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Join Date: Feb 2010
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One possibility is that you did indeed provide payment details, but the processing of this took too long. BA (or rather its outsourced agents in India) can only retain the CVV information for a week, at which point it is automatically deleted as part of BA's banking agreements. Someone is supposed to call you back to get the CVV information again, but there are plenty of FTers who say this doesn't happen, and some regulars make sporadic calls to refresh the CVV. If this was a dollar currency transaction made via the Contact Centre, this is a risk. If you pay via online channels, or even the Contact Centre on a simple transaction then it is fully automated, but if you were amending an existing transaction or it was complex, that is where the risk of non payment can happen.
Having said that, we used to get a lot more posts about this issue than of late, and it was certainly made worse when there was disruption elsewhere in the network since those travellers would be prioritised, but still it's been a while since I've seen a post like the OP's. So maybe they have improved matters.