percysmith

I've been trying to contact BAEC thru the US freecall 1 800 452 1201 on and off for the last 12 hours and getting the Heavy Call Volume message.

notakeenflyer

Finally got through yesterday evening on 6th attempt of waiting 1h30 and being cut off. Call answered at about 1:26, so slightly nervous but got everything booked. How ridiculous that the seemingly best way to contact British Airways from the UK is to call a US number and speak to someone in the UK.

alien43

Same experience here. Should the number be corrected in the wiki?
In my case, they redirected me to silver but that extension did not work - the robot said something like I could use the website and hung up.

Another note: calling the silver number and then pressing 2-1 gets me nowhere, the line just becomes busy. I tried a few times before resorting to 2-2, which is a lie but does not lead to hanging up. Now it is just a very long wait.

pazza2000

I had assumed the call wait times would have improved as we headed into January

VSLover

this is a first--i just called the GGL line and was told my call would not be answered and was disconnected.

REALLY?

BLHD

January is traditionally one of the busier times for Airline Reservations, the thinking being that people get Christmas out of the way & book for Summer, of course Covid has screwed up the traditional norms!

spanishflea

I called around the same time and got straight through, zero hold time. I was connected to the India call centre but they were absolutely fine. Maybe you hit a glitch with the transfer from the UK to India?

PUCCI GALORE

Even so - isn't it disgraceful that we are even having this conversation? This is the lifeblood of any airline along with the net. Since the net does not permit one to do things half the time - one has no option to call for silly little things when people with pressing matters and a ticking clock cannot get through. I shake my head in disbelief.

VSLover

interesting. yes it was approx 1730 uk time and i tried three times and each time was told off and disconnected.

i mean to go from calls being answered almost immediately to this on the GGL line is not a benefit i was told about! i'd be fine with anyone as these are simple changes to cancelled flights, but to do this on the GGL is just not acceptable.

Weary Nomad

I agree. This is beyond a parody. At the end of December I sent Sean Doyle an email asking him to get a grip of this situation. I had a response from his office after a week saying that the "Global Engagement Executive Team" who work with Sean Doyle, would be looking into my concerns and reporting back. I was tempted to respond that they should disband the team immediately and put them to work at the call centre. After a further week I had another response apologising that they had not been in touch and would be in touch as soon as they can. That was around two weeks ago and nothing since then. Sort of sums up the mess that they are in with this.

Bellerophon

notakeenflyer

... Over the last 3 days either my wife or me have been on hold waiting for someone to answer at most times of the day ... every time get cut off just after 1h30 of waiting....trying to use a FTV from an Avios and Amex 2-4-1 to rebook exact same route and people, anyone got any better suggestions for contacting BA to do this? ...

I was in the same position all last week, repeatedly calling on the Blue line, every day, trying to change a rewards flight booking. There was availability showing for the reward flights I wanted and although I should have been able to make this change myself on-line, I was unable to because I kept receiving a "systems error" message.

Eventually I did get through, after holding for over an hour, and I could not have had a more courteous or professional agent answer my call.

He asked me how long I had been holding and assured me he could see my number and would call back if we were disconnected. Flight dates changed, tax and Avios recalculated and new booking quickly confirmed, along with the comment that he could see no reason why the BA IT system had prevented me from doing this myself on-line. Excellent service from a great agent who restored a lot of my lost faith in BA with his calm and helpful manner.

The question, surely, has to be why have BA IT systems been allowed to remain so consistently poor? Every passenger unable to make changes on-line for themselves merely adds to the vast number of people already trying to call congested phone lines? Time for someone with a hairbrush to pay a visit to the CEO's office methinks!

I was told that the pressure on the phone lines is easing a bit, so stick with it notakeenflyer and the very best of luck.

planetbox

I share your pain. I need to get a portion of an eVoucher either refunded or reissued, as BA Holidays currently holding onto a large chunk of money, which they said (on the phone in December) that they would be reissue, but so far received nothing. Impossible to reach BA Holidays by phone and their email replies take ~ 20 days at least. The average queuing time for BA customer service is around 45mins at a minimum, but they just say that you have to speak to BA Holidays, as systems are different? Maybe I need to try Twitter again.....

percysmith

Eventually managed to make a call to BAEC HK during contact hours and closed out my query.

Anonba

Normally once you use a voucher with BAH they change any residual to a BAH FTV. You wouldnt get another voucher number as the remaining value is just added in notes in the booking.So when you are ready to rebook you would need to call to use it.

BAH do use a different reservation system that we dont have in flight only sales or change booking. However managers in these departments (at least in UK not sure about other contact centres) do have acess and they can check notes in a booking. So it might be worth trying change booking and see if manager can check notes to see if details of voucher are mentioned.

planetbox

Thanks I didn't know that, I was told they would reissue a new voucher. Problem is I have heard slightly different things each time I've phoned. Have tried tweeting and emailing again.