enzian

I have booked a number of Club World flights between SEA---LHR online with no problem, and they were always ticketed right away. Our flight next summe will be to Zurich, and I booked the SE to LHR seats (2 people) on August 3. The LHR to ZRH flight was not showing up as available yet. I called two days later, when I saw that the award seats for the correct day had been released, and asked to amend our booking to add the leg to Zurich. No problem---the agent calculat d the extra Avios that would be needed, and the cash difference ( around $50). She said it would be ticket d "within a few days" but in the meantime the flight would show up the n my BAEC page, which it did right away.

A week later I received an email message asking me to call BA. When I did, I was told that my card was declined, so I ne died to present another. This was my BA Chase card that I have used for all my BA purchases for 8 years, and had been using daily at this time for other purchases with no issues---so nothing wrong with the card. I did give the customer service agent another card, and it now appears in my BAEC account along with the Chase card.

I did contact Chase and they said there was no reason the card should not have worked---nothing wrong with it and it is still active ( as I knew).

A week has passed and neither card has been charged, not have received an email confirming the ticketing. They have taken the Avios and the booking does appear among my upcoming flights. Is this usual for it to take so long?

My main concern is that I would like to reserve our seats soon. The plane is a 2-aisle Boeing 767, and I want to be sure we get a window and aisle seat, not in the center section. When I go into MMB to choose and reserv seats, it says the seats are "only available at check-in". I assume this is because this part of our flight has not been ticketed yet---or is that incorrect?

So two questions here. Thanks for your help.

cysyuen

I had exactly the same issue as yours, with the difference being I used a BA Amex UK card. I did a HKG-LGW Avios on CX and was told it was declined and needed to call urgently to ticket it, for it departs the same day. I was told it would be taken care of but it was me at the airport phoning BA for 35 minutes to get it sorted. BA tends to ticket it as the time comes, especially for Avios bookings. I am told there is a queue and it will be sorted as time comes. Suppose you can reserve seat by phoning in?

ThisIsntOM

If you call to make changes to a booking, they make the changes but never seem to ticket the booking there and then like they do at the airport when you make changes.

Everywhere but the airport ticket desk staff seem to "queue off" bookings to be ticketed, when it reaches the front of that queue no one knows! Sometimes on the day of departure its only with a visit to the ticket desk that it gets ticketed then, that's even with making the changes weeks in advance and chasing it up.

fransknorge

Modifications such as the one you did are not ticketed right away but go to a ticketing team, in a queue. They might reach the top of the queue before you travel, or might not. There is no point in calling, this will not accelerate the process.
If 48 hours before travel you are not ticketed, then call CS. If you are not ticketed the day of travel, arrive well in advance at the airport with a paper containing BA CS numbers, for the countries that will happen to have an open office at the time you are there.
This is a known quirk of BA, the airline who can not ticket properly.

corporate-wage-slave

I think fransknorge has got the measure of it, I'll add a few points. Firstly the queue is supposed to be prioritised by date of travel. If you are not travelling for a while and/or some big irrop happens, it may take a long time for your booking to get towards the top of the priority list. Secondly there are several fast tracks (e.g. for GGLs, and there is now an onshore ticketing process for BAEC members) but specifically for non BA flights, where the risk of non ticketing can lead to flights being cancelled. Occasionally an agent doesn't put a booking in that priority queue by mistake.

Finally, when it comes to CVV, particularly for US Dollar transactions (the cashflow handling of dollars is outsourced), there is a well known hole in the process: CVVs get auto deleted every 5 days (I think) so if the booking is processed on day 6, it will be declined, without fingerprints, since key data is missing. So people then get telephone calls to ask them either for their CVV again, or if the agent themselves isn't aware of the specifics, for another card number and CVV. It then goes in a queue again, and guess what happens on day 6. After we've been around this cycle a few times the chances are your booking is near the top of the tree and therefore at some point it will be done within 6 days. One doyen of this parish rings up every 5 days to refresh the CVV but that seems a lot of effort.

But the core message is don't worry about this until 48 hours before travel, at which point it really is worth worrying about.

ThisIsntOM

Wow... Thanks for the detailed explanation! ^

Although I don't understand why they don't reissue the ticket and exchange the old one/issue there and then.. It has been known to happen with LH too. Just the once, but then I don't fly with them very often.

enzian

Thanks---this is very helpful. The flight is almost a year away ( I booked the first flight 355 days in advance) so I may have a long wait! I just wish I could reserve our seats.

Pocalypse

I have a cash ticket that is awaiting reticketing. It includes partner airlines (AA and JL). When should I start worrying about the partner flights being cancelled? It's only been a few days so far, and the first flight isn't for 2 months.

corporate-wage-slave

I doubt AA is an issue, they seem fairly flexible, it's EI and CX I know who have short deadlines. JL I don't know though I suspect they will be more stringent. The way it works is that airlines give out an "Issue by" deadline and airlines can and do cancel tickets not completed by then. If it's a revenue ticket and BA fail to ticket in time then usually BA manages to sweet talk the other airline into offering the ticket - which may still be on sale anyway. That issue by deadline should be treated like the "travel on" deadline, and mostly it works, so I wouldn't worry at this point.

Pocalypse

Thanks! That's very informative. I'll keep an eye on my JL reservation and seat selection, just in case anything suddenly disappears.

enzian

Next month we will actually have a layover at LHR---2 in fact, as we fly through there both directions on our upcoming holiday in Austria. Would it be possible for a BA agent at Heathrow to ticket the amended booking for next July? We have some extra time, especially on the return flight (4 hours in T3).

enzian

Anyone have any thoughts on my question about ticketing our July 2018 flight while we are passing through LHR next month? Can an agent at the airport do that?

I really would like to get this settled so I can choose our seats.

corporate-wage-slave

I don't know about ticketing (seems unlikely to me) but I do know you can choose your seats now by just calling up.

tedcruz

I had ticketing problems out of GVA many times!!! You have to call BA as soon as possible so they can ticket you.

enzian

I have called them, and they say it is "in the queue", behind all the upcoming flights. This is from the Customer Service line( US number). Nice person but no power to do the actual ticketing. Is there a different menu choice I pick to get to an agent with that power?

Or can they reserve the seats for me even if the flight is not ticketed? You would think they would like my $$$ sooner rather than later.