[Anonymous]

[DontTurnRight]

Flew with family first class to Vancouver on Tuesday. Old 747 (g-blns) and old style first class. Entertainment system did not work properly for majority of plane for first couple of hours of the journey, but more to the point first class seat would not budge from upright position, despite best efforts of crew to move it. The flight was full so no spare seats in business or first class and as such did not sleep at all and arrived in Vancouver in worse shape that I had wanted. Purser very apologetic and advised he would forward details via iPad to BA who would respond to me as a matter of priority. It is now Saturday and as yet have heard nothing from BA short of being given a customer reference number. Am naturally keen to see how BA will respond and what they might offer in the way of service recovery. At this stage confess to being not overly optimistic, but keen to receive any thoughts as to what I might expect and indeed what my rights might be.

[HBHLondon]

BA is normally very good to make up for your bad experience. My entertainment system was broken recently in First and was given 20,000 Avios miles. For the broken seat I suspect you will get extra miles, more than 20,000 I should hope. You should expect to receive an email or letter from them with the miles in max two weeks.

[FormerlyDoS]

I’d be looking for a lot more than miles for a non-functioning seat in First.

75-80% of the one way fare would be my aim, as a non reclining seat totally ruins the experience.

[Henryp1]

This seems slow. The other week I had difficulties wit a 1st flight from Dubai and received a personal telephone call tbe next day. This resolved the issue there and then.

Very happy with this and previous interactions with BA customer care. Hope you manage to sort your issues without delay.

Henry p

[DontTurnRight]

Was given the option of receiving a call from BA and was assured that because I was travelling in first this would be quickly forthcoming. They also have my email details. Wait in hope.

[SwissExPat]

If you are not satisfied, try the small claims court based on ‘advertised service’ compared to the ‘actual’ service provided.

I have had significant success in the past adopting this route if all else fails.

[rickjacko]

I cannot explain how disappointing I think BA service recovery is. This could be a very long post but I won’t bore everyone. In Sept they lost my bag between Rio and Heathrow. Solved to no satisfaction from me last week. ZERO sympathy, ZERO service recovery skills, no pro-activity what so ever in the claim process, not one phone call to discuss then situation despite my 9 phone calls to Customer Relations over the past three months. They really could not give a sh*t and do not know how to handle customers. To top this off I have been a gold card holder for 7 years, spent at least 50k over the past year ( up until Sept) on personal flights, authorised around 400k for my team over the past year ( up until Sept) and have at least another 35 years of global travel left in me both for work and pleasure. Spend since Sept ZERO, spend for the team since Sept ZERO, potential BA could have had upto 100k . Their loss!!

[Binman62]

If you are a member of the executive club then call them. This has happened to and more than once…….every time I have instigated the communication and BA have generally been very generous and very keen to recover, it is sadly one of their strengths as they have to do it a lot.
If not a member call customer relations

[StephenLondon]

So, rickjacko, what would you have preferred in terms of service recovery and do you think other carriers would handle your bag loss differently?

[Vertrek]

Stephen,

I think it’s the incompetence of BA in responding to customer. If they treated First class passenger like rickjacko, imagine if you were flying Economy! it is another reason why I no longer fly BA.

For example, my economy class KLM flight to LHR was canceled due to snow in AMS on the 07/12, they contacted me 2 days in advance when they predicted the snow and asked if I want to switch flight, but I can only fly on that Friday, hence the stubbornness.

However, during my 12 hours stay in Schiphol I was denied access to the lounge with my silver card and EUR 25 due to “crowd” which were non-existence. I wrote them an email politely and the next day I got a call, yes! a call! from KLM apologising for all the inconveniences and give me enough miles to book AMS-LHR one way, which was credited to my FlyingBlue within 48 hours. That’s what I call customer service, taking initiative to actually act and do. =)

rickjacko, take swissexpat’s advice, you pay a lot for your First seat, and you do not deserve to be treated like that as it is their responsibility to check their product functionality before boarding, especially in F and J. =)

[Daytripper]

I have always found BA more than generous when it comes to recompensing passengers for problems experienced in premium cabins, but have always pre-empted the situation by filling in an online customer complaint form, rather than waiting for the crew’s report to wing its way back to BA.

[MartynSinclair]

I would be expecting soemwhere around DOS @ 16.53 but way short of Swiss Ex Pat @ 18:19.

A broken IFE or bad food is something that service recovery can deal with pretty quickly and easily with an air miles.

However, a broken First class seat…. Lucky it was broken upright otherwise you could have been offloaded as the seat needs to be in a certain position for take off/landing.

I think your case would have been satisified easier if it had been a night flight, however, i would imagine as a guess that is deserving of a free one class upgrade, which I would accept if it was ANY ticket coding.

Be interesting to run a “guess the outcome” competition on this one – please let us know.

[rickjacko]

Stephen – I am not too concerned on whether the actual rules should be different from other airlines because rules are rules and I don’t expect to be treated differently by breaking rules, other airlines would treat it the same. It is more the personal experience and how they treat the customers.

It wouldn’t take much to maintain customer loyalty especially frequent flyers to make a call explaining they are extremely sorry, they are looking for the bag, they understand and do care that these situations happen. Te occasional update to tell me they hadn’t forgotten. Simple actions that show real customer care. BUT THERE WAS NONE AT ALL FROM EXE CLUB OR CUSTOMER RELATIONS.

There was insincere caring when I called with no follow up. No one called at 21 days when I could claim, no one called at 40 days to say ‘Mr Jackson again we are extremely sorry, we understand now at 40 days we officially provide paperwork for you to claim on insurance. Here it is.’ This really isn’t difficult.

I am not too concerned on being offered miles, I can never find flights anyway to use them outside of Europe. I just believe it doesn’t take much for BA or any large company to show loyal customers they care.

[TravelwaveBerlin]

I got i choise. .75000 avios or 850.- travelvoucher

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