POUG failing fairly frequently?
 

I've seen multiple times in the last few months, POUG being offered at (or before) online check in and when you click through it fails to complete, depending on the platform (app or website) it has some variation of 'an error occured' / 'your request could not be completed'.

I've generally ignored it not having the time to follow up but on the few occasions I've had a few spare minutes either the GGL line or the social media team have been able to fix it relatively quickly. I gather they manually ticket it at the same price as offered online.

They seem to have no idea why this happens aside from a vague comment about travel agency bookings. I can only recall it happening on agency bookings (but they are 90% of my travel so law of averages etc).

Does anybody else get this or is it just me? Any idea why it happens?

FWIW flights are always short haul (though only because I book long haul in J to start with and I've yet to get a POUG offer to F).

I think the online code does indeed expect the ticket to have been paid for directly by the passenger, I suspect it is falling over the payment process when it discovers that it doesn't have full access to whatever payment process was used in the initial booking. Many people booking via an agency won't ever see a POUG, for example if the payment was made in Euros or via an offshore payment channel.

That makes some sense. It's just bizarre it affects some tickets whereas others are fine (and all are booked through the same agent). I wonder if they're inconsistent in the bookings in some way and only variably attaching the on-business number to tickets or something similar and that's breaking it (I don't hold our travel agent in particularly high esteem, though to be fair they manage to get my exec club number in every booking consistently).

Fortunately I'm shortly moving onto new things and gain the right to book my own business travel directly so I shall see how things change then...

I have had success many times doing POUG despite booking through a TA every time.

I've had the same error, despite having booked and paid myself.

Well, there goes that theory, thanks for the data point though...

Maybe but not definitely; given BA's IT, not beyond the realms of possibility that it was an unconnected error!

Ditto.

It tends to only offer it upon check-in, however. I was once told this had something to do with the airline being able to define the price structure from that point...

It's certainly not always available on TA bookings, however, and I'm sure the fare bucket is an important factor too.

I can see why for travel agent booking it appears only at check in time (ie when BA have control of the booking) but I'm fairly sure it's not fare bucket related (at least availability isn't, maybe erroring bookings are) - today's specific instance was a Q class fare for instance (lowest economy, 5TP) and after a phone call it went through no problem...

POUGs on my TA bookings only appear at, or very near (within a few hours) of checkin opening - as expected when BA takes control of the ticket. They then usually work out OK - over 90% success rate, one or two failures in the last year or two, which makes me think it's BA's flaky IT rather than them failing "frequently" for me.

Same here.
My tickets are all booked and paid direct online.
Too stressful to describe, I often face obstacles online :mad:

If I try through the Android app, it failed most of today, but on the website it worked ok for me. Tickets bought and paid for by me.

I've also had a few times in the app recently that only the person who has spent the avios can upgrade the ticket. Once again it's my account via the website but it's a household account

if / when I am offered an upgrade I can see it on my iPhone but fails if I try on the handset - yet works every time via laptop. Has been this way for a month / longer ...