Greenpen

As Club Europe only exists to flatter the vanity of those in important corporate positions I have no sympathy whatsoever. It is Y dressed up in the clothes of an emperor, so its benefits are rather illusionary and you’re getting them.

Don’t worry, your friends and neighbours will be impressed; sleep soundly!

GaxxyFlyer

it's ok for you, when you get hungry you can eat that big chip on your shoulder.

C W

^

CKBA

How does this work on European legs? This year (for the first time) I've had two OpUps - FRA-LHR and FCO-LHR, both at boarding (<<24 hours!) and on both was catered for (and was one of the first to asked what I wanted).

ahmetdouas

deleted

ukgooner

Possibly because the prime purpose is to get you from A to B.

ABax

Yes, where they charge additionally for benefits that they know that they are unable to provide in full, without any prior notice given to passengers.

ukgooner

Im not really interested in the mass harrumphing and outrage - just the specific point that they shouldn't have sold the seat.

I've been in many situations on the domestics where catering wasn't available. Imagine being told, "Im sorry, we cant fly you because the catering isn't on." I'd be far more outraged by that.

headingwest

My point was that they shouldn't have sold the seat as Club Europe (which ba.com advertises as having a meal), if they weren't able to provide a meal. If the website specifies this at the time of purchase then the customer has the choice to buy it or not. The problem highlighted many times here, is that BA knows very well that they might not have a meal for those passengers. How anyone can defend that type of action is beyond me.

I just checked, I can pay 682 EUR to get to London in Club Europe at 7.55 tomorrow morning on the first plane out of Vienna. The website says that gets me a meal!

EsherFlyer

I quite often AUP, ironically on EDI-LHR, and only a couple of times have the ticketing desk mentioned that catering probably won't be available. They were right once, one other time they said nothing but no meal available (I got multiple chive prezels to go with the consolation bubbles I was plied with though ) and every other time a meal has been available.

I seem to simply get added into the front-back service order and get to choose (which seems a bit cheeky if those further back who may have booked sooner then don't ), but took no offence when one CSM asked if I minded having last choice as I was a late addition.

I'd have been more miffed if no catering had been available on routes like OTP-LHR after AUP. I think I POUGed those soon after check-in opened though, which presumably helps .

smokie36

The question of short haul catering vs 4 bags of pretzels and extra champagne is worthy of its own thread!

simons1

But BA don't get it right 100% of the time on overbooking and they don't get it right 100% of the time on catering.

Not sure your argument is very convincing there.

HIDDY

Yet one has to assume those on here who continuously slag the product must be forced to fly in it by their employers given they're always telling us how poor it is. I mean no person in their right mind would continue to pay for something out of their own pocket if they didn't like it would they?

corporate-wage-slave

At least one of the following 4 reasons may apply.

1) They knew they would have a full flight at LHR, and therefore added the extra meals in anticipation, even if they didn't specifically know you would be the OpUp.

2) Some people outbound from LHR didn't want to eat anything, so there were spares from that sector. Alternatively there were late no-shows on either sector.

3) There was a larger than average number of special meals and that led to more mainstream meals being available

4) And finally, contrary to some of the evidence upthread, they may have had been slightly over catered leaving London, sufficient to handle the actual demand.

Late upgrades do not always mean no catering.

LTN Phobia

I'd be really annoyed if BA did that to me. "Oh we can't sell you a CE seat because we won't have CE catering. You have to fly ET, and by the way the middle seat is occupied".

I think it should be all about advance warning. What they should do when booking <24 hours is to flash up a big message saying, "Catering is not assured. Please only book Club Europe if you deem this to be acceptable." or the same spiel read out if booking via a call centre or a TA.

At least them they've been forewarned and accepted the possibility of missing catering.

In addition, print "Catering Not Assured" on the boarding pass and on OLCI/SSCI machine so that the passenger is reminded of it because they might have forgotten by then, or someone may have forgotten to tell them. At least then, they can eat in advance.