Does HfP have an ‘anti-BA’ bias?

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

• Steve says:

  9 Jun9 June 06:54

  If everyone looked at BA or any other service based industry through rose tinted glasses all the time, we would already have a far worse product that we have today.

  It is fair and constructive criticism that the service industry bases many of there next steps on. If no one complains, something will keep getting “enhanced” until we are at the bottom.

  Keep pushing until the customer squeals is often the case.

• Ian says:

  9 Jun9 June 07:02

  Most of the complaints about the “race to the bottom” with BA I do not mind because prices have been getting lower and lower in real terms each year. They still get you from A to B and when things go wrong, they’re great.

  Flowers in First, change of champagne, etc all of those “vuelling-isations” are really not a problem to me and some of the cutbacks I am happy with if it keeps them competitive and keeps the avios program and recent Club/EX-EU sales going.

  However, the one major issue I have is CLUB EUROPE. Majority of the time its a great product with very nice food, great staff and service, champagne flowing, comfortable enough.

  But there has been a few times where its been terrible. Gatwick I avoid now, recently had 8 rows of club seats with food, drinks, etc all running out after 1 hour of a 4 hour flight. Complained, was given 5,000 avios and it happened on the return flight.

  Another was a flight from Oslo. Paid flight for club, wasn’t cheap and was given half a sandwich with the crust cut off. It was stale and hard and the crew were embarassed serving it to us. This is not fine dining! I could’ve bought a sandwich and sat in economy. Its so unpredictabe

• Glenn says:

  9 Jun9 June 07:07

  Having flown with BA on average every week for more than 30 years I would say that the most negative comments I tend to hear are from BA cabin crew whose gossip on many flights seems to be based around how bad BA are to work for. This is especially the case on long haul. I have watched a gradual erosion of service and quality over the last 15 years in particular where Club today is the old Economy, and First is a pale comparison the the product provided by Emirates.

  I agree that AA business product is better in many cases to BA, a statement that i never thought i would make.

• Mr Fluff says:

  9 Jun9 June 07:29

  I think your post has already proved (in about 2 hrs) that most of the HfP readers are on the same page as you Rob, but some obviously just don’t get it! If they have any issues about your articles they should find another site to follow, simple!

• Volker says:

  9 Jun9 June 07:32

  Of course, you can argue if today’s article on Rob’s alleged bias was necessary. Well, I have been reading his blog every morning for years now because it has enabled me to travel “in style” on a low budget, it helps me to form my own opinion on many aspects of business/travel/life, plus (and that’s just one reason why I want him to continue exactly the way he writes about things) because it is really entertaining reading!

  I disagree with him at times, or do I? Thinking about it, in my eyes the perception of bias is based on the personal desires, needs and expectations each of us has got. I am not too bothered if BA reduces the seat pitch because I am not as tall as Rob. I don’t share his passion for redeeming (wasting?) loyalty points on standard hotel rooms because I am not (yet) a points millionaire like him, so I rather use them for premium flight tickets and pay cash for hotel suites during sales (thus earning even more points & miles). I am happy with the BA product because, being based in the regions and thanks to Avios, I almost exclusively travel on BA metal and hence can’t compare them e.g. with ME carriers.

  I will therefore remain one of Rob’s loyal readers, sometimes nodding, sometimes shaking my head, sometimes just marvelling, but I will never understand why some readers get so passionate (to put it mildly) whenever something he writes collides with their own views on things.

• Alan says:

  9 Jun9 June 07:34

  Haha what utter poppycock! You’re clearly not anti-BA – let’s face it if you weren’t based in London you’d be much more critical of them, esp on the RFS front!!

  Anything useful out of the IAG senior execs meeting?

  • harry says:

    9 Jun9 June 08:18

    Bit tough to be hard on BA for making reasonable commercial decisions such as eliminating the free join-up from regional airports to London on RFS redemptions. Clearly that was costly and didn’t make too much sense except in terms of generosity towards Avios collectors/ BA loyalists.

    Where it makes commercial sense, ie free connection to London on long haul redemptions, it has been kept.

    Nobody criticises the competitors for not offering a free connection to London for their ex-London flights.

    • Cheshire Pete says:

      9 Jun9 June 23:19

      Memories are short, however! When BA pulled out of their many direct routes from Manchester in which they occupied the whole of Terminal 3 they promised “Travellers will not be disadvantaged in anyway” the idea being they concentrated on increasing the frequency from LHR and feeding Manchester domestically into that Hub in order to offer more choice for all! So, the so called “Free” connection into LHR and at the time LGW was simply to improve frequencies for all. Perhaps you forget I could fly directly to all the major European capitals from Manchester using the same Avios as from London. A broken promise from BA which I will not forget so easily.

    • Alan says:

      11 Jun11 June 19:08

      Sorry, harry – don’t agree!

      For short-haul they could have easily put in the extra taxes (bloody LHR fees!) but kept the overall Avios cost the same.

      For long-haul non-Golds often have trouble getting seats on the domestic connections even when they can get the long-haul leg. They’re then stuck having to either have a stupidly long connection or paying extra to separately purchase a the connection that was meant to be free – as we’ve now seen they also won’t get their bags checked through now in that situation!

      Comparison to other airlines? Until Little Red stopped, VS offered free connections. KLM still offer free connections via AMS and seem to have better availability on these short-haul legs.

      • harry says:

        11 Jun11 June 19:21

        But you’re still essentially blaming BA for not giving you something free that costs them money.

        And you decided to live in the sticks 🙂

        The only reason BA (on cash tickets), KLM (and used-to-be Virgin) offer you a free connection is because it makes commercial sense to feed the long haul flights.

        Whereas you’re talking about redemptions, ie no revenue just cost to BA.

        • Alan says:

          11 Jun11 June 19:40

          I know, it’s rubbish living somewhere that isn’t built-up and congested 😀 (used to live in the SE years ago).

          They need to realise though that they’ve made RFS extremely unappealing for those outside the SE and what they are now charging outweighs their costs.

          On paid for connections again their pricing is screwy, it’s cheaper to buy a holiday deal ex-LON then a separate cash ticket from the regions (clearly both priced to be profitable for them), yet buy them together and they cost more.

          For long haul connections with the change to checked luggage even the costly workaround has even more hassle. Clearly they can do what they want but multiple changes keep hitting those in the regions.

• Jon says:

  9 Jun9 June 07:35

  Wow – keep doing what you are doing Raffles. It’s natural that BA is the main focus of this site – we all use it and are loyal to it. And its because we are loyal to BA that we are sometimes very critical of its offer – rightly so.

  By the way, could you do a round-up of how to book partner flights using Avios via ba.com? There’s a bit in the redemption university but I have found booking domestic AA flights with Avios completely impossible (no availability at all). What’s the secret to this?

  • Lostantipod says:

    9 Jun9 June 07:46

    +1

  • Brian says:

    9 Jun9 June 08:04

    Jon, in my experience, there is no ‘secret’ involved. Same as usual – ba.com. I’ve had no problems before. I assume you’re looking at routes where there are direct AA services…

    Given the relative cheapness of these redemptions, it could simply be that there genuinely is no availability, with the Americans having snapped them up using their inflated credit card sign-up bonuses! :))

• Terence says:

  9 Jun9 June 07:40

  The comments made on the HFP site are not biased nor is its editorials. British Airways ClubWorld seats on most of their aircraft are acceptable and BA within the airline industry are an established well respected British Carrier. However their current product is not a patch on the Middle East carriers in terms of cabin ambience.They do not appear to be able to compete on price or value on long haul flights and their Reward currency represents very poor value for money,Reward availability in club world on long haul flights are abysmal. The other carriers within the One World Allisnce are undercutting them regularly.Reward Points offered on Iberia are much more generous than the UK product and offer better value when purchasing topping up points.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.