[Anonymous]

[travelwell]

why oh why does BA still not let you upgrade a booking using BA made via a travel agent ? it should make no difference how you made the booking for a paid for flight, if you made this via a travel agent or direct as its the same cost and money, so should be allowed to use miles to upgrade ? sometimes travellers need to book via their company travel agent.

Does anyone have a way around this when you HAVE to book via a travel agent ? or will BA listen and change ?

thanks

[VintageKrug]

The reason is apparently system related.

However, I know that there has been much talk about adding functionality to upgrade Travel Agent bookings over the years; there are some significant system upgrades happening shortly which will add the ability to upgrade shareholder bookings, and also to book on most oneworld carriers via ba.com.

So this could be part of that upgrade, though I wouldn’t hold your breath.

From a commercial perspective, there is the view that BA should try and encourage corporates to book in the Business Class cabin; most corporates have secured significant savings on corporate bookings (eg under £1000 rtn in Club World to NYC) – to be able to upgrade these bookings would mean a trend towards booking even less expensive WT+ and upgrading using personal miles (which are not the property of your firm) and would also disadvantage those who choose to use their BA Miles for leisure trips (which is really how BA would prefer you use them).

So there is a reasoning behind this.

Personally I would rather it didn’t change, but I acknowledge that many corporate policies do not permit business class travel any longer. I avoid corporate TAs as I find them unable to be available when you really need them, and often way overpriced.

Better to lobby your procurement department to cut a better deal for discount business class.

[EU_Flyer]

You make a good point.

I suspect it’s aimed to alter behaviour away from 3rd party distrubution towards direct selling via the website.
If you think about it, those who book through a corporate travel company are probably already travelling in a premium class dictated by their employer’s travel policy. It’s those leisure bookings where FFlyers book discounted Y class but use points to upgrade that BA is trying to attract to its website. Don’t forget, they also want you to buy ancillary products such as car hire, hotel accomodation ect from the BA website. Airlines actually make a good margin on these-a good source of revenue.

Any thoughts?

[travelwell]

thanks you both make valid points and they are totally understandable. however would like the option to upgrade to first sometimes, or when the club world price is massive and I decide to go in WTP, would be still good to be able to upgrade to club. lets see if any changes happen, otherwise I might just dump the company travel dept and book direct, or stretch the budget for club world all the time…

[continentalclub]

There is another, practical, reason why BA (and other airlines) are cautious about allowing agent-booked tickets to be upgraded with miles: control of the booking…..

Say, you book your ticket with a travel agent, perhaps with your employer paying, and then you contact the airline directly (by phone or online) to effect an upgrade with your own personal miles. There may be an additional tax collect due, which means that the airline may have to take money from you, as well as it receiving settlement from the agent, or issue an unsolicited debit note to the agent (which I’m not sure is actually possible).

You or your PA subsequently instructs your TA to amend the booking, but instead of the reservation sitting in the fare class booked, it’s now got a mileage debit against it and is using award inventory. Your travel agent can’t access award inventory and therefore they can’t amend the booking.

Instead, you call the airline, who would potentially be happy to refund the miles and downgrade you again, but they can’t do anything to the underlying booking as your agency has a contractual relationship with you. Indeed, the airline may not yet even have been paid for the booking. So, you need to change that booking and there’s a change fee to collect, plus any difference in fare, and potentially a refund of any additional tax collect if you’re going to end up back in a lower travel class again.

Now, let’s say that you get hit by ‘irrops’ – as so many have done this year. You request a refund. You now have an immensely complicated booking, with fee collects all over the place, you have at least three parties (passenger, agent, carrier) involved, the airline may not yet have been paid for the bulk of the amounts due and they now have a responsibility to ensure that both their agent and also the passenger directly and mutually agree with any remedy and redress offered.

Or perhaps you’re on a fully-flexible, endorseable ticket. You or your agent or your booker switches you from one airline to another. The backroom reconciliation of revenue is complex already, but now the booking (see above) shows as being in a non-endorseable redemption booking class and there’s a downgrade (that the agent or booker might not know about) to take into account, and a mileage (and possibly a tax) refund to process.

In short, it has the potential to be a nightmare situation and whilst, from the outside, it may look like the simplest thing in the world to just go online and sling some miles at a booking, the practical implications are very much more complex. Airlines may regularly be accused of offering poor customer service, but most are sensible enough to realise that some things would potentially expose them to huge dissatisfaction when things go wrong.

HOWEVER:

At 24 hours prior to departure, the airline fully takes over the booking; at this point, funds should have been released from the agent, the likelihood of irrops is reduced somewhat and there’s now at least the chance that a certain amount of complexity can be avoided. It’s at this point that you’ll sometimes be able to upgrade an agent booking using miles and, personally, I’d say that it’s the point at which online check-in users and even early airport self-service check-in users could be offered the opportunity to upgrade – though this would have to cut-off early enough to allow catering to be loaded reliably.

AND:

Many of these overall systems issues are not insurmountable, it’s just that they’re not unilaterally and wholly solveable by one single airline which participates in interline ticketing, agency sales, Global Distribution Systems etc., etc.,

Some airlines do try to offer this functionality and more have allowed airport-upgrades in the past, but in general it’s been disastrous when things have gone wrong, and the airport route has required dedicated staff with higher levels of training that airlines are increasingly unable to afford.

I’d still like to be able to do it though!

[EU_Flyer]

“otherwise I might just dump the company travel dept and book direct, or stretch the budget for club world all the time…”

….exactly what BA are hoping you will do!

That said, airlines often try to work closely with the Corporate Travel providers as they produce good data on emerging customer trends across a broader spectrum than merely airline travel.

In Australia, QBT (Qantas Business Travel) is a large player in the Corp Travel market that is still dominated by Amex and FCm Travel (Flight Centre).

As for upgrading from CW to F, as VK rightly pointed out, most private corporate fares are signicantly discounted from the published rate. Therefore, some airlines don’t even allow them to be upgradeable.

Anyway, food for thought.

All the best with your future travel.

But that said…. the middle man is always…. the middle man!

[EU_Flyer]

@continentalclub A WEALTH of information and insight. Thanks!

[VintageKrug]

Great stuff, cc! I am humbled…!

BA often offers the option of upgrading for cash through Manage My Booking (MMB) and at On Line Check In (OLCI).

Is this offered when booking via the corporate TA?

[Author]

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