botham

Does any kind person have a contact or number, or both, at BA Trade Support?

Ever since the May 27 IT debacle, I have been trying to get about £10k refunded, which I paid for new flights, when BA flights were cancelled. The agent who I booked with is due to refund me the outbound flight (cancelled) and claims to have contacted Trade Support. BA deny this and meanwhile I am piggy in the middle!

bhbloke

Have you tried hitting them up on Twitter?

For something like this I think you'll get a much faster resolution and save yourself the hassle of chasing them up.

Plus within minutes you're likely to have a message from a DM hack offering you a couple of grand for your story!

danielbk

BA trade support in the UK is a paid line (almost a pound a minute!)

0906 706 0010

US Trade support is 1800 422 6768

Both require a pin / IATA number and lead to a call centre which I believe is in India.

I hope this helps.

Anonba

Trade support would only speak to travel agents not passengers direct. Perhaps better to have your ta call them and then have you added in as a conference call?

DYKWIA

Did you pay by credit card? If so, contact the card company and get them to do charge back.

UKtravelbear

You could try MCOL and cite both the TA and BA as defendants!

But I'd send both their legal departments letters saying 'sort this out in 14 days or else it's MCOL for you both'

Sam Bee

Wouldn't worry about contacting BA Trade Support. If the agent has cancelled / a cancelled booking it would be declared via BSP immediately (Billing and Settlement Plan - a monthly method of paying airlines). This means that often refunds can stretch to 8-10 weeks

Airlines have improved greatly the speed of the refund process, but this doesn't apply to all airlines. The most pertinent question is "Has BA refunded the agent" to which you should seek a reply from BA over twitter. Once this has been done there should be no delay from the agent.

The problem could be (from what i'm reading) is that BA has a mountain of refunds to process with the IT / Strike cancellations and is well behind schedule, whilst the agent is loathe to spend upwards of a hundred quid on BA's absurdly expensive trade support line to find out where it is (naturally it's understaffed and busy with current problems).

Sohan

I think this might be the best route. Also, mail your chargeback in and not over the phone. I previously tried this with Delta and Amex refused it due to some agreement with Delta. However, as far I understand if it's mailed in by writing then they cannot refuse it.

Guy Betsy

You need to speak to a live person - for that amount of money, it might be worth your while to go speak to a ticketing person at Heathrow and forget about phonecalls.

Often1

The fact that this has been referred to Trade Support suggests that OP paid for his original ticket through a TA.

Rather than wasting OP's time chasing BA through social media, his bank or the legal system, why not simply drop this in the TA's lap and have the TA handle. Presumably OP paid the TA and it is the TA which ought to resolve this.

No need to get nasty with the TA immediately, but if this meets resistance, follow the above suggestions and include the TA.

UKtravelbear

@Often1 - the OP has been doing that for 3 months with the TA contacting BA and BA saying they havn't.

Surely after 3 months of this - and waiting for £10k - the time to play nice has long past?

botham

I think the credit card charge back may now be the way to go.

This morning I had an email from UK trade support, copying me in on what the TA claims to have sent to them, but it doesn't mention how it is progressing.

I called the number on the email and they denied that Gotogate are on their books and gave me a number for BA CR. It was a staff only line and they gave me another number. I have been on hold for 10 minutes.

Generally BA's advice is go back to agent, but I get nowhere!

asoare13

I am in the same boat as you - my travel agent requested a refund from BA Trade and BA confirmed that the refund was processed, but it never showed on my credit card.

@botham what is an email address that I contact them at? I don't want to pay 55p/minute to call them. And I want to have a written proof of our correspondence.

botham

I am sorry that you are suffering in this way. I never found an email address and as I didn't travel on the affected booking I didn't file the EU261 compensation claim, which at least gives a one way contact,

When BA told me a refund had been processed to the TA, it took some time before it arrived in my account.

Eventually I started tweeting to BA and the Chief Exec and BAEC offered to assist. Have you an email for your TA?