[sleak76]

Gold-2K

I am happy to report that, 2 and half years on from your post, BA has still managed to not progress.

“But having called Exec Club and had it confirmed that there was availability to upgrade with Avios points, they would not do it ……….. very frustrating, citing this rule about bookings made through an agent”

I have a BA.com booked and paid CW ticket from the Gulf (Kuwait) to JFK and back. I saw online that LHR-JFK had one reward seat avail on my flight (this is all for next week). So called the BAEC Middle East office (which is where I am registered at).

The agent looked it up and confirmed one F upgrade using Avios seat was avail and asked me to hold while he transfers my call.

The second agent confirmed this availability (mind you we call BAEX ME office by having to call the UK at a +44 number so we are paying IDD rates). The second agent asked me to hold while she worked on getting it.

She comes back after 5 min saying she is facing a problem and a supervisor is looking into it. So a further 5 min on hold with an international call before she comes back accepting defeat and telling me it can’t be done.

Why not? I asked. She says because KWI-LHR has no reward seats available to First so the system is refusing to upgrade me on the LHR-JFK sector and grab that one reward seat available. So asked her to “split” my ticket and this way the system can disregard KWI-LHR as a condition to upgrade. She said that was what she was working on but the system refused and that is why she called in her superior and he failed in splitting it as well.

Bottom line: sorry but we can’t upgrade you using avios not unless the entire sector opens up.

Many of you know Emirates’ system is set up so that agents can easily split tickets when it involves a connection which means when one sector is open, the agent can release that seat to you without the complication of “we can’t split, sorry you are out of luck” situation.

Bottom line: BA’s IT department lags far behind its peers and many of us end up with Avios gathering dust just because of the airline’s incompetence and their antiquated IT system, poor customer relations and their general ‘je m’en fous’ attitude. Other airlines are being proactive and I think it is high time I move my business elsewhere.

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