A few of you have been unnecessarily defensive of BA's position and harsh on the op v. his central point of cheap(er) tix v. repeat business, IMO.

I also regularly fly on discounted BA premium tix and don't expect the overall service levels to differ, irrespective of the fare I've paid.

Sure he had a poor experience from someone experiencing a bad hair day. Sure BA was within its rights not to book him on another flight, given he was on a cheapie (not that I'd consider an A seat JFKLHR to necessarily totally fit that crtieria v. a WT seat, but all things being relative...)

He had a choice and he walked and paid for a new ticket with the competition. I'm sure that the bearded ones welcomed him with open arms, especially on this route.

Customer acquistion v. retention. This one could've easily have been resolved by BA IMO and is surely worth a letter from the op to BAEC.

Or now that T5 has become a tediously daily metaphor in project management circles, have the 'nice little touches' gone out the window?

And on the point of no *A LHRJFKLHR, just wait til LH gets its hands on BD's slots.