stsomewhereman

I found out about this as well when I booked a ticket for my mother using Avios on AA. I had gotten the email and assumed it was the confirmation as I had received many times before. She showed up at airport and wasn't allowed to check in...only after calling BA did they tell me that it wasn't ticketed due to DOB not in reservation (I had entered it)...luckily we had time to issue the ticket.

Subsequently every ticket I have booked in the past few months I have had to call BA and add the DOB info (all have been for family, not me personally traveling). This has also happened to a number of my friends who have booked AA using Avios...every one of them have had to call back to BA to get ticket issued.

The reps when queried have all said that it is an issue that IT is working on. Hope it gets fixed soon.

NeverFirst

As an aside, why do AA even need a date-of-birth?

easyguy

I also ran into the same problem last week, the ticket was not issued and
I had to call BA to provide DoB info (even though I did enter it online)

sunnyzip

I have a booking jfk-yvr for sept on Cathay booked with avios. I got the confirmation email too but when i used to check on Cathay website, it gave me a message that e ticket had but been issued. I always thing it's an error on cx website but after reading this thread I know whats going on. It was booked 2 months back, I just checked my credit card statement, never got charged any fees thru ba. I am glad I read this before actual travel. Just had a related question. What if I cancel my booking? Do they charge me any cancellation fees, as it was never ticketed?

GUWonder

This is a routine problem because of the US DHS nonsense that requires the passenger birthdate and sex -- along with name(s).

BA doesn't commonly issue tickets for US domestic or US-originating flights using miles prior to completion of the sex and birthdate fields. Once that gets manually entered by a BA rep or otherwise gets populated, then the ticket gets issued.

Out of over a hundred BA redemption tickets for domestic US flights booked by me this year, less than 10% have ticketed prior to manual intervention to get the (In)Secure Flight field data completed.

I find this a minor inconvenience given how much value we get out of the 4,500 miles +$2.50 award tickets. The BA call center number is getting a lot more use by me primarily because of this issue.

redshift27

No, they should cancel for free.

Jccuadrado

Neverfirst, thks or yr interest.

No. I did not get any money yet. And i fear, it will take me sometime...

Below you can see the note i just placed on the BA customer service webpage. Long and boring note but in consonace with BA long and frustrating customer service process.

Dear sirs,
I am following up this case so we all have written prove of the process.

After starting the claim in the BAEC web on July 10, i contacted BAEC by phone on July 22nd since i did not have any answer by then.

Eventually, on July 25th, i received an email by Customer service rep Mr XXXX assigning a case number and stating that my claim was not accepted.

Since i believe that the reasons to discard my claim are false (the avios were charged indeed and have NOT been reimbursed and the email confirmed my booking and taxes to be charged to my amex), i did call customer service on July 27th and a customer service rep by the name of YYYY told me that i would be contacted asap.

Since that did not happen, i called customer service again on july 29th and asked to talk directly with mr XXXX

Mr XXXX kindly took the phone and repeated his rationale that i did confront with mine and with the written prove that i keep. At the view of that we did not make any advance, i asked to kindly be transfered to his supervisor. Mr XXXX tried, but came back to me saying that they were going to review the case and would come back to me in a few days.

Today august 7th, since i did not hear from mr XXXX yet, i did call him and got him on the phone.

Mr XXXX tells me that customer service is still waiting for an answer from BAEC about what failed in this case.

After i expressed my frustration for such delays, mr Parnes committed to contact me back early next week.

Eventually, i kindly asked mr XXXX to give me a written response by August 12th.

Awaiting your news.
Kind regards

Jccuadrado

Just wanted you all, to know that I did get today an answer from BA customer relations taking full responsibility for the problem and committing to refund the full cost of the AA ticket I was forced to buy.

Inspite of the unconvenience, hats off for BA.
At the end, they keep a customer...a more loyal customer.

Thanks to you all flyertalk.com folks that provided ideas to substantiate my claim.
Cheers-

stsomewhereman

Last night tickets booked from two separate Avios accounts were ticketed on AA without having to call in DOB info. Hopefully problem is fixed.

olybeast

I turned up to checkin and was told my avios booking wasn't ticketed. She got on the phone to someone and had it ticketed. Took about 10 seconds once she got through. This was BA though

NeverFirst

I missed your reply from last week, but congratulations and well-done for sticking with it. It was a bit of a shame you had to fight so hard for the refund though.

drspear

booked 3 places on JFK MCO with avios, was hoping to do cash plus avios but this isn't available for aa fares, so 7500 each one way, showed in ba,com straight away on Monday

Went in this morning noticed they wanted already saved info on date of birth, entered it and confirmed and within 5 minutes the eticket appeared