flydrive

I've been hoarding my golden tickets for at least five years, and never really felt the need to use one for outstanding service until now.

I just wanted to give a shout out to the BA holidays rep who helped deal with a sticky situation last week and shows once again where BA can shine. We were returning from a long weekend in Iceland, booked a great deal return CE and car. All went well, arrived at airport about 75 minutes before return flight, to discover at Avis return we had left a bag with one passport back at the hotel in the city, about 45 minutes' drive away. After much shouting and recriminations as to fault, and checking every inch of the car for the bag which clearly was not there, called Gold line, who transferred to someone dealing with holidays in progress, who managed super quick to separate the PNRs, offload one of us (we had checked in online) and allow one to fly back on the flight as planned (and work the next day), and booked the passport-less one on the BA flight the following day. He even offered to help get accommodation for the night, but our hotel had a spare room.

All that was done in about 10 minutes, in time to catch the flight, and Avis allowed the car to be kept until the following day with no extra cost, as we were within the same number of days' rental. No charge from BA at all for changing cheap CE tickets, resulting in the only extra cost being the extra night's hotel. Salvaged what could have been a disaster scenario into a relatively minor inconvenience.

Lesson learned: check that the correct number of bags are loaded in the car before setting off.

Thanks, BA, for being flexible and helpful! Golden ticket submitted online and I hope the rep gets recognised for his professional and quick support.

KeaneJohn

ratypus

I have similarly used one for BA Holidays - flight cancelled out of LCY (fog) at the start of a "flight & hotel" package; I called up BA Holidays and the rep had us booked onto the exact same flight and same hotel for the following week instead (having offered a number of "same-day" alternate routings, which we didn't want to accept as it was our first time flying with a baby...). We were all set before we'd even walked out of the terminal, and no need to queue or wait on the phone. Great service.

CloudCoder

This is far above and beyond the service from American Airlines. On ONE occasion, someone in our party left their photo ID at home, about 15 minutes from the airport. That person was not a licensed driver, thus two people would not make the flight ... but could make the next one, one hour later. It was a domestic USA flight. AA made it quite clear that both tickets would be cancelled and we need to buy two brand-new return trips at full walk-up price (even though only the first segment of a four-segment trip was impacted).

Resolving this mess took a special phone call to my contact, a corporate VP, at the Executive Office. We briefly discussed the dollars and cents: if they gained a few thousand dollars from this one-off event, but lose a long-term customer, does the policy really make good economic sense?
I hope this is a general trend rather than a one-off.

Yorkshire Traveller

We too have had excellent experiences with BA Holidays. A couple of years ago we were abandoned by American Airlines when their plane went tech and the crew ran out of hours (PHL-DUB). All got sorted and extra day at hotel paid for by BA Holidays. Will certainly use them again for future bookings.

joelyp

Although I have not had a similar panic experience with BA Holidays, they are typically incredibly patient to check all the various possible permutations of flight + hotel, and similarly will put in the time to try to reduce any change costs if plans unravel.

layz

I'm keeping mine in case I ever meet CIHY

Can I help you

That’s very kind but I’m sure there are more worthy crew out there.

Kumulani

Photo ID is not required for US domestic flights. Might've been annoying not to have it at the final destination, but probably would've made more sense to just catch the flight and have it mailed if need be.

StingWest

Pretty sure you need a photo ID!

https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-...identification

Kumulani

ID is strongly recommended, but if you tell them you forgot they will work with you. This has happened to me and colleagues. Not saying it's impossible, but I've never heard of someone not being able to fly because they forgot ID.