Like many of you, I've been patiently wading through the novice agents on the Gold line, explaining the partner reservations' schedule changes and cancellations in an attempt to rebook them in a meaningful manner.

Yesterday, there was a schedule change on a BA flight to my daughter's graduation in July. The ticket was booked last fall, in J class, with an ongoing flight from LHR to Croatia. Like usual, we were having trouble with complimentary seat selection since BA doesn't recognize our OWE status so we called in to resolve the schedule change and obtain a seat. My spouse asked the initial agent, "are you ok with looking into a partner international ticket?" to which she answered, "of course, I've received all the training". She then went on to notice that our Croatia segment was in coach, and that a business seat was available, would we like it? "sure", my husband said, while I frantically waved in the corner miming cutting my throat and shaking my head No no no no...... You can guess what happened. The agent cancelled the SEA-LHR business flight and rebooked the whole itinerary as SEA-LHR coach, LHR-ZAG business. Realizing her error, she contacted the PIC (Partner International C?) who was unable to retrieve the ticket.

Sad to say, this is NOT the first time this has happened, but it's the first time its happened when there were no other options in award tickets other than the dreaded 280K AerLingus option. Summer tickets to Europe are also exorbitantly priced at this time. Looks like we won't be going to graduation. The PIC tried for over an hour, calling her BA counterpart, and still the ticket could not be rebooked at all, not even in coach. In hopes of consolation, we asked the PIC if she could share a direct access phone number to the Partner International Desk so we could avoid this happening again - she swore that there is no longer a number that can be reached by the public.

Anyone else have bookings that have been terrorized by a poorly trained agent?