue dept get around to looking at my request, I have no idea what they will want to charge me. I booked my ticket on a Friday morning and it might take them until Monday to get back to me.

My tentative (cynical) conclusion: perhaps by making it time-consuming and annoying and potentially expensive, BA are trying to discourage musicians from flying BA.
My tentative (more realistic) conclusion: it might be better to fly a lower cost airline and buy a seat for the guitar-- one would then save some money and avoid having to deal with BA malarkey (although that might dealing with new malarkey).

Thoughts welcome.

Birksworks