[MartynSinclair]

Well tell the from me they are greedy greedy B*****ds! They have an extraordinarily bad online system, are extremely rude and expect a large deposit to avoid increase. Happy to name and shame…. BUTTERFIELD.

[AllOverTheGaff]

And just to prove I am not on a BA bashing mission, I am currently on hold to American Airlines about a possible change to my itinerary in November, (I might need to change something).

Thus far, and I have it on speaker-phone in the background, I have been on hold listening to their crap muzak for no less than 28 minutes.

[Bunnahabhain]

Yeah call centres could at least recognise their typical waiting times by rolling out some decent lengthy tracks on their playlist. Historically with records these were limited to around 20 minutes so classics like each side of Tubular Bells, or Atom Heart Mother Suite were common. CDs gave some more scope, the longest I’ve noticed is Waiting for Cousteau by Jean-Michel Jarre at about 45 minutes – one for AF perhaps. Now with MP3, the world is their oyster – IB could have Ibiza club sounds 2013 continuous mix.

[AllOverTheGaff]

One hour and eight minutes to NOT get the information I was looking for, in speaking with Nick who is located in Fiji. He will call me back “when he can” as they are really busy right now.

I was however kindly informed of 3 schedule changes to my itinerary, one of which sees me flying out of Sao Paulo at 12:45am on an old Boeing with no lie-flats.

Having been excited for a long time about flying with AA, it is looking less and less likely I will bother, actually quite stunned at this level of incompetence.

[Papillion53]

Morning Gaffy – you are not having much luck are you? Dare I ask if you got the BA one sorted out? I wonder if you have AAdvantage membership and if the information you needed could be found there? I joined us both to AAdvantage, as it was “advantageous” in finding award flights availability for AA, in fact much quicker than on BA.com, and then when I found what I needed, I went back and found them on BA.com, if that makes sense! 😉 🙂

Anyway, talking about call centres …. Our BT broadband went down on Friday morning – just as I was about to have my morning coffee fix of the latest at BT! ( I do have a smart phone, but had never set it up for Internet and had no idea how to either! )

Called BT call centre, in India, no problem with that but I do have issues with the script, the never ending stories … Finally came back on yesterday afternoon just as I had been into the nearest Tesco to use their free wifi – absolutely brilliant, you just log on with your club card and you are all set up.

I was so fed up with BT I was going to cancel the subscription, but the first question you are asked when you call that line, after all the usual press button a etc etc., is “has the account holder passed away?” Is it just me, or does anyone else find that so distasteful? Maybe they are so confident that they think no-one would cancel with them unless that was the case!

Apparently they had planned maintenance to fit some new “line card” of which there is a national shortage, so we, the customers, were having to wait for the engineer to get his supply! So four days without broadband, I had no idea really how much I do online. For the first time in ages I actually went shopping in a supermarket! Never mind business stuff!

I have back up now with my phone – very nice young lady in the Tesco phone shop sorted my phone out to connect to the Internet in about 10 seconds flat!!! 🙂

[AllOverTheGaff]

Hello Mrs Papillion

I gave up on the BA situation and sent the Gold Card member my unedited thoughts on BA’s call answering and service.

I am now, once more, on hold to AA trying to resolve my flights. I had a chat with Tim Fitzgerald who gave me some awesome advice about the flights I needed to be on, so have been onto AA telling them to change me onto other flights.

Long story short, I am landing at LHR 20:15 so cannot make an EDI connection at 21:00, even though everyone here knows that in reality, I can. So, I am changing to fly back to GLA at 21:15 and this has caused all sorts of dramas with AA that *I* am making a routing change. The chap in Fiji (I swear it is the same one, the bloke who told me there was a BA flight from Rio to Sau Paulo available but it connected via LHR – and no, I’m not joking) has put me on hold for somewhere in the region of 30 minutes all told once we eventually sorted the other flights and we are now arguing about my “route” change. I’ve offered them to pay for overnight accommodation at the Sofitel if they so wish, as that is the only other viable option, but that I won’t be paying for it – so they can fly me to GLA or pay for Sofitel.

Can you believe they would rather cancel my flights? That is his solution, so I’m now on hold waiting for a manager/supervisor.

I cannot for the life of me comprehend why airlines such as these spend millions and millions on new aircraft, on infrastructure, on in-flight dining, entertainment and advertising yet they spend SO little on having quality, common-sense people answer their phones and speak to their paying customers.

It is now resolved whilst I’ve been typing this, I am flying back to GLA.

Lordy.

[KeaneJohn]

Having just skimmed through this thread I and after having a 90 minutes conversation with a senior member of staff tonight, in my opinion the training provided by frontline BA staff is abysmal. Staff didn’t know how I could do a data subject access request.. That matter appears to have been almost resolved as I told the supervisor what information I was looking for and she is going to check for me in the morning.

Just a thought, if your card is used for the booking you are entitled to the data relating to that transaction as its your card and related to it so BA should discuss this with you. If you went as far as doing a Data Subject access request. they would have to give you the data regarding the transaction your card was used for.

[LuganoPirate]

If someone has the right card umber and pin, Miles and More will speak to you. Mrs. LP often arranges everything,,follows up on the occasional missing miles, seat numbers and so on. Never any hassle.

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