Originally Posted by
UncleDude
1] When you did eventually get into a BA Lounge you had the run at FREE drinks, FREE food and not just One ask for another Drinks Voucher. Yes the Dragons do need to study OneWorld eligibilty.
2] Did you not have a call button to ask for a futher pre-flight drink..served in Glass you notice not Plastic. Perhaps the FA were only following the Flight Decks instructions and they were also told it would only be minutes before they were going to leave.
3] In 10 years of Flying American, I have never been offered to be re-booked on another airline when I have been delayed. You just have to wait for the next American flight, even if its next day, in the case of a lengthy STL I once had.
4] Yes there should have been a gate at LHR for a delayed flight, but as other people have remarked the same thing happens countless times at ORD, MIA and DFW every day.
With regard to lost Baggage, I accept BA have a poor record especially for T4 to T1 and VV however in the past few years AA have not been much better, try NAS and MIA for example. I have even had 3 occasions : LAX. MAN and MCO where my bag arrived before me. In the case of LAX it was just sitting on the floor in the middle of the Baggage claim area asking to be stolen.
I personally think the OP has perfectly legitimate complaints, even if they are run of the mill. I also don't recall the OP making explicit comparisons to AA either.
Begging and producing rule books to force your way into a lounge is not part of the advertised benefits of the OW alliance, of which BA is a member the last time I checked. And while all the problems at LHR including the great consistency in lost baggage may also be run of the mill, this does not mean there is no grounds for complaint. These are sometimes all major problems, especially LHR.
Neither does the fact that another airline may also have sub-standard service mean that somehow the (slightly less) sub-standard experience on BA should somehow be accepted. What is this? A race to the bottom? Is the only standard for BA it's worst alliance partner? Just because one receives poor service on AA is no excuse for BA to provide similarly poor service.
And why should the OP feel honoured he was rebooked onto LOT? Thankful maybe. BA was delayed and the operations at LHR delayed the flight further. I would expect, as a full service airline, that BA then make every possible attempt to get me to my destination on time (as much as possible anyway). This seems especially relevant considering the OP was traveling as a premium customer, who also seemed to convey an understanding that things do occasionally go wrong when flying.
The fact is, many of these negative experiences have the effect of ruining an otherwise perfectly and very acceptable flying experience, which is why it is so important to get it right. People tend to, unfortunately, remember what goes wrong longer than what went right.