[Anonymous]

[frustratedflyer]

Have been trying to book a flight on the BA shareholders website and found some good prices. Everytime I tried to book it told me the flight had sold out. After three calls to BA and ten attempts to book I am told that the ticket had sold out and should not have been offered. They will not honour the price. Is there any recourse? They made an offer I accepted and the did not honour the offer. As its BA no surprises but who do I complain to?

[VintageKrug]

The shareholder discount is excellent value. At present prices it costs about £440 to purchase the required 200 shares. So to get the value from the purchase you need to spend at least £4400 over the course of your ownership to make it pay.

You must be registered on 1 November to be able to book discounted travel from 1 January.

You get 10% off all exUK bookings, for you and up to 5 companions on the same flight. Must be on BA metal. Must be exUK. No code shares.

It applies to the fare component only, so not applicable to the taxes and fees element (which can be considerable).

You still earn miles and tier points as normal, though these fares are not upgradeable using BA Miles, and do not accrue OnBusiness points.

More information can be read at http://www.bashares.com though I would hold back until midsummer when a combination of the oil price and the inevitable collapse of the T4 baggage system will cause a further drop.

The shares will likely then rise as the benefits of a working T5 flow through, fares can be raised and BA once again becomes a takeover target or merges with AA (personally I think this is what has been sidetracking Willie Walsh from T5 oversight).

To answer your specific question, unfortunately fares do move during the booking process and can sometimes become unavailable, just as with concert tickets. Technically, you have no contract until your payment has been accepted.

In this case you were not able to complete payment, and so had not contract. Aside from some possible IT issues, BA has no duty of care in such a situation.

This can be a particular problem if you are not familiar with the booking process and require extra time to complete the transaction.

[viking01]

Sounds like you’re calling him slow. Then again, if he’s still got shares in BA, perhaps you’re right

[frustratedflyer]

Unfortunately it was no tslow booking but a faulty system. Unless I was too slow ten times! BA staff have admitted to me that the fault was theirs. A fare was showing in the web site that was not available – hence being unable to book it after completing the process ten times. BA have admitted fault just seem not to care about wasting the time of a Gold Card Holder and offering fares that do not exist. Its like walking into a shop and going to the checkout to be told all the prices are more expensive than those on display. In that environment you at least have recourse to trading standards!

[FrequentTraveller]

You could try starting with your local Trading Standards Office or the Office of Fair Trading.

[GoonerLondon]

Point of order – a shop isn’t legally obliged to sell at the price stated on a sticker. Say an assistant mistakenly prices a bottle of Krug at 9-99, or a sticker accidently attaches itself to the bottle – the store is still able to correct the situation (to their favour) at the checkout. Its then up to you if you still want to proceed.

[frustratedflyer]

It’s happened again. Just tried to book a flight to HK out on Sat 12 Jul and back on St 19 Jul. BA.com displays the flights and the prices and when you choose the flights and try and pay it tells you there is a technical problem and to try again. After several attempts I phoned BA who eventually tell me it is because that there is no Saturday night stay although I am flying on the Saturday, They no about the problem and it occurs only when trying to book for HK and Narita! Its amazing there iare happy to show prices that don’t exist. Its a known problem but they can’t sort it or give an accuarte error message.

[Tumiactually]

I get it, so it shows the fare, then defaults to an error message because although you are trying to take advantage of a Saturday night stay, the saturday night is in the air. Look on the bright side, if this is revenue protection, they will extend it to more and more routes until it;s worth them spending the money on altering the back office of the website so you don;t get the error message. Of course, you also won’t be able to get the cheaper flight, but at least you won’t waste time trying to.

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