BA Customer Relations

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Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 45 total)

  • VintageKrug
    Participant

    It’s only really as it should be, Martyn.

    As a celebrity of some considerable standing/Willie Walsh’s brother/employee of the Burke Group/Waterside’s Starbuck’s attendant “we got fire!”/Gatwick check-in agent (delete as appropriate) I would expect nothing less.

    The last time my AVOD failed, a contingent of scantily clad angels wafted up the driveway in a gilded carriage, trumpets rampant, and lay on my doorstep an envelope containing the keys to the side route into the Concorde Room and a sample size scorpion-grade insecticide (“just in case I needed it on my next trip to Edinburgh”).

    So very thoughtful of them.

    I am shocked your complaints receive lesser attention. Why could this be?


    PatJordan
    Participant

    Thank goodness VK’s scantily clad angels were accompanied by rampant trumpets, and not the rampant leporine variety!!


    MartynSinclair
    Participant

    VintageKrug – Why all those self-adulations? I merely said that I am sure whatever name you use BA will notice your complaints a little more, which is to be expected.

    “Waterside’s Starbuck’s attendant” – you flatter yourself a little too much.

    BTW – “my complaints receive lesser attention” – not too sure where you read that, but, you are probably right as I dont need to make that many.


    DavidMead
    Participant

    dont know how you guys manage to get an answer ..but i have heard nothing for two months !!! I think this weeks flights on BA from Bkk to LHR will be my very last . They really have lost the plot…over priced on long haul and not a good service … the only thing they have is a good flat bed ..the rest of their service levels are definitely no where near the Middle east carriers !!! Etiyad was in a different class ..
    such a shame as i can remember when travelling BA was just such a joy…


    Deleted User
    Participant

    DavidMead, the problem I have with stopping in the Middle East from the Far East is that its very inconvenient, if asleep. Personally, I prefer to sleep all the way across, without stopping at the midway (or near to) point from the Far East.


    DavidMead
    Participant

    Very true CMB… I think that EVA is a good solution , but as you will rightly point out the flat bed is the best thing BA have to offer..but at such a huge price and no limousines thrown in for nothing ..Etiyad collected me 100 miles from LHR and took me to the airport !! glorious way to start a trip..
    and way cheaper than BA …


    Deleted User
    Participant

    I guess it boils down to exactly what services you want from an airline. Cheaper indirect fares or more expensive direct. A flat bed or angled.

    The only issue I have is where you pay for a ticket, believing you are getting a particular service and the small print allows the airline to change service/products due to aircraft availabilty. Again with BA, you generally get what you believe you are paying for in terms of CW and F offerings as the product/service offering is more or less identical for long haul.

    I do use Finnair now again if the price differential is significant enough.


    RoadKing
    Participant

    I have only once contacted BA CR, this was after I twice in a months time had experienced that the last flight from LHR to OSL had been so much delayed that I missed public transportation and had to resort to taxi. Which is rather expensive.
    My complain was answered within a couple of days and I was reimbursed for the taxi’s and got 10K pts to top it off.

    Quite frankly, I was a bit surprised, both of the efficiency and the answer. After all, my initial complaint had been a suggestion that they may want to consider have the schedule changed giving travellers a better margin to the last train.

    Perhaps it matters, how you approach them, if you start demanding money/pts it may be worse than a humble inquiry?


    PatJordan
    Participant

    RoadKing, you are correct in that the approach when complaining often helps. However all too often, the person to whom you speak has limited empowerment and cannot make any meaningful offers.

    Much of this is down to corporate policies: fob them off and the majority won’t follow up appears to be prevalent at the moment. While it may well save money in the short term, where does that leave the repeat customer who decides to take their custom elsewhere.

    At a customer service training event many years ago, I heard an executive of a major retail grocery chain emphasise the importance of this. His view was that even if one or two bogus complaints received undeserved goodwill gestures, the fact that regular customers felt valued meant that their long term repeat business was assured.

    Made sense then, and even more so in these recessionary times when regular (particularly high spenders) customers are the very lifeblood of a business.


    nevereconomy
    Participant

    Well VK, kudos to you in getting BA to react to your concerns – I guess the constant kind words about them do pay off. We ordinary mortals shelling out tens of thousands of our own cash should be so lucky. To me they remain a poorly run outfit that will never achieve their true potential without a major shake-up. At least they have Iberia to make them look half-way efficient now.


    DavidMead
    Participant

    re iberia ..you are regrettably so right ..
    I have just fought with Iberia for just over five years and eventually won a battle for compensation , (they cancelled my flight and left me high and dry for ten hours !! ) but it took the promise of legal action to get a result.. even then after they caved in , the promised cheque took t another wo months to appear ….
    A more un pleasant , Non customer facing company would be difficult to find … Hate is a very strong word , but I use it in connection with Iberia .. I cannot imagine when I would be so desperate to travel that i would book on Iberia … certainly I would not even consider flying with them long haul . one trip with them to Miami from Madrid Business Class was enough to convince me that they were really the worst airline flying with a European base…


    VintageKrug
    Participant

    I don’t see how you pay for your flights affects the response from Customer Service.

    Either you are able to present a concise complaint using the right channel, setting out clearly what would resolve that complaint, or you aren’t.

    As it happens I pay for a significant proportion of my BA flights myself, certainly enough to get my Goldcard requalified at the basic level, but as my flights are evenly divided between business and leisure trips, I can say it makes not one jot of difference in relation to CR’s response.

    Of course, BA does respond more speedily to Silver and Gold cardholders; this is standard practice across all airlines. Loyalty has its benefits.

    I have always been satisfied and occasionally delighted by the reponses I have recieved from BA’s CR dept, as others who actually fly the airline have attested to here.


    batraveller2
    Participant

    I agree, I have always had a very quick response from ba (more often than not a phone call) and have apart from the odd occasion been happy with the response. Additionally, I will write compliments were deserved, and these are also followed up thanking me for my time.


    TiredOldHack
    Participant

    Coming to this thread a bit late, I’m more interested in the unauthorised CC use than the other problems.

    It is depressingly easy to obtain other peoples’ CC details and use the cards fraudulently, not least because the average Joe’s computer security is woeful. I’m choosing my words very carefully here, because I’m speaking from a position of knowledge that isn’t generally widespread, and all I’ll say here is that the last four letters of my handle are a deliberate pun.

    Secondly, and this is general common sense, don’t pay for large purchases (some might say any purchases!) with a debit card. Use a credit card, even if there’s an additional fee payable. With a debit card, if something hookey happens, it’s your money that’s taken. With a CC, it’s _their_ money, and so not your problem.

    The banks have an added incentive to sort things out when it’s their cash, and if you just refuse to pay the bill, there’s not much, in the real world, they can do. Sure, they can threaten legal action, credit blacklists, etc etc etc, but these are very much a last resort, and if there’s even an atom of doubt in their minds that the transaction was indeed fraudulent, they’ll tread more carefully.

    Finally, some years ago I had my credit card copied by a hotel employee in Colombia, and when I got back home, there were a few thousand quids’ worth of purchases rung up on it, including air tickets. My passport number had been quoted as proof of ID on the purchases (which is how I knew it was a hotel that had done it). The CC company didn’t bat an eyelid so it never got to a ‘dispute’ stage.

    Ever since, when checking into hotels abroad, I have always munged my passport number by changing the final digit. If (for example) it ends in a 3, put it down on the registration form as a 4. If you stay in another hotel on the same trip, change it to a 5. And next a 6. And so on. Nobody _ever_ checks the passport number you put on the check-in slip against the actual passport.

    If anybody tries using your passport number as proof of ID, not only will it not be valid should you dispute the payment, but by looking at which number was quoted, you can identify where the fraud took place.


    Cwyfan
    Participant

    Have you tried posting it on Twitter?

    Apparently, it is now generally true that big firms are getting paranoid about adverse postings on Twitter, because of its fast and vast networking nature. Only a few visit this site, for instant, so whilst you will get sound advice here, particularly from VK, it is just not the same as them getting viral bad publicity. Not sure if BA has caught up with the trend, but others have people trawling the net for criticism to nip it in the bud.

    Worth a try?

Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 45 total)
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