travelmad478

I just got off the phone with our corporate travel agents (BTI) after reserving an October flight PHL-LHR-JNB and back on BA--that will be my first flight on the carrier since May. This is the way I always go to JNB, but today, the travel agent was advising me to fly ANYONE else as long as it wasn't BA. Apparently, it's not just the catering problems, although those are horrendous enough. The travel agent said that BA's once-excellent service in dealing with them had been deteriorating steadily since the beginning of the summer--these days, apparently, BA has become absolutely dreadful in terms of responding to travel agent requests, accommodating our corporate passengers' booking needs, canceling flights, etc. I'm horrified--never heard a tirade like that coming from our travel agents, especially considering it was about what used to be HER "favourite airline" also.

She urged me to check back closer to the flight time and see if things had improved, and if not, re-book on another airline. I'm reluctant to do that since I need this flight to re-qualify for Gold...but is it worth it?

Very irritating also to find that my desired return flight in J from JNB-LHR on October 28 is already sold out. Never had this happen before on the JNB run. India, maybe, but South Africa? What's going on here?

aristoph

J to SA is always extremely high load. Doesn't surprise me at all that it is sold out.

Kibison

It may be that BA is cutting out or cutting back on travel agent commissions. I am still booking flights with them and have full confidence.

travelmad478

It is very surprising given that there are 8 weeks to go before the flight. Both flights, BA 54 and BA 56, are sold out, as is BA 54 on the following day. I was also told that I could not even get on a waitlist (which would probably get me a seat eventually since I am Gold).

aristoph

[Deleted - misread OP

krug

If you are booking a flexible fare (sounds like you are) you can get a sector in F - see other thread - perhaps this would solve the problem?

travelmad478

(1) F is also sold out (!!)

(2) As I read the T&C, I think that only works for non-discounted fares. We have a corporate contract with BA that gives us discounts. I've tried doing promos like this before and been shot down.

(3) I also think that deal only applies to UK-originated itineraries??

aristoph

It seems to be a specific issue to the 28th as there is availability on all days either side.

norodnik

We put 9 Million GBP of business BA's way last year and they won't talk to us about significant discounts as we don't do enough business.

UA give us 35% and other concessions and we get reasonable discounts with Qantas etc.

BA are very arrogant and their corporate sales teams don't cut the mustard. I get the impression that accounts in boom industries like Oil, FS etc get all their attention and the rest of us can go whistle.

As BA makes reasonable profits then maybe it vindicates this stance, but what goes around comes around and people have longer memories than they used to.

norodnik

BTW, end of October is the end of Half-Term in the UK so I would expect the flights to be full, even this early, as the dates are known well in advance.

Given this I would not hold out any hope of the flight getting less busy.

bealine

........This has been the case for as long as I can remember. I worked for Thomas Cook Business Travel in the early 80's and this certainly was the case then.....indeed, we all felt the "Executive Club" was formed with British Airways' specific intention of gleaning information on Travel Agents' client bases and eventually doing dodgy deals behind the Agents' backs!!!

With the advent of BA's Direct Marketing, and more recently, e-commerce, it would appear Travel Agents are losing more and more control of their customers and, unfortunately for them, that trend is likely to continue!

I hate to say it, but I think BA's arrogant attitude will pay off as the ratio of Direct Sales to Travel Agency bookings increases in favour of Direct Sales!

The Big 5 US carriers are struggling for survival - even Continental which is in better shape than the rest, is relying heavily on salary reductions to stay ahead of the game. This largely explains their willingness to get business at any price!!!

My sympathies lie with the Travel Agents, but I feel they belong to yesterday's world and will ultimately disappear!!!

travelmad478

I have used a travel agent for personal travel maybe once in the last 15 years, but for corporate travel, they really do come in handy. Without these guys, I would have been severely negatively affected in many, many business travel situations over the last seven years of traveling in my current job.

I also doubt that the concept of large companies using corporate travel agencies, or in-house corporate travel departments, is going to fade away. BA would behoove themselves to realize this fact and make amends for the bad service of late. I work for a Dow 30 company that has something like 50,000 employees around the globe (of which probably 2,500 or so regularly travel internationally). I think it would be worth BA's time to be a little sweeter to us.

Swanhunter

Given my recent experiences of corporate TA's the sooner they move on, the better. The lack of knowledge is worrying, they add little to no value and frankly dealing with a direct sales website is easier, faster and cheaper!

Amusingly enough, we did have a corporate deal with BA and ditched them earlier this year as the discounts weren't large enough! Now we get a good price on VS - but they don't fly to the places I (and my team) go to so we end up paying full fare instead. Not sure I totally understand procurement as specialism.

Fuming

uk agents would definitely disagree on this. they would claim that the service has been deteriorating for about two years.

it costs uk travel agents 50p/minute to call ba and, quite frankly, most (but not all) of the time they are their own worst enemies.

"our client will refuse to travel without an upper deck window seat"

"our client is a silver card holder. i demand you give him priority in the waitlist"

"can i issue airlineXYZ on ba paper?"

"i am setting up a TOD bhx-BA-cdg-AF-gru-AF-cdg-AF-BHX. the first international sector is on ba because you are easier to deal with than air france so i expect you to do all the work and receive a barley a fraction of the fare for doing so"

"i have issued my client with a non-changeable ticket. if you do not change it, i will tell my client it is ba's fault"

"i have had this booking in my system for over 2 days before i have bothered to contact you. please can you ask Fares to put in a complicated fare quote for me before the 72 hour ticketing deadline expires."

tracey from thomas cook is the worst.

batraveltrade.com is an immensely useful website and it is criminal that travel agents do not make better use of it.

when we get the requests, i can assure you that we don't give a damn whether the booking is made with ba direct or through an agent. agency requests actually receive priority on our fares queue.

the decline in service that agents perceive they receive from ba is almost entirely due to the elimionation of commision. introducing booking fees for ba direct customers was supposed to placate agents so they can more confidently levy their own charges. this is definitely an area where ba are a market leader and VS are increasingly "monkey see, monkey do" in this field.

how different it is in america, i have no idea. although comparing ba to dl/ua/nw/aa/us/co is frightening.

travelmad478

For some travel, I agree completely. And I never use the travel agents to actually find flights or hotels--I look up all my flights on Bloomberg and hotels on Expedia and just tell them what to book, otherwise it would take years and they would end up putting me into places like Holiday Inn (horrors!) Still, considering the usual terrifying complexity of my bookings, which usually involve multiple carriers, countries, and hotels on a single itinerary, the services of the travel agent are invaluable when it comes to making changes during a trip. I have had many, many occasions when I really needed these guys to put through complicated re-bookings while en route. That's what I am paying for. (Or, what someone's paying for, that is. )