British Airways goes OTT and gives 2 years of status to last weekend’s passengers

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• Angel W says:

  3 Jun3 June 05:51

  My husband and I were due to fly out from Gatwick for a short break last Saturday. It was two one way tickets. The return journey was bought with Avios. When we rang up to cancel the ticket, the call centre agent made us pay for the cancellation charge as there were told not to refund one way tickets. I initially refused to pay as I thought it was ridiculous. He said “for argument sake, if someone bought 3 singles to fly from London to Paris, Paris to New York, New York to Hong Kong, BA would not pay the 2nd and 3rd leg” I still think it’s reasonable so will try to claim the cancellation charge through the compensation claim.

• TripRep says:

  3 Jun3 June 05:56

  You could argue that even if you got on a plane on Sunday you were inconvenienced by having to deal with anxiety and hassle of watching the news unfold the day before your flight. Also busy airports + potentially missing out on decent stay in the lounge.

  I think its good that BA seem to be waking up to the fact they need to compete and deter pax trying out Qatar, etc.

  That said, I still can’t find anywhere on their webpage where it clearly mentions pax rights for downgrades & IDB. HFP Kudos to anyone here to prove me wrong? 😀

• Richard says:

  3 Jun3 June 05:56

  I don’t think that anyone who received the 2 years extension would consider it “over the top” (is some jealously creeping in here).
  The extension also means that those receiving it who think the grass is greener on some other airline can try things out without risk of losing their status and return to BA if they realise BA isn’t that bad after all.

  • TripRep says:

    3 Jun3 June 05:58

    Good points, slightly Freakanomics effect of extending the status.!

  • Frenske says:

    3 Jun3 June 06:12

    Silver status holders still need to fly with BA or partners to get lounge access. Very few people have status at other airlines so they won’t get extra luggage, priority, lounge access there. So BA made it attractive for affected people to fly BA in the future.

    • John says:

      3 Jun3 June 09:34

      Except of course there is no need to fly BA at all in order to use the status.

      The only really special thing that BA offers is the First Wing – but the F wing is only good because of how bad the regular security screeners are at LHR T5.

  • Mandy says:

    3 Jun3 June 06:21

    It is completely over the top!! Flights are cancelled all the time causing inconvenience. Last weekend was a hassle and BA have handled it badly. And passengers should be compensated. But all that handing out free status for two years does is antagonise other BA card holders. Something like a six month extension to earn tier points would have been more appropriate. In fact, why doesn’t BA give every cardholder an extra two years of status, so that ‘those who think the grass is greener on some other airline can try things out without risk of losing their status and return to BA if they realise BA isn’t that bad after all’?!

    • the real harry1 says:

      3 Jun3 June 08:31

      yep I’m so jealous at this unfair largesse, I really wish we’d been flying the next day so that we could have been cancelled, got some compo & a status upgrade, albeit at the cost of missing 10 fantastic days out here in the sun 🙂

      not – obviously

      of course the people affected deserve something & as others have pointed out, it’s not that expensive for BA and makes good commercial sense in terms of PR & customer retention for the future

      naturally – BA will need to ensure that they sort out anybody who misses out (looks like a few didn’t get the emails but that could be for various other reasons such as email preferences etc & in any case would be remedied by emailing BA)

  • Rob says:

    3 Jun3 June 07:17

    Saturday = perfectly acceptable offer

    Monday = totally unnecessary

    No jealousy from me, in fact they are doing me a huge favour if they extend Anika’s status.

• Angel says:

  3 Jun3 June 06:00

  My husband and I are both Gold and received the surprise email last night. We were due to fly out for a short break on Saturday to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. i think it’s a pretty decent goodwill gesture. BA has finally done something right! In regards to “further 2 years” though, does that mean additional 2 years from the current expiry date? Mine has just been renewed and will expire May 2018. So it will be extended to May 2020???

  • Frankie says:

    3 Jun3 June 08:13

    Yes. The email is confusing. The wording says ‘further two years’

• GRAHAM THOMAS says:

  3 Jun3 June 06:16

  Had our email from BA yesterday confirming full EU261 compensation plus £60 for out of pocket incidentals. They have refused to cover the cost of our lost first nights accomodation despite us making the decision to recover our car and drive home, a 4 hour return trip with petrol rather than take a local hotel and incur those costs plus taxi costs. This would have been significantly higher than the £150 I claimed for – doesn’t seem really fair, given I tried to do what I thought was best for us and BA!!

  • Paul says:

    3 Jun3 June 06:28

    Don’t let that go. Purdue them for the lost night or go via your insurers. They certainly will go after BA

  • Tony says:

    3 Jun3 June 07:24

    We also lost our first night’s accommodation in Bangkok due to arriving there 24-hours late, Graham. Reading Money Saving Expert it states that you are highly unlikely to be successful with this claim and should approach your travel insurance provider in this regard. I understand that this doesn’t appear fair, but I think I’ll just claim on my travel insurance. I hope this helps.

    • the real harry1 says:

      3 Jun3 June 07:42

      consequential loss is virtually always refused (and won’t generally get overturned by small claims etc)

    • CV3V says:

      3 Jun3 June 07:52

      Think it was the MSE article that included a summary of what travel insurance policies covered consequential losses and what ones didn’t. It is worth people having a read to get an understanding, turned out my travel insurance policy didn’t cover consequential losses. Need to check the Amex Plat insurance policy.

      • the real harry1 says:

        3 Jun3 June 08:10

        sure – sorry, I meant refused by BA – but yep: you can get cover for this elsewhere

      • Tony says:

        3 Jun3 June 09:32

        As a last resort you may be able to claim under Section 75 from your credit card provider.

• Paul says:

  3 Jun3 June 06:26

  It is OTT but it is also a measure of how desperate things are at BA and how much the brand has been battered,
  I didn’t fly last weekend but did so on Wednesday. Thankfully a short trip to AMS but even that is now a chore with BA. It was my last day as a gold card holder and I used First check in. The agent was miserable and lacked any interest in what they were doing. It took an age to issue 3 bag tags and repeatedly check the passports and home printed passes. We were dismissed with a wave of the hand and no eye contact to south security.
  Miserable staff greeted us at the lounge. In general the ground experience was just poor becoming ghastly when we had to be bussed to the plane.
  On board is cramped and this despite being in the emergency exit row. Crew baggage as usual occupied the front sections of club and bizarrely a bag of blankets occupied the over head storage above our seats.
  None of these first world issues were calamitous in their own right but cumulatively the tell of an airline that doesn’t care and staff who are just doing a job.
  I felt better that they were Avios seats and comforted my self that I had not wasted cash.

  • TripRep says:

    3 Jun3 June 06:32

    Staff probably exhausted, depressed and suffering low morale working under the terrible anbagement oif AC & co.

    Hence why more strikes are being planned…

  • TripRep says:

    3 Jun3 June 06:32

    Staff probably exhausted, depressed and suffering low morale working under the terrible management oif AC & co.

    Hence why more strikes are being planned…

  • Richard says:

    3 Jun3 June 06:37

    I don’t think the extension is that generous by BA, so not really over the top. Many who fly a lot will retain the status anyway, so for them this offer means nothing. Those who move up in status will not benefit (the extension applies to your current status).
    If they had given a gift of tier points (like Lufthansa did a few years ago after a year with many strikes) then it would have created some new status card holders. But with the extension offer they are just preventing the downgrade of some cardholders.
    It would have been nicer to apply it to all cardholders though – since everyone will have lost some trust in BA, regardless of whether their travel plans were disrupted or not.

• xcalx says:

  3 Jun3 June 06:42

  OT but BA related.
  One of my sons checked his Household account last night ( not something he does often) and found that 152,000 Avios had been used in January to book a hotel in Kiev leaving just 10,000. He contacted BA to report the issue and was told they would investigate and get back to him within 30 days.
  Has anyone here had their account hacked and will he get the Avios back.

  • TripRep says:

    3 Jun3 June 07:09

    Another reason to use AwardWallet…

    • xcalx says:

      3 Jun3 June 07:31

      My exact comment to him last night, but he is not as motivated by Avios as some of us here. He only checked his account to see his balance because another son had phoned me asking how to move Amex to BA. He checked back through all emails from BA and none related to any type of booking on his account.

  • Scallder says:

    3 Jun3 June 07:10

    I had something a few months back where I had 4,000 taken (so much less than your son!) which was per my account activity used to buy a flight.

    I called BA and they looked into it and reinstated the points, however said that there was no fraudulent activity which obviously was at odds with the whole situation.

    Not sure if getting them back for a hotel will be more difficult than a flight but I certainly hope your son gets them back!

    • the real harry1 says:

      3 Jun3 June 07:37

      xcalx: yes, there have been similar hacks reported and istr they all got the points reinstated with no dramas – as it was pretty easy to prove it had to be a 3rd party, ie in a different place/ country at the time etc

      good reminder to check from time to time, though – we have consolidated points to some extent but still have 4 a/cs with decent hackable quantities

      • xcalx says:

        3 Jun3 June 07:47

        That’s good to know re getting the points reinstated. I update AW everyday but am probably OTT with this hobby.

  • Pangolin says:

    3 Jun3 June 09:42

    It may sound harsh but, in the modern world of cybercrime, checking your accounts (included bank and CC accounts) should be a routine habit – the sort of thing you do reflexively every day like checking the back door before you go to bed. Now that you also have mobile apps for most accounts it needn’t be such a PITA to keep on top of everything.

• Nate1309 says:

  3 Jun3 June 07:00

  O/T do any of you know if the strikes that are happening next week will affect the Bristol flights? I know previously not all flight were affected as different types of staff. Thanks.

  • Rob says:

    3 Jun3 June 07:15

    They are CityFlyer so no strikes.

    • Nate1309 says:

      3 Jun3 June 08:46

      Thanks Rob.

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