If it's "not acceptable" then don't accept it and fly some other way then BA F. If you continue to book then it is, in practice, 'acceptable'

People's hyperbole on FT rarely matches their real world actions

Email it. The result will be the same, but at least you'll only be wasting your time and electricity.

the only way to be heard now is some kind of shaming exercise, probably via twitter.
companies just care about how they are perceived by the masses, rather than the experiences they actually purvey. customer service has been replaced by social media and it's 'influencers' (puke).
it's very pathetic. apologies for everything once on twitter, as if that makes it alright. iphone at the ready..

Do you really think that the "masses" will care if one brand of Champagne has run out in the posh seats while they are crammed in like sardines at the back? I somehow think not. More likely the DM will run a story the next day about snowflake millionaires whinging while the poor suffer.

True that the masses and ordinary folk aren't for details, and more for outrage.
It probably is too unreasonable to distill it into a debate about whether it's acceptable to have a service marketed that isn't delivered.
I'm definitely living in the wrong age as what is logical rarely seems to be what is presented in the media. Sad but true.
Completely agree that we should just give up and accept this poor service, especially as I really hate social media and wish there was some way to get away from this kind of made up 'news'.

If you do provide your own Champagne what are the chances that someone else will request some and the crew sneakily provide them a glass?

or maybe having a glass themselves (ok just kidding)

I've heard all sorts of stories about collecting all the leftover booze and taking it back to their apartments to party the night away.
I would reserve judgement as to whether this is why my preferred drink is never available!
These days I just stick to diet coke.

This reminds me of when I was returning on Air France from CDG to LHR business and they had no wine. I half jokingly tweeted "Air France has run out of wine in business class. What is the world coming to?" and promptly received a £100 voucher from AF. Not bad for going without a glass for 45 minutes... I do think that was a catering mess up rather than purposeful parsimony, though.

I agree 100% with that aieleonard. It really annoys me how people use the word, 'unacceptable'. What choice do you have when you get on the plane and they say, 'sorry, we've run out', than to accept it? And if you book with them again, you have indeed not only had to accept it when it happened but are saying you are willing to accept it AGAIN.

You do have to accept it once if it happens, you can avoid it after that quite easily however. Just don't fly with BA again and you will not have to accept it from them again. I think maintaining Gold status for the OP however and just complaining about it, is probably more important than actually not accepting it happening again.

Highland Spring is my favourite sparkling water. Beats French and Italian brands hands down. Tap water at home is my preference. In F it is very poor to run out of the LPGS. It simply makes them look cheap and incompetent. Every year the quality, selection and availability in F and CW seems to get worse. Staff seem to have more to do. It all adds up to disappointed customers too many times.

I'd fly out in F and back in CW. Line up a good few bookings with screen shots, then send them in to the higher ups, with the annotation that you only fly CW back because far too often with the return catering stocks have been insufficient to guarantee a proper F experience. Sure, they might sell out the cabin anyway, but the only thing even vaguely likely to get their attention is lost revenue. If you persist in booking it as is, then you're effectively complicit in agreeing with it.

Never knew there was a choice of champagne! I just accept a couple of glasses of whatever they have before take off.

Mind you - they then run out of slimline tonic for my gin!!