pdb

(1) In April, I booked/paid for (on ba.com) 2 MIA- LHR mid-Dec paid T MFU’d to U. Both PAX are Gold.

(2) I checked with BAEC 2 days ago to see if earlier times/dates were available and was told only on subsequent dates, and that I should continue checking with the understanding that a change fee would apply, if space opened up.

(3) I received an email, today, advising that the flight had been cancelled and rebooked to an earlier flight on the same day. It was too late to contact BAEC, but we are now even more concerned and definitely wish to travel a day earlier. (There is T availability--but not U--on that date.)

(4) BA'sTerms of Carriage state:

Query: Will BA accommodate our request for an earlier date? I am pessimistically anticipating a reply like “Sorry, but there is no availability in U on that date.”; however, BA obviously opened U space on the earlier 16-Dec flight for us. We really prefer to go a day earlier, especially in light of this flight cancellation. Is this such an unreasonable request?

[I found no previous posts on point, so any assistance is greatly appreciated. I will advise what happens after calling BAEC, but would like to know what to do.]

G-BOAG

pdb,

You have a PM.

pdb

Thank you, G-BOAG.

pdb

As I feared/expected, BAEC reservations told me they were sorry, but that there was no availability. Even the supervisor, was adamant. I kept repeating "but, even if we were not BAEC Gold, are we not entitled to a booking of our choice as long as there is any space available in the desired cabin?" No answer to that, but after I continued to insist (politely, of course), the supervisor finally put me on hold and magically came back with the revised, desired reservations. Despite this, she continued to assert that this was an exception and that according to her rules she was not permitted to do this.

I will forego any critism of BA in this post: I am happy to have gotten the desired rebooking, but unhappy with what I had to go through.

Long live FT...FTers are Great! ^

pdb

Due to an upcoming change (by a couple of hours) on a MIA-HNL itinerary, AA contacted me, yesterday. As a result of an inter-island flight (on HA: non-refundable and not part of the PNR) there were no acceptable flights. The agent said, "check your options and call back to the EXP desk...and don't hesitate to tell them about the problems assosicate with the HA flight." I called EXP today with date and routing changes (through LAX, instead of DFW), including a one-day stopover in LAX.

Result: no problem, no hint of AA's doing a favor or making an exception, no attempt to say "but your tickets don't permit a stopover in LAX" or other excuse; rather, a willingness to do whatever necessary to accomodate its EXPs. (I admit that I have no idea what the various load factors, etc., might be--versus the situation at BA with the rebooked flight; however, IMHO, this really is where AA outshines BA, hands down.) In the air, BA is generally a dream--unfortunately, on land, things can be a nightmare.

Mr MCO

I had a similar incident 2 years back. I was booked on an award ticket (U) from London to Florida. They cancelled flights to Florida for 4 days in a row due to weather issues (hurricanes). My original flight had no U availability for 8 days. They were more than happy to rebook me any day to any destination that U was available. I got to fly to an alternative Florida destination 4 days later... Now I now better....

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

Pdb - we found this to be common with AA - we did 18 flights with them in April - all bar 4 sectors were YUPS. All bar two of the flights were subject to schedule changes. In each case we just rang and suggested alternative flights and or routings to maximise tier credits. We even ended up on more convenient flights (= longer routings ) which were more expensive at the time we did our original booking. All was done without hesitation or questioning. I think AA's rule is something like 'anything more than 30 minutes' change gives pretty much carte blanche to change. At least that was our fortune!

Regards

L/M/E etc

pdb

...so, 23:59 prior to flight time, I unsuccessfully attempt OLCI, the error message being "Online Check-in Unavailable". A call to BAEC Gold Reservations gets me the following explanation: "Oh, you can't do that until 23 hours before departure." I insist that the rule is 23:59 prior and I also tell the agent that I'm having trouble with seat selection on another itinerary in CE, to which she replies, "Oh, you can't do seat selection for intra-Europe flights," and tries to get BA.COM on the line. (Meanwhile, I persist with the seating problem and am able to change the seat selections...don't know how/why they were changed in the 1st place.) The BA.COM people advise me that for some reason, even though I entered correctly the passport information, nonetheless, they had to re-enter it, and I would need to wait another 30 minutes prior to attempting OLCI.

1 hour later, I try OLCI again, with the same results. Another call gets me to an agent who cannot explain why I have the problem, nor can he transfer me to BA.COM people. He gives me a telephone number and I dial. The technical person--very friendly and probably located in India--tells me the reason I cannot use OLCI is that my ticket was never issued. Even though I bought it on BA.COM, when the date of the outbound leg was changed in June, the agent somehow messed things up. Unfortunately, since I am a European BAEC member, he cannot issue the ticket, because he can only issue USD-denominated. I will have to wake up in the middle of the night to reach BAEC in Europe when they open...so much for the benefits of OLCI. I am not a very happy camper. In any event, I contact BAEC in Europe when they open and the European agent doesn't fully understand what is going on, but is somehow to reissue the ticket, although I have to call again several hours later to find this out, because no email confirmation ever arrived.

I'm relieved that this is finally resolved, but ticked off at BA's incompetence and the enormous amount of time I have had to waste. I also wonder what on earth would have happened had I shown up at the airport on the day of departure, 2 hours prior to departure time (with Europe closed)?!

pdb

No problem at the check-in counter where I drop off my bag. As I enter the Club, I joke with the lounge dragon, "Please exchange this paper BP with a nice cardboard one in 1st class" to which she replies, "OK, they already did." I'm taken completely off guard. There must have been a full plane (although there were a couple of empty seats in 1st, after all). Nonetheless, this was a pleasant end to an otherwise very unpleasant experience.

radelow

I booked a trip LAX>LHR>HAM on Dec. 22nd and then HAM>LHR>PHX on January 1st. Both were WT+ purchased upgraded to CW with miles. About 2 months ago I got an email that my HAM>LHR flight coming back was cancelled. I called BA about it and there were no other flights that day that would let me make my connection. I was willing to fly a day or to later and would consider both PHX and LAX (as my final destination is SAN). Eventually they found me a return HAM>LHR>LAX on the 3rd but it was only available in FIRST. They gave me a free upgrade and booked the trip. That's what I call service. Needless to say that will be my first time ever flying FIRST on BA. I'm excited!

Cyba

I'm glad you sorted things out in the end. The above is a veeeeeery common problem for me. It seems like anytime I make any changes to an e-ticket, I have problems of this sort to the point where I now get my agent to call BA to make sure their systems are correctly picking up all changes. You'd think that schedule changes on an e-ticket would automatically trigger a ticket re-issue but alas it doesn't seem to be that way. And many agents don't seem to know that they need to manually force the change.

As for the cheap excuses you got from the various people you spoke to, typical really, isn't it. Insufficiently trained people who make up things as they go along. Guess the majority of passengers put up with it or someone would have changed things by now.

leaveamessage

Ditto- very common - especially changes made via north american exec club in my experience.

pdb

...and so the saga continues for this booking, for want of posting of miles/TPs in both (Gold) PAXs' BAEC accounts, despite repeated calls to BAEC since late December. Excuses aplenty, but little action. Finally one PAX's account was credited with 3 of 4 segments, (the 1st segment continues showing 0/0), and the other PAX's account remains at 0/0 for all 4 segments--consistent? Frustrating & typical--once again, BA are great in the air, but fail dismally ex-cabin and they just don't seem to give a damn about their consistently dismal computer systems or their generally pleasant/incompetent ground customer service.

Ahhhh, first rant of the new year...I feel better, already.

Smirnoff

Take a flight on AY. They'll make you fell all happy inside.