Originally Posted by
Dave Noble
With a semi flex fare, are they not an online only fare and so not likely to be available when making a change with an agent - 121 online may not be available offline?
Yes and no...
1) The semi-flex J fare can only be bought online, that is true. However, the issue I had - the fare selection screen showing one price, then the payment screen showing a higher price - happened all in the online channel. Clearly there is a problem.
2) She did chcek on the website and saw that there was "something happening" between the fare selection and payments page. But shrug shoulders and said "there must be a technical error" (so there is!) but that the price that she had, which was different, was right "because our systems never have issues"
3) So, when there is an error on the webpage, I would expect the call centre to fix that error in the customer's interest, especially since they can reproduce the fare that I am seeing. That should be irrespective of whether the original fare can only be bought online or not.
In the past that sort of somehow always worked - with lots of pain, sometimes 3-4 phone calls, having to wait for 48 hours, having to pay something that was inbetween the web fare and whatever they came up with (they called back with calls like "I have a better offer for you" - as if this was a negotiation).... but never did anyone flat out refuse to get the ticketing team working on it and try to either fix the fare, or give an explanation of what was going on between fare selection and payment screen. Maybe there is something "legitimate", but this lady just woulnd't care and just told me "that's the way it is", despite seeing in front of her own eyes that there was a problem.
Originally Posted by
hsmall
This reminds me of a recent call I had. We were in Dubrovnik. Our flight back to London, having failed to land because of wind, diverted to Bari and was clearly, like the previous attempted arrival, going to be sent back to London. We had been sent back through immigration, and there was a very long queue for buses. I called the gold line to see about some re-booking options. We were told, with what I imagine was an absolutely straight face, that the BA Flight Tracker, which at that moment still showed the flight as departing in about 15 minutes from the time of the call, and when the plane was (I forget) either over the Adriatic in the direction of Bari or on its way back to London, was absolutely correct, as the BA Operations Department 'updated it in real time'. I gave up.
I had a similar story. Last flight of the evening to somewhere I don't remember was cancelled after pushback at LHR, because the airport was closed at that time. I literally spent 90 minutes on the phone with some Gold guy who explained to me that I was flying, then that I need to go and see someone in departures hall at LHR (which was empty except for some emergency counter that time of night) to take me off the flight although the flight had been cancelled, and by the time all of that was done the last seat on the frist flight next morning was taken. Add to that the usual time wasters such as giving the reference number four times, debating that you want to fly on another airline, etc.
Originally Posted by
Howard Long
I had a chat with an agent a week or so ago when I was trying to move the date of an Avios booking (I've never managed to change the date or time of an Avios booking online, but that's an aside).
She said that they (as humans) are being trained to use the same the repsonses as the AI/automated bots, the rationale being that it gives a consistent customer interraction.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
If that is the case, that is the wrong approach.
It is one thing to have such a totally shi???y IT system as BA. But I understand that it takes time (which.they can't change) and money (that they could change by devoting more to IT) to get systems up to 21st century standards.
It is a totally different thing to then have people on the phone telling you that there isn't a problem and who are unwilling to help. They should train their people to recognise that their IT is rubbish, and to help customers, who are annoyed already that they have to spend lots of time on the phone and certainly don't want to be taken for idiots on top of that by someone who tells them there is no problem.