BenSenise

I made a booking on 14 july and the e-tickets have not yet been issued.
i've called BAEC three times, used the "contact us" form, tried PM on this forum, and yes, i even tried twitter.
am i being unreasonable in thinking that if the tickets haven't been issued after four weeks then there must be a problem of some sort? In my experience, if the tickets haven't been issued more or less immediately after the booking, it has been a clear indication that there was a problem of some sort. My CC has not yet been charged but my avios have been deducted.
What can I do? I don't want to lose this booking!

Paralytic

When is your flight? If not soon, I'd not be concerned.

Be concerned within a week or so of your flight

Calchas

Is that experience with BA? They are renowned for not issuing tickets quickly.

Is there anything odd or difficult about your ticket?

stewardo

What did the agents say when you called?

If it was "it's in the ticketing queue" and the flights are way off in the future I wouldn't worry.

windowontheAside

I'm sure I've read here that calling in to query something like this causes the agents to pull it out of the queue when they look at it and then it goes to the end of the queue again. Sounds like nonsense to me really, but could it be this?

BA6501

No, they don't pull it out of the queue, but if they resubmit it, then it'll go to the back.

BenSenise

My ticket is an award ticket using a 241. I booked our outbound when availability showed. Then about seven weeks later, I booked our return flights. This is necessary since the outbound availability disappears long before the return availability shows up. It's an open-JAW. Nothing complicated
The first agent said there was no problem. Second agent said the tickets were in the wrong queue. Third one mumbled about something and said they work be issued in a few days.
In my experience, tickets have always been issued very promptly.
Every time the tickets weren't issued promptly, it was because there was a problem and it was I who had to notice it and take the initiative to fix it. Otherwise, the problem would never have been fixed, they would never have been issued and I would have shown up at the airport with no ticket.
The fact that it is over a month now seems pretty indicative that there is an issue that is preventing BAEC from issuing the tickets and they are just sitting there in the queue while everyone says no worries, those are still a long way off. Then at the last minute there won't be any seats left and our travel plans will be ruined.

darthlemsip

My bolding.

First point: in my experience they're issued quickly when making a booking, but slowly if making a change - especially, as others have said, if the flight is a long way off.

Second point: No it isn't

You're not going to lose your seats - I've had it take a couple of months for an e-ticket to be reissued when I changed a flight. Unless the flight is less than a week away I wouldn't be concerned - and I worry about EVERYTHING

Calchas

You're right to keep an eye on it, but I am optimistic things will turn out well for you.

When is your flight?

BA tickets flights on an urgency basis, not on a "first in first out" basis.

corporate-wage-slave

Just to add to darthlemsip's comments, the last point isn't the case at all. In fact your ticket could be cancelled and your booking would be in place unless deliberately deleted. And that's the key issue here: ticketing and booking are two distinct processes and it sometimes feels they aren't even connected! (I jest slightly).

So your booking, your seat reservation, special meals and all booking related issues are fine and are not going anywhere.

You cannot physically travel without a ticket, and you can't check in without a ticket either. So strictly speaking if you are ticketed 25 hours before departure everything is hunky dory. If you are ticketed 1 hour before departure then I agree it is messy, but I had one yesterday and it took 12 minutes to resolve, admittedly it was just a revalidation, but scarcely earth shattering stuff.

Therefore by all means hassle BA a few days before departure, otherwise relax and plan your travels.

Speedbird876

To answer the op's question, yes, I think four weeks should be enough time to issue a ticket.

Anyway, with BA it can take longer and you have been given very sensible advice above. So maybe you should not read any more of my post.


The advice is to wait and everything will be fine. But, let's say, BA gets around to ticketing your reservation and they realise that there's some problem. Maybe a minimum connecting time breach, or something else and they have decided they can't issue the ticket.

Would you now have to try to buy a ticket at last minute prices etc?

BenSenise

thanks everyone for their comments. i will chill for a while and see what happens.
the flights are not until next summer so it isn't urgent. i was just worried that i could lose them.
i just like to get things done and over with.

darthlemsip

I'm the same. It was this site that helped me understand the difference between reservation and ticketing, prior to that my brain viewed them as the same thing

plon

I've on two separate occasions tried to OLCI to no avail. I showed up to the airport to find BA still hadn't ticketed my flight, which resulted in waiting in line for 30min (the Sapphire queue) and another 20min for the TA to finish the process and issue the BP... unfortunately with BA it seems par for the course.

Me2E

I booked a RFS in early June for travel last week. The day before travel BA rang me to request to take payment from my card and ticketing was only done at that stage.