[MartynSinclair]

Chris… re reading this thread…. were you flying on BA or IB metal?

[FDOS_UK]

Martyn

From the OP

Booked on Iberia and fare allowed (after some confusion) pre seating and baggage on what were ba operated flights)

[ThomasCox]

Morning @FDOS

In the interests of fairness to some of the very good BA crews that are out there, I was referring only to my experiences of travelling as a family.

I have no doubt that service is patchy, and when it’s bad it’s terrible as Chris’ original post describes.

I’m also a Gold card holder of many years and we travel long haul as a family twice a year, Club Europe again, twice or three times a year. And always on Club World / Europe. I have always found the crew and ground-staff to be at best charming and helpful, and at worst disinterested. We’ve never been split up or off-loaded or had any issues with seating. I like to think this is because I’m fortunate enough to be able to travel business class and do enough work travel to maintain my Gold status. It shouldn’t be the case though that simply because you pay for the lowest cost ticket you get treated with anything other than professionalism, courtesy and respect.

Sadly FDOS I think you’re correct – as an organisation BA’s culture has been transformed to the point where revenue / profit / cost-cutting is prioritised well above customer service and basic hospitality.

[FDOS_UK]

Thomas

I agree that there are some good cabin crew working for BA, they’re the ones at the end of the chain, who have to deal with the cr*p created upstream.

FWIW, I had an aircraft change recently and got booted out of the best seat in the cabin and by the time I found out, there was only an aisle or middle right at the back. Didn’t get my choice of meal, in fact they had run out of WTP meals and only had Y meals left – it was if they didn’t know that they changed to an aircraft with a larger WTP cabin.

And that as a a Gold Card holder.

The very young and harassed mixed fleet crew were struggling to cope with some fairly direct feedback from pax around me, I went easy on them as it’s not their fault in anyway.

[handbag]

Only read this briefly, as have just got back form a trip and very tired. So will quickly make a couple of comments.

Agree this situation is appalling and shouldn’t happen. Unfortunately it does. Spent ages trying to get in touch with the right people last year to sort out a similar mess with friends travelling long haul and luckily noticed before they left, that they had not been sat it with both children (under 4) and infant, all together. You would think with me being able to contact people internally, I could sort out the mess, but only did partially. Never got back what they had initially booked.

Pushback with pax standing is a complete no no.

Passengers being moved to accommodated Staff on the ground. I would 100% deny any knowledge of this happening or being possible. Staff travel is so strictly regulated by a computer that this should never happen and I don’t know how it could. I am not denying that when the door is closed, that sometimes there is availability for a better seat that has not been allocated already, then staff may sometimes be moved if they know someone on the Crew.

[Nick]

I would like to report Capetonian for his splendid content – I love it!

[Chris]

Hi everyone, quick update as I know many of you were interested in how this is progressing.

I raised with Alex Cruz’s office and received a call from a lady in customer relations (who was responding to my twitter rant and wasnt even at first aware of the Alex Cruz letter which still hasnt been directly responded to).

They have denied that any incident occurred on the plane at all and suggested any issues with seats (being offloaded etc) was probably to do with someone with a similar name to me being on the flight.

Ive sent them away to conduct a proper investigation and refused their offer of Avios until they can come up with a more plausible explanation.

Ive also submitted a data access request for me and my family to see what kind of information they may have been working on to select me and my son for offload.

Interesting to note, to further reinforce my feeling that there was something just ‘corrupt’ in this booking, after 12 days or so we have still not been credited any avios for these flights, despite my last 20 or so flights being credited within 48 hrs.

So far at least, it seems they dont wont to conduct a proper investigation which suggests to me either they just dont care, or this is such a regular occurrence. If this is the case, I simply cannot risk putting my family on a BA flight again if you can be offloaded at will and literally have to negotiate your way back on and suggest others consider likewise. Afterall I should be ‘grateful to get on the plane at all’.

[FDOS_UK]

Chris

I am sorry to hear that you have not received a fulsome apology and a meaningful gesture – it really adds insult to injury.

Afterall I should be ‘grateful to get on the plane at all’.

Indeed. I’ve had this a few times over the years, along with ‘I will make an exception this time’ – usually when the agent is not well trained and is only giving you what the BA policy says you are entitled to – after standing your ground.

Oh well, no doubt someone will be along to say we are just ‘BA Bashers’ for thinking this way. The YouGov Brand Index of 2017, showing a strong decline in perception of value for money and quality is obviously just made up 🙂

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/inlineimage/2017-11-07/graph%201-01.png

[philsquares]

Can’t comment on the activities onboard, but I can help you with the missing credits.

Currently living in ALC and I go back and forth to LHR/LGW about every 3 weeks. I have found when you book on IB, you get a better choice for connecting flights whereas the BA app only gives you N/S for LGW or minimal options for LHR. But if you book on the IB website or app and it is listed as a BA flight (IB operated) I have never gotten automatic credit. I have always had to file a missing Avios claim which you can’t do until 7 days after the operating day of the flight. I was back in the UK from the 15-20 May and had to do the same thing.

Also, the checking function is messed up. I am off to LGW tomorrow and returning on the 13th from LHR and I have to check in for the LHR-MAD flight on the BA app. Go figure.

[capetonianm]

Chris : A man after my own heart, I am delighted that you are taking this by the throat and pursuing your claim. Most people give up by the second hurdle.

I do the same, regardless of whether I expect to get anything tangible out of it, but simply to expose poor practice. Good luck.

[MartynSinclair]

@Chris – has your Data Subject Access Report request been acknowledged by BA? I believe that post 25th May 2018, the firm must now respond in full within 40 days and the previous £10 charge is not needed for ‘reasonable’ requests…

[Chris]

Hi Martyn – yes the subject access request is submitted (15 days ago I think) and to date no acknowledgement. Yes my understanding of GDPR is the same that they have 40 days and can no longer place an admin charge on producing it.

Conclusion of the complaint from BA is a (reasonably) heartfelt apology that they messed up and a block of Avios. They are not prepared to go into the detail with me of what went wrong.

Thanks again to everyone for their support and guidance on this one which had me completely flummoxed at stages!

[MartynSinclair]

Hi Chris

I believe the firm need to confirm receipt of the DSAR otherwise they could deny receiving it…. if you have not received any communication by now, I would assume the request has been ‘lost’…

My advice would be to ask the call centre the name of the firms data protection officer/controller and send the request to them by recorded delivery.

If you have no luck with the this, make contact with the ICO office

https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/

.. and ask them how you should proceed.

remember, you have the right to request this information.

[Chris]

Still nothing from BA on the subject access request. The 40 days are breached at the end of next week.

Only sent the request recorded delivery – perhaps they are playing the ‘if you dont send it recorded delivery we will put it in the bin’ game. I would like to think their strategy to GDPR was slightly more robust than this.

Will be re-sending it after the deadline is breached – recorded this time.

Chris

[canucklad]

Hi Chris

Others might be more in the know, I’ve checked with our SAR team and they take the 40 days from the postmark date on the request letter.

Apparently, in this day and age ,its a given that mail doesn’t get lost !!

I was told that our mailroom prioritise any correspondence that relates to complaints, simply because of the non negotiable timescales to resolve before it gets passed on to the ombudsman

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