Upgrade booking that I didn't pay for
 

I have an issue where I'm unable to upgrade a booking with Avois because of two reasons:

1. I'm not the credit card holder on the booking
2. There is another passenger traveling under the same booking reference that is not part of household account (Is it a colleague at work).

I called BA and the CSR told me that I'm unable to upgrade with the booking because I'm not the credit card holder on the booking and the upgrade would still result in additional taxes / surcharges (which I understand).

I would like to resolve this without going to the credit card holder (company CEO) and asking him to perform what seems like an annoying task of calling customer service, splitting tickets into two booking references and adding my credit card for the upgrade.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Welcome cd21419
 

Welcome to Flyertalk cd21419, welcome in particular to the BA forum. I'm hoping one of the Service Centre staff will be along to confirm this, but I think your 2nd one is absolutely immutable: you can't have 2 people in one PNR in two different cabins. Therefore for that reason alone you will have to go on bended knee to the CEO and ask him to split the booking. If he is human I'm sure your call to use up expiring Avios or something similar will have a positive outcome. I've occasionally heard agents work away around the first point, but the second point is a fact of life.

But I hope you get it sorted, don't forget to tell us how it works out, and I hope we see plenty more of you here. Welcome on board.

There is absolutely no reason why you could not do it all by yourself.

You have first to call BA and get the booking split into 2 PNRs. You cannot do this step online unfortunately. No one is going to ask you for the credit card details - only potentially if you are the credit card holder. (I won't advise what your answer should be at that point).

Once you have your own PNR you can UUA online. The payment of extra taxes and surcharges can be done on a new credit card, it does not have to be the same that was used on the base booking.

Am sure your CEO has better things to do than meddle with your company travel - and you may not want him to know you upgrade your company bookings.

Call center needs to talk to the CC owner when making changes to the booking.

I once had to wake up my wife at 0300AM because of that :)

Indeed. I had (maybe mistakenly) assumed cd21419 and their CEO were of the same sex. If this is not the case it may be a problem indeed, as you clearly highlighted.

If he is that busy I hope that he wouldnt care. No skin off his nose

Wouldn't the CC holder need to answer security questions?

Could be another option?

There are 6+ reward tickets still available from WT+ to Business. I'm friends with the colleague that is also on my PNR. Could I add him as a friends a family and upgrade both of us online? I have a ton of avois and I'm earning enough on this flight to cover both upgrades. I also assume that I would be able to pay for the additional taxes with my own card.

I'm not that familiar with friends and family.

Thanks for all the help thus far!

Absolutely, and a very nice idea! If only my colleagues were like you :)

Cool! i'm going to try it out and will report back.

Once I upgraded my wife (travelling alone) for money during OLCI - she was asked to show the CC (mine!) at the counter and as she didn't have it, she had to phone me and hand it to the agent. Don't know what would've happened is she had travelled without checked luggage and had just marched to the gate.

Wasn't there a thread recently on FT about how BA will only speak to the person named in the booking irrespective of who actually paid for the booking?

But the person who paid for the booking is always a person named in the booking! In fact, comments made to me by phone agents (and the way the booking process is worded and the way that subsequent communications are set up by default) suggest that BA regards the person who paid for the booking as the customer, with whom BA has a contract - and therefore the person with whom BA will primarily deal, if the passenger is someone else. AIUI, the person who pays for the booking can even specify that the passenger himself can't make changes to the booking without the payer's agreement.

I don't know when BA regards itself as having a binding contract (on the terms of the ticket and fare) with the passenger, but presumably this could become binding no later than when the passenger presents himself for travel.

Just a quick follow up.

I was able to add the other passenger on my friends and family list. Unfortunately, that took too long and the reward flights were gone. I then signed up for AwardNexus and a reward on the return flight become available a few days later. I was able to upgrade us both to CW from WT+ for 30K points and £84 from PVG to LHR.

Hoping that an outbound reward becomes available.

Thanks for everyones help!^

Hi to help you guys out BA can disuss any booking with passenger and credit card holder as long as you give name and then can confirm some security questions.

On a commercial booking with cash purchased direct with BA the passenger or cardholder can make changes provided they pay on a card in their name.

Im explaining this way because on an avios booking the executive club card holder who would have paid and used their points is the only one able to change the booking. Of course an executive club nominee can also discuss and make changes for thenmember on any abios or commercial booking where we see the exec member named.

On travel agency bookings its slightly different again. Typically the credit/debit card details including person paid doesnt show up in the booking so we would need to speak to the passenger to discuss or make changes.


****As a further note be aware that unless you select the person paying isnt travelling if you book on ba.com the cardholder name will default to the passenger. This then leaves us in the unfortunate situation where someone calls saying they are the cardholder but can we cant speak to them!!! Also this can look like fraud and therefore is taken very seriously and can cause serious problems for a passenger. So please be careful!*******



******** all opinions are my own and do not represent those of either BA or IAG*****