Originally Posted by
TWCLAM
BA Holidays ( which 75-80% of Mrs CLAM & I's business goes through) are the saviours. Their Duty Office is onpoint and quick at all times. Also worth noting you can google the local BA number for them worldwide so it's not an Int Rate call and they will do the transfer work IF needed keeping it a local charge. While it's not their job to they have in the past transferred me internally to BA when I've been away on a FO booking and had issues getting through and they get through straight away obviously. I've only done this very sparingly as it is sort of cheating / not the correct way of doing things but i've had a time critical issue and already spent several hours on & off trying to call BA directly.
Agree with OP that even when the s*** hits the fan there should be at least an option of "if you are travelling within the next 48 hours press X" option and that it should be irrelevant of any status. Yes such a thing could be open to abuse but auto disconnects for pax with issues inside of that sort of time frame is only gonna lead to a longer call when said pax get's through as their stress levels will be through the roof after 20 disconnects and they'll want to vent before even getting to the reason for the call - not to mention adding to the stress levels of the poor overworked call centre staff!
Next bit of fun you might not have picked up on. I questioned a cell phone bill recently and found out when given a break down that I was charged a connection fee and ( min) 60 seconds for getting no answer from BA and going into the system which then cut you off. The total was £18 an amount which is nearly half of each of the contracts I have with them. I got the charges refunded from Three as goodwill but they went to great depths in an email demonstrating that the charges were largely from BA's end not theirs to the point they provided the Bronze & Gold 0800 nums for me to try next time ( was Blue then, not that they'd have known and im guessing the nums given were just the 1st two they found)
Thanks for the tips... will have to try BA Holidays next time.
1) this time, I also 'cheated' by calling the YouFirst line. I really didn't feel good about it, but I felt it was justified for 2 reasons: firstly I had already been given the number to the Gold line by another agent (but I have lost it since), secondly since its BA putting up these obstacles to be contacted, I feel that I was left with no choice. I would really love to be able to just make a normal call without resorting to tactics to get through. So, peanut throwers, please calm down. The agent was lovely and helped me out anyway.
2) regarding telephone charges, I have a similar problem with LH. They messed up an online booking, so the only option was to call web support. You guessed it right, only open during certain hours and the regular call center agent couldn't connect me. So, the only option I had was to call the Australia web support line (which led to a Philippine call center). My mobile contract gives me free calls to Australia, so I thought I would be fine. However I got quite a hefty bill recently for the 1 hour phone call and the phone company told me although the phone call itself was free, its because they had to pass on the charges for the 'premium' 1300 number in Australia. They told me that they wouldn't waive the charges and that it was the responsibility of LH to notify pax next to the number that its a premium number. (much like 0900 numbers in Europe for example) I checked on the LH website, and there is no mention of it being a premium number (otherwise I wouldn't have called), so I have now written to them to ask for a refund of my phone charge. Reason being, they messed up the original booking, they didn't have a local number I could call at night and my ticket had a deadline, and they didn't warn that the number would cost extra on the website. I doubt they will refund anything, but its a question of principle.
3) if I call a 0344 number in the UK, is it 'premium' and does it come with extra charges?!