[marks7389]

John wrote:

Soso wrote:

Just wanted to give follow up after complaint was made. I tried to be constructive in feedback and all i received was generic response with no actual explanation as to what happened as to why i was put down as staff. Overall, i think they just don’t care. It’s a bit sad but it kooks like it’s the direction BA is taking given all the replies here.

See this relevant thread on flyertalk https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-british-airways-club/2206982-ba-customer-relations-using-some-kind-ai-respond-emails.html

Yes, it’s normal, sadly. Just this week I raised a case to chase up the cash element of a redemption cancellation refund which they were showing no signs of paying after 5 weeks.

I got a very swift generic response that totally ignored what I asked and information provided and the case was closed.

After I told them to reopen it, they then sent me a request to email a copy of the passport that I used to check in for said cancelled booking “as part of our commitment to protecting your personal data”.

Sigh, it’s not the first time we’ve played that kind of merry dance and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

As someone said in that linked Flyertalk thread, whether or not the responses are artificial, they are certainly not intelligent.

[marks7389]

BBbetter wrote:

Wasn’t there a challenge to the takeover? Unless am missing something, no guarantee the takeover goes ahead?

That was my concern exactly.

I’m not worried about Lloyds withdrawing Curve or changing the terms since I would take a pro rata refund if necessary or the benefits reduced to something that is no longer of interest.

[marks7389]

What’s the feeling now on annual payments for Curve Pay Pro / Pro+ now that the Lloyds acquisition has been announced?

My renewal for the latter which I paid as an annual subscription is coming up next week. Weighing up whether switching to a monthly subscription would be better in case the acquisition never completes and Curve runs out of money.

Of course Curve collapsing has always been a risk which I traded for getting 12 months for the price of 10… I don’t really have much feel for whether the risk is now lower or higher. In the event that it did what are the chances of a section 75 claim succeeding for the annual fee?

[marks7389]

I prefer to stick to a nominal value per Avios of 1p each, which is the maximum I will pay for them. For redemptions I factor in the taxes & fees (or RFS cash component), the Avios at 1p each and a cost for the voucher if I’m using one*.

If that comes out at a competitive price for the product, and one I’m willing to pay then great, but there have been instances where a good (business class) cash deal has worked out better value.

It doesn’t make any sense to me (other than for bragging rights) to put an arbitrarily high value on the Avios on the basis of a cash fare that I probably wouldn’t pay in practice. If I were paying cash, I’d quite probably be flying with a different airline and not necessarily even flying the same route, e.g. if another airline flies closer to where I want to go without a connecting flight.

*I normally calculate the voucher cost as the fee required to obtain it, less the value of other benefits it unlocks, e.g. I’d value a BA Amex voucher as £300-£75, the £75 being the value of the extra 7,500 Avios gained from spending the required £15K on a BAPP as opposed to a free card that earns 1p/Avios. If I were earning tier points on the card and that meant I got a status bump that I wouldn’t otherwise achieve I’d probably factor something in for that as well.

[marks7389]

I just use online agent chat. Takes around 5-10 mins.

Yes, if you leave it set to BA after taking the outbound flight your return seat selection will stick. That should mean you can no longer change your seats free of charge until online check-in (assuming your BA status is blue) which could be in issue if better seats open up, or you get dumped from your selected seats e.g. due to a curtain move.

However, on a recent trip Mangle My Booking was still showing seat selection free of charge and the extra bag allowance even after I changed the booking back to my BA (blue) status. I didn’t try using either, so who knows if either would actually have been honoured.

Lounge access with your RJ card should be fine. To what extent that works universally, e.g. with third party lounges, I don’t know. In our case we flew back from an airport without a lounge or fast track security, but my return boarding pass was absent any status as expected so no priority boarding.

[marks7389]

marks7389 wrote:

My wife’s accounts are failing to link across any combination of BA, Iberia and Aer Lingus.

She has a double-barrelled surname which, so far as we can see, is set up consistently across her BA, Iberia and Aer Lingus accounts without the hyphen. It shows as FirstSecond on BA and Aer Lingus and FIRSTSECOND on Iberia which shows all names in capital letters.

On the face of it everything matches exactly (First name, surname, email address and DOB), so I’m wondering if the match is failing where anything bar the first letter of the surname is a capital letter. Is anyone else seeing similar issues?

On further investigation (looking at emails she has been sent as opposed to what shows on the Personal Details page), it looks like Iberia has her surname set up as Firstsecond. That doesn’t quite explain why her BA and Aer Lingus accounts won’t link though, which are both FirstSecond.

We’ve asked BA to change her BA Club surname to Firstsecond – trying to persuade them to do it without evidence of a name change!

[marks7389]

My wife’s accounts are failing to link across any combination of BA, Iberia and Aer Lingus.

She has a double-barrelled surname which, so far as we can see, is set up consistently across her BA, Iberia and Aer Lingus accounts without the hyphen. It shows as FirstSecond on BA and Aer Lingus and FIRSTSECOND on Iberia which shows all names in capital letters.

On the face of it everything matches exactly (First name, surname, email address and DOB), so I’m wondering if the match is failing where anything bar the first letter of the surname is a capital letter. Is anyone else seeing similar issues?

[marks7389]

Thanks @JDB. Yes, that’s the way I’m reading the terms. Barclays it is then.

[marks7389]

I’m looking at new travel insurance options that would cover the exact same scenario that affected @Princess.

We have a business class redemption trip to Buenos Aired planned in December, with a separate connecting flight from Heathrow the previous afternoon, with about 17 hours scheduled in Madrid.

Looking at the options suggested here, the Barclays travel pack would seem to offer the cover I want for replacement business class travel in that scenario and I’m happy to open a Barclays account and commit to the minimum 6 month term.

I can’t see anything in the Travel Disruption section of the policy that mentions anything about exclusions for flights purchased with Avios, only in the cancellation/curtailment section. Am I therefore correct to include that a claim for replacement flights to get there would not be affected by this?

Are there any policies with similar travel Disruption cover available for purchase as opposed to packaged offerings?

[marks7389]

That’s great, thank you.

[marks7389]

That’s what I’m hoping. Any advice on insurers that people have positive experience of paying out cash price of the Avios in such a scenario would be useful to take into consideration when weighing up the options.

Re a complete meltdown, we were caught by the Heathrow substation fire on 21st March, so really hoping we can’t be that unlucky twice in the same year!

[marks7389]

Related question on this.. We have a trip coming up in December, with an Iberia flight from LHR-MAD on Boxing Day afternoon, and onwards to Buenos Aires on a separate booking on the 27th, leaving MAD around Midday. Both bookings are Avios redemptions booked on ba.com.

I’m about to purchase new travel insurance prior to cancelling my Amex Plat.

Any recommendations as to how best protect ourselves against the same scenario should the LHR-MAD flight be cancelled at short notice?

[marks7389]

Fortunately the return isn’t an issue as it is a separate booking anyway. We didn’t choose to downgrade – we’d much rather be in CW/business class, but there weren’t even any cash tickets for sale in CW on tomorrow’s BKK flight and by moving to that flight we’ve gone for what would ultimately be the lowest cost solution for BA anyway, not to mention one that gives us a basis to recover the trip without losing half of it.

TBH if they were able to retrospectively apply the refunded upgrade voucher to the replacement flight and refund the Avios difference between WT and WT+, I’d probably be happy with that.

[marks7389]

After a bit of initial advice regarding a self-reroute for a business class redemption trip we were due to take today to Doha (BA127) and then onto Kuala Lumpur with Qatar. That was already a reroute for the cancellation of the direct BA service, so this trip is a little cursed… 🙂

I managed to get us two redemption seats in WT+ on tomorrow night’s LGW-BKK at 6am this morning, so all things considered that was extremely fortunate. Obviously getting in contact with anyone at BA at the moment is pretty much impossible.

I’ll want to have a conversation at some point when the dust has settled (probably when we get back) about getting BA to put us back in the position we would have been had they rerouted and downgraded us, a process that I imagine will be protracted. Presumably the best course action here is not to request a refund in the meantime?

Obviously get this is very much an extraordinary event so not expecting compensation, just a restoration back to where we should be (in particular, the original booking was made using a Barclays upgrade voucher).

[marks7389]

Deepsleeves wrote:

I’ve flown annually with BA on 241 deal for 20 years in business or 1st [mostly on 747s].
Can honestly say never been a problem either in lounges or onboard

You may have been lucky. Sometimes it’s fine in Club World, other times not so much. It’s not just about running out – sometimes they just forget to serve people.

In F I’d expect them to carry extra so that everyone gets a choice, especially since most are only 8 seats cabins these days.

[marks7389]

Michael C wrote:

From the BA website!

Pre-ordered main meals are available on selected British Airways (“BA”) operated long haul routes only for travellers travelling in First, Club World or World Traveller Plus cabins.

Is that smoke I smell, from someone’s pants on fire?!

Bit rude, especially since the information you quote is wrong/out of date, unless you want a special dietary meal and even then I don’t think it actually tells you want you’ll be served.

NorthernLass wrote:

Other airlines are available – I was notified recently by VS that tomorrow I will receive an email inviting me to choose my meal on my MCO flight next week! And when we flew QR *economy* we could also pre-select our meal.

Not only that but if you’re flying in UC you get to choose from a wider range of options than feature on the inflight menu.

It seems like the obvious solution, in premium cabins at least, to give people a chance to select something they are going to be happy with and reduce waste. Of course it requires a bit of effort to set up, and not everyone will want to select in advance but other airlines do seem to manage and see the value in it. When BA offered it we pretty much always did do it.

These days we fly BA less. Of the eight booked business class redemption sectors currently in my BA app, only one of them is actually operated by BA.

[marks7389]

Thanks JDB.

I did contact them twice, the first time by chat where I got an agent who seemed unable to do anything more than search for stuff in the terms and conditions. I didn’t have the terms and conditions in front of me at the time, but I did explicitly asked her what the “Card Account” meant (i.e. whether it covered other Amex cards on the same account) and she was apparently unable to answer the question since she went off on a tangent about checking the benefits on the cards are is irrelevant here.

The second time I called and was told explicitly no, unless I also had the Platinum card at the time of purchase which seemed wrong to me also.

I will try again tomorrow with reference to the terms and conditions.

It looks to me like it should cover accommodation and flights purchased on my BAPP. What’s less clear is whether it covers accommodation bought on my wife’s Gold card since she is now the supplementary cardholder on the Platinum.

[marks7389]

Yes, if you want to fly both ways with BA then you can use two vouchers to upgrade the return trip for two.

https://www.britishairways.com/content/executive-club/avios/collecting-avios/personal-banking/cabin-upgrade-terms#:~:text=A%20Member%20can%20use%20up,earned%20the%20Cabin%20Upgrade%20Voucher.

If you each had one voucher I suspect you can’t combine them on the same booking (i.e. you’d each have to be on a separate booking). Doesn’t sound like that’s the case here, but may be worth being aware of.

[marks7389]

Yes, only used the Barclays vouchers for the sector from the UK with BA (have done that twice on two separate trips, for two people each time). You can’t use any vouchers for a QR redemption, though they are comparatively reasonably priced at least from SE Asia.

For our upcoming trip in March, valuing Avios at 1p each and assigning £100 value to the upgrade voucher has ‘cost’ us a total of £900 each, each way – the outbound flight to KL with BA pretty much exactly the same as the return from Phuket with QR. So not being able to use a voucher on the return leg really isn’t a disadvantage compared to what we would have paid with BA even using a voucher (and of course BA doesn’t fly to Phuket).

As it happens the BA outbound flight got cancelled and we ended up with a connection via Doha outbound with BA and QR, but that didn’t change what we paid.

[marks7389]

We’ve used a couple of vouchers for one-ways to Asia for two from LHR, returning on a QR redemption. They work quite well that way round as RFS usually means a flat-rate cash charge for each route regardless of direction of travel, so you’re not paying more on the outbound to cover UK APD which you would booking a QR redemption – plus, of course, the vouchers can only be used on itineraries starting in the UK. At 1p/Avios valuation the overall cost of doing that is generally not much different from using an Amex companion voucher for a BA return from LHR, but you get the superior QR product on the return plus more flexibility on the airports you can fly back from without a positioning flight – albeit it doesn’t unlock the additional business class availability that the BAPP voucher does on BA.

I probably wouldn’t bother for flights to South America. The Amex voucher is so much more valuable in that case as you can use it on Iberia and, as you point out, the cost of travelling with them is so much lower in the first place. Although BA flies ‘direct’ to Buenos Aires, the stop in Rio means it isn’t that much quicker, and Iberia has a choice of 3 flights per day.

We’ve also used one Barclays voucher for a one-way short haul from LHR, though the value there is much lower as it is generally better to go for the lowest Avios / highest cash on short haul. The fact that you can’t with the Barclays voucher means that the upgrade is not entirely covered by the ‘upgrade’ voucher, it just reduces the extra cost.

[marks7389]

Depends on degree of flexibility and how quickly the reward seats are going of course. However looking back at analysis I did just under 2 years ago for LHR-MEX return, a single booking going out with BA and returning with IB using a 2for1 in J was around £400 more expensive per person than booking two singles and claiming the 50% rebate afterwards.

With the passage of time and a comparatively longer route I’d expect the difference to be more in this case (without taking into consideration any reduced fees ex-Japan).

I get the point – it’s a risk waiting until T-355 for availability on BA.com, which is something the OP has to weigh up but it is worth being aware of this if only to avoid a surprise when the fees are calculated.

[marks7389]

Bear in mind that mixing IB and BA sectors on the same booking is likely to make the BA sectors ineligible for RFS and hence add several hundred pounds each to the cash element (especially if flying outbound with BA) when the inbound is added on, unless that has recently changed.

If you are booking the outbound prior to the release of seats on the inbound it would be better to book the inbound as a separate booking on BA.com and then call BA afterwards for the 50% Avios rebate, assuming you have enough Avios up-front to do that.

[marks7389]

chrishond wrote:

Given school term dates, I will have the book the outbound as soon as they become available. As they will likely be gone 3 weeks later when the inbound flight is loaded.

I’m not saying don’t do it, just that it may work to your disadvantage on the new system. Unlike the old system, seats will still be available 3 weeks+ later, in theory for as long as any cash tickets are available. The price may go up or down of course.

If they are saver seats I can see the logic of grabbing them whilst they are available at that price. If not, I’d be more inclined to wait, especially since you are likely to be getting them repriced anyway to get the companion seat on the inbound (assuming they can even do it).

[marks7389]

I’m assuming based on the the pricing that these are economy seats?

If the whole thing is repriced when you add the return I really can’t see the point in booking the outbound before the inbound flights are released.

The only possible benefit is that if the outbound pricing jumps sufficiently in the interim that two one-way bookings (i.e. leaving the outbound booking untouched) become more attractive even though you’d only be getting the benefit of the voucher on the outbound.

A lot of us are in the mindset of jumping on redemption seats as soon as they are released. However the best time to book cash fares (decent sales aside) is normally around 3 months ahead of travel and you’d logically expect dynamically priced redemption seats to follow a similar pattern. Are the seats you are looking at marked as saver seats?

[marks7389]

You only get the status uplift on VIP access properties. For anything else, 2% is correct even with gold status.

You OH may be getting an extra 4%, i.e. 10% on VIP access properties, 6% on others due to the Platinum offer that I think is still running.

Be careful with the Amex offer. You must follow the link in the offer terms (which precludes you from earning online cashback) otherwise you won’t get the Amex cashback (i.e. don’t do what I did and think you can triple stack online cashback, Amex cashback and Onekey Rewards and not realise your mistake until after making a non-refundable booking!).