racingman4

Hello, after reading posts through the years and often tending to be treated as customer in a decend manner, last week BA topped it.

I was in Florida and wanted to celebrate a birthday in New York. Book a reward flight to EWR from Tuesday to Thursday. Hotel, Rangers Ticket and NY Phil ticket booked, too.

As media reported the oncoming snow storm in the north I checked online and via app my flight - departing 13:05 - showed "on time". Only flight later - from 4 pm were cancelled already.

I left my hotel in Sunrise for MIA Airport. PArked my car (17$ / day) and went to security. On one of the screens was now shown "cancelled". Went to Premium check in and helpful assistant told me, that there is only one flight left. I could try to get on the standby list. This was at about 11:15 am. Went to gate D 47, about 100 people around the podium. It was a long weekend in the US with Monday a holiday, MLK day. Finally I got on the list among 126 others at that time - and moved to positon 8 - I think from my status as BA Gold/OW Em. More and more people came in, the first 6 got boarding passes and than crew members from other flights arrived and got through to the aircraft. When boarding was closed, I was number 4 :-(

I do understand that, the snow. Fine.

BUT - Why did the BA app showed the flight on time even at a point, where the airport showed it as cancelled? At 12:30 - already on the standby list, the app changed to the red "cancelled". Never got a mail or any other information from BA or AA.

Next day - I called BAEC Bremen - I'm German based and the toll free US number was busy for 30 minutes. So I called the Bremen Black line mumber (069 ... ). This is expensive, but I wanted my Avios back and wanted to know, why BA (after confirming my data during booking and again during Check-In) did neither send a test message nor an email or whatever.

The astonishing answer of a German speaking agent with eastern european origin - Why do you contact us? I was slightly astonished and thought, that BAEC should care for members on a reward flight? Well, she told me in rude and offensive way, that I could go online and make a complaint to customer services. My miles would be re-credited. Asking again, why I was not noticed in time, that I could rearranged my travel plans. She said - what
do you think BAEC is for - not to deal with problems. You can make or cancel your booking with us.

Well, this was really a bad experience. I do not care about the drive to the airport, the drive back, the new hotel, re-check in, the 17$ for parking - but with 20 minutes earlier information I would had a better chance to go on that flight or even changed to a flight to Washington or other destinations, just to save the NYC experience.

I complained than via the BA website to Customer relations. Automatic answer. Nothing since then.

Is there any address, where I can complain about Bremen? Does BA has a Customer Satisfaction/Loyalty Manager in London and how could I reach him?

lhrsinsyd

BA does not fly between MIA and EWR. You need to contact an airline operating your flight?

racingman4

When I book with Avis, an BA website and get a BA e-ticket and the flight is managed through manage your booking - should BA not take a responsibility -

I just complain about the behaviour of the BAEC representative on the Bremen hotline ...

And AA does not have any responsibility to inform me? I am right, that at least the information on the iphone app was wrong or outdated?

Vinotraveller

"The astonishing answer of a German speaking agent with eastern european origin"

Why is the ethnicity of the agent included in your post? Surely this is irrelevant?

dunk

As a presumably frequent traveller, I think you were a little naive to expect a BA app (backed by BA systems) to give timely status information for another carrier's flight. BA (as your agent in this case) rely upon AA (as the operator) to provide operational status updates, which will take time to trickle through, especially when there is widespread disruption.

Do you have the AA app on your phone as well ? Would that not have been more up to date ?

As to the attitude of the agent in Bremen, when did you make the complaint ? Experience seems to suggest a waiting time of around 4 weeks to receive a response to a 'non urgent' matter.

racingman4

maybe her strong accent showed, that she worked in a callcenter which does not properly give the necessary training. As working in a customer satisfaction environment, our clients would not allow us to offer agents, who have problems to understand or speak the language properly. That's said I see, that it will be a problem to get an email address or telephone number of the BA customer satisfaction department here in the forum.

LondonElite

I'm a little confused by all this. I'm trying to be sympathetic, but I'm finding it hard to be.

You redeem BA Avios for an AA flight which is disrupted due to weather. Your flight/birthday plans are ruined (which genuinely is a shame) and you call a German outstation of BAEC and expect them to have any clue or authority about what to do? The operational complaint should have been squarely with AA at the airport at the time. The issue of getting your Avios refunded after the fact should have been handled through the usual BA channels in the UK/online, ideally with some sort of report/outcome from AA.

lhrsinsyd

If there was a technical problem with a Boeing causing you disruption, would you go and complain to Boeing or would you contact an airline operating that Boeing?

FlyingB1975

I think this is a little unfair on the OP. It is hardly rocket science to send an alert for a cancelled flight, even if operated by a partner airline.

BA should invest a little in their communication strategy. I get emails confirming where to park, that I changed my seat, that I checked in.

Strangely enough I need to dig for the stuff I want to know. Despite confirming my contact details once per booking.

And rude call centre agents are a no no, regardless of their ethnic origin.

LondonElite

But why would you expect the BA app to have the latest info about an AA flight? I recently redeemed UA miles for a flight on LH. It never occurred to me at any stage of the journey to have a discussion with UA about the flights. It was all done with LH.

As to a rude call centre, of course that shouldn't happen, but what do you expect them to do after the fact, on a flight their airline didn't operate?

shorthauldad

The ticketing carrier can be important. Try contacting LH to rebook a reward flight on LH metal booked with another carrier's miles and see what happens ...

msm2000uk

British Airways Executive Club
28365 Bremen
Germany

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to Flyertalk, racingman4, welcome in particular to the BA forum. A bad story to start off with, but nevertheless I hope you will have both a more pleasant flying experience in the future and will continue to participate here. Welcome again.

I must admit I think you have some unrealistic expectations of the BA App, also perhaps unrealistic about how air travel works when the weather turns in. At the time it was heavily publicised about how bad things were, and in that situation services get cancelled, standbys don't work out and cars get charged parking fees for journeys that didn't happen. Not good, but it happens, and almost all information flows buckle under the weight of that.

None of that excuses rudeness from BAEC staff, though she may also have decided you were being unrealistic. I imagine Bremen records its calls, and so if there is a poor employee there, then it is worth complaining since they may be trying to managed her out of the system (tricky though that is in Germany). On the other hand the fact that she was not native German seems irrelevant to me so long as she was clear enough to do her job, which seems to be the case from the details provided.