sunrisegirl

corporate-wage-slave I appreciate most of your travel is probably through LHR, but can confirm there is a facility for changing tickets in the LGW lounge most days.

OPebble

I have had a ticket changed by the ladies at the LHR GF Service Desk (down towards the champagne bar).

mario

I received the same tinned response as everyone else after complaining using the website feedback form. I sent the response to my partner who happily para-phrased it for me.

"Dear formerly-valued travel addict,

Whilst we acknowledge your feedback, over the past few years we have seen how much money Easyjet has made, and want to adapt our business model to be more like theirs.

This is the first in a programme of improvements to offer you the similar range of benefits. Soon you'll be able to choose your own seat as you get on the plane, and will be able to get priority boarding for a bargain £20.

Until then, f**k off and keep spending ridiculous amounts of cash with us for "premium" services that make the Arab airlines look positively utopian.

Love, BA"

Paralytic

And there we have it. Assuming this guy wasn't feeding corporate-wage-slave BS, the change was down to cost-cutting.

So many on this thread have been adamant that this change won't save BA much money, or that any money saved would be dwarfed by the loss through customer attrition - not one was able to provide any evidence when challenged, other than: "its obvious, isn't it" (paraphrased).

We have to assume that BA have done the sums and worked out the saving is worth the loss of (in their minds) a few people who will actually take their business elsewhere.

It sounds to me like the campaign to force BA into a U-turn has been a bit of a damp squib and the change is here for good, but kudos to BA staff for picking up the phone and speaking to people about it, rather than the crude cut-and-paste responses many got initially.

hfly

Phil, dunno, I just post what I see when I look for page views and responses.............

DWFI

I'm having a hard time understanding how BA has a fixed cost per user with Open Doors. If it applies only to BA lounges, I can't see why that would apply

Anyway, if this is purely a cost cutting issue, I think BA/IAG needs to start looking at changing their business model. Premium prices with cheapo service is not a formula for success.

hfly

Sounds like a bit of BS, why? Because OD is for BA branded and operated lounges only, it does not work, nor has ever worked at third party lounges, so that other than the marginal costs of some extra Cokes, crisps or whatever, I really do not see how they are being "charged" extra money by anyone else for providing this service.

HIDDY

Top o' the mornin' to ya!!!

Now.....what do ye lads think of all this Eurocheating malarky that's goin on?

stimpy

I agree. BA shouldn't have any extra costs per person in their own lounges. And the amount of people who use this benefit is too tiny to worry about, except perhaps at Gatwick.

Also, as noted, most BA lounges do have ticket changing facilities. Most Golds may be unaware that right above the LHR T5 GF in the business class lounge there is a decent ticket changing facility. And at outstations, they can do it to, but may or may not be staffed well enough at all times to handle such changes.

hfly

Stimpy, this is the airline that introduced paying for seat reservations, even in Premium classes, and has gone on record about the "hundreds of thousands of Pounds" that they have earned since its inception!!!!! (never talking about the hugely negative press and the money they lost). It is also the airline which was fined hundreds of millions of Pounds for price fixing and collusion. It is the airline that outright LIED on several fronts when trying to whack its Premium passengers with a new baggage regime - non existant IATA rules - non existant H&S regulations - and duplicitous statements of how what they were doing was now the "norm" in the industry.

I am sure that some genious, probably in the accounting dept has figured that they are in fact "losing" some money at LGW, and then has extrapoloated this data to the entire system, probably someone who does not fly places other than o/d UK very often, and believes in his/her small mindset that this will be a huge moneysaver, notice the fallacious report above that "BA pays more per passenger" when in fact this only was ever available to BA operated lounges, not 3rd party lounges. Sorta like those on here that have complained about T5 lounges, when OD has nothing to do with T5 lounges, or those that fallaciously used US examples (wrongly) ignoring the fact that it is ammaterial to most US airports that BA operates in.

HIDDY

DWFI

Look, Willie (), I know you're generous. And that was a nice thing to do.

And giving me 100% miles for cheapo Y was nice too.

But what my main gripe here is is that the cost of this benefit must literally be $1 or $2 every time I visit. Last time I used it was at IAH and I was asked to sign my name on a list. This list was standard, 8.5x11 paper (A4 for you Europeans), had a nice grid on it, and was half full. The first entry was from February, this trip was in April. So they got maybe 1 OD visit every 2-3 days.

Look, to be quite honest, I'd be happy to pay BA whatever my lounge entry costs them! If I could put down $5 or $10 and my gold card for entry to BA lounges at any time, I'd be quite willing to do so!

Paralytic

Here we go again. Does anyone here have actual figures on how many people use the benefit?

It seems to be people are starting with this point to make a strawman argument which they can then easily be knocked down.

If BA aren't saving money from this, why are they doing it?

hfly

The offending post was removed

SteveF

Have they really lost more money than they made though? I'm not a fan of the policy and have whinged about it myself, but I doubt that more than a few customers actually took their business elswhere. I even paid for my seats on one flight (64A/B) so they are £160 up on the deal as far as I'm concerned.