[Anonymous]

[Binman62]

Following on from a pretty horrible experience with BA due to the the snow and chaos in Dec, I have been trying to talk to Customer relations. It has taken them over 6 weeks to produce two standard corporate claptrap emails and they are refusing to contact me by anyother means. Calls to them are simply cut off.
They simply are not taking the issue of complaints seriously enough and appear determined to ignore complaints in the hope they will go away.
I have news for them.
Anyone have a strategy for dealing with them?

[MartynSinclair]

Binman – depends on which category your complaint falls into:

1. General whinge department

2. Missed connection costs

3. BA caused you a financial loss area

4. The where were your snow ploughs fund

5. Booze ran out in the lounge

6. The delay I endured, was the reason I drank so much acohol, supplied by BA, c asuing me to lose mny driving license, lend me Willie’s driver department.

7. Any other new category

Any direction needed, i am sure there are enough grumps on here to help!

[Binman62]

MartynSinclair
I think my grump falls into several categories all of which you nalied. Showing my age I would say perm any 8 from 10!!.
Following the news yesterday that I have alledgedly committed a driving offence in Europe, whilst trying to get home, means that even number 6 may apply!!!!!!!
But I love a good argument…..

[AdrianHenryAsia]

Binman, I feel your pain!

Having tried, several times, to get BA to provide straight forward responses to reasonable complaints – I have given up. Any organisation that doesn’t value custom and provide good after-sales care (especially to premium passengers) doesn’t deserve my business – and sadly, most of my business has gone elsewhere now.

Keep going, you may get through to someone, somewhere who is empowered to make a decision and retain custom as opposed to driving it away!!

I have even resorted to writing to Willie Walsh – something I detest. I feel any service based organisation should be able to deal with problems effectively without customers feeling so utterly powerless that they have to resort to writing to the CEO because they have no other route to resolve the problem and everyone they deal with can’t actually do anything to make the situation better.

I have to say though, the grass isn’t any greener with other airlines, just a different shade of brown.

Grumpy old man No.2!

[VintageKrug]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14njUwJUg1I

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

I wrote to Willie Walsh personally, as BA had charged my credit card with two unauthorized amounts (several thousand pounds) and did not feel that the normal customer service people were taking it seriously.

What I wanted was an explanation of how this happened, as I regard companies taking four figure sums without authority as rather concerning.

After 6 weeks, I got a reply saying that Willie would be obliged if I would write to Bremen.

Not exactly what I was looking for and I never got the explanation.

Although I have lilttle time for BASSA, this experience has made me far more sympathetic to employees who do not trust BA, for if this is the way they treat their premium customers….

[MartynSinclair]

DS – how long did it take for the money to be returned?

If the payments were unauthorised, I would have taken the matter up with the credit card company or the police.

“Unauthorized” could imply fraud or theft. If BA were not interested, I am sure your credit card company or the police would be.

If you incurred costs due to this, I would have issued a county court summons, directed it to the legal department in BA and hey presto, your claim, if legit, will be taken seriously.

However, I suspect that there is more to this story than you have published.

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

Martyn

Nothing more to the story than meets the eye.

One of the transactions was refunded before I found out, the other within 7 days of me contacting BA. They were two repeats of an original (authorized) transaction.

Unauthorized means just that. BA took money from my card without my authorization, using a ‘customer not present’ process.

Fraud or theft requires intent to do that, which was clearly not the case.

I did discuss this with the credit card company and that is how I know the ‘customer not present’ process was used.

My main concern was how did BA use the original credit card data, on three separate occasions, over a period exceeding a week? I wished to be reassured that my data is being managed carefully, not in the least because the credit card company said there is not automatic process to stop it happening again.

I have still not received an explanation, which I think is absolutely appalling. All they have managed is a ‘we are sorry our service did not meet our usual standards.’

Small claims court does not work cross border, FYI. There is a process for uncontested claims, but for the small amount involved (interest), not worth the effort.

[MartynSinclair]

DS

Have you tried contacting the British Airways “Data Controller Officer” or the Information Commissioners Office.

You are entitled to ask any company for all data they hold about you on their data files. I think that there is a £10 charge. If you apply for this information through the relevant BA department, this may provide you with an explanation and full details of exactly what information BA have about you and your credit cards.

Alternatively, the ICO office could be of use regarding any miss use of private data.

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

Martyn

Thanks for that information.

[MartynSinclair]

pleasure to help.

[David]

I’m sorry to hear of your frustrations, Binman. Contrary to your toils, I’ve just had a fairly positive experience with BA’s Customer Relations.

My flight from Stockholm to London (Club Europe) was cancelled in December (due to weather), meaning that I would miss my onward connection (Club World) to Sydney. As the weather was not looking any better for the following day (at LHR) , British Airways took it upon itself to put me on Thai Airways – business class – (not even a One World partner) direct ARN – BKK instead.

Perhaps being rather cheeky given their level of care, I emailed BA’s Customer Service when I returned asking if they could credit the miles and tier points to my account that I would have earned on the outbound sectors. Within one hour I had a personal reply instructing me how to proceed.

My official Customer Service desk is in Bremen but I had such a good response initially that I continued to correspond with the UK office. It took nearly 4 weeks for the miles/points to be credited to my account and I made a point of following up each week. Each email (a total of 4 were sent) were responded to within 12 hours, personally (i.e. not a box-standard reply), by someone who signed their name and promised to follow up on my behalf with their Bremen colleagues. My one phone call to BA’s Bremen office was also answered without delay.

I was flying Club World and am a Gold card holder, but then again I assume most do/are on this forum, so perhaps I was just lucky?

Safe travels and I hope your issues are resolved to your satisfaction very shortly!

[Binman62]

I think the level of response is directly connected to both the class of travel and the level in the executive club. My previous experinces of CR were all as a result of issues on flights where we travelled First. All the family have silver cards.
This time we were on Airmiles tickets and in euro traveller.

I have not given up, and I will keep the post updated as the issue proceeds.

[PatJordan]

Don’t know is this is of any assistanct folks, but last year I had a couple of issues (relatively minor) and had them seppdily dealy with at the Diamond Club gold help desk at Heathrow T1. The staff I met were helpful, concerned and most importantly empowered to make decisions.

Just wondered if BA had similar desks with slmilarly heplful and empowered staff/?

[Author]

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