gms

After being caught out by the fact that some Malaysian Airlines booking classes do not appear to earn Avios or TPs, I went back to BA.com to see if they make this clear. They don't. In fact the information shown is actually really misleading. I've now contacted BA EC twice to try to get them to change this, but it's like talking to a brick wall

For instance on the BA website 'Collecting Avios - Flights' page it states (my bolding):

"Whenever and wherever you fly, you can earn Avios — with British Airways, our oneworld® alliance partners and our other airline partners. You can earn Tier Points too, on British Airways and oneworld flights.

Almost all flights are eligible. The only flights you do not earn Avios or Tier Points on are reward flights and agency and industry discounted fares.

The amount you collect depends on which airline you fly, how far you fly, the cabin you fly in, the type of ticket you hold and your Executive Club tier. The easiest way to work it out is to use our flight calculator."

So this clearly states that only reward flights and agency/industry discount flights will not earn Avios. However, if you go to Malaysia Airlines website and buy a ticket that should not fall into either category.

The BA EC also told me that the calculator should not be relied upon "the total we show you is a guide and I’m afraid we cannot guarantee you will earn this amount".

I've pointed out that you cannot always easily identify the booking class on partner airlines in advance. I am not too bothered about the missing Avios/TPs, but simply asked BA to correct the wrong information on their website. But they seem adept at avoiding the point and in my follow-up response are simply "sorry you were disappointed with the response you received" but make no reference to my point about updating the website to correct the wrong information.

So just a warning to others, you really need to try to find your booking class (if you can!) if the TPs/Avios are important to you and cross reference that with the individual airline tables on BA.com. Who knows if they are kept fully up-to-date though!

frb98mf

I had this exact problem with an IB flight I took, where the miles shown on the calc were quite a lot more generous - they had accidentally added an extra 100%. I wrote to my local EC to point this out, and they said the same as you but also agreed to honour the amount shown on the calc (win!) and to ensure it was updated.

In fairness I had a couple of other complaints outstanding at the time so maybe they decided not to rock the boat on this one...

gms

At least you had a partly positive outcome ^

If it had been a more significant amount I would have pushed a bit harder, but it was just a short intra-Asia hop, so frankly couldn't be bothered. But I thought I should ask them to correct the information so others aren't misled, but they just don't seem bothered.

rapidex

Report them to the Advertising standards authority.They will then be forced to change the info.

gms

Hey, if we were in the US, I would have been bombarded with lawyers offering to run a class action lawsuit But I think there are bigger issues for the ASA to deal with.

I've contacted BA twice about it. They're not interested. If I happen to meet anyone senior from BA on my travels I will tell them my opinion of their website and the fact that some staff don't seem to be bothered about publishing wrong information.

Maybe every survey I now get about BA.com will just be scored accordingly I know the BA.com team will claim that content is out of their scope. From the customer perspective it's not.

gms

LOL ... just noticed that the adverts now appearing on my flyertalk pages include Malaysia Airlines and a legal firm

headingwest

I had the same problem last year. Booked flights thinking I'd get 220 Tier Points, but then found out the calculator was incorrectly showing double the points. They were good enough to credit the 220 though after I complained.

BA's website still has a lot of out of date information, such as this video - which says Silver members get DOUBLE Avios on ALL BA and oneworld partner flights. Not true.

http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/...ilver-benefits