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If you happen to have a seven figure Avios balance you might not notice the ‘odd’ 100K, but that only applies to a very small percentage of people (regardless of how many hard core collectors may now say ‘I have’).
Look at it from the other angle. How many people would not notice if BA took an extra 100K by mistake? OK so it’s more difficult to notice that a transaction which should be there isn’t, but as several have observed we’re talking about significant numbers.
What is definitely wrong is seeing an apparent booking and being allowed to reserve a seat which clearly gives a false impression, but that doesn’t constitute a contractual agreement if you haven’t paid for it. Might get you some sympathy if pitched the right way, but won’t change the legal aspect.
@LadyLondon – nobody is suggesting the passenger was intending not to pay but the notion that BA is entirely culpable and should compensate the passenger’s failure to pay is risible. BA has a very strong case to fight this.
It’s not just the avios. It’s a few hundred in taxes not missing too.
To some, it may not be a large amount, but I think most people would notice that along with the avios
@kaiW90 – you are right that it’s the combination of both types of payment not taken and the large sums of both that sets this case apart.
@AJA – the ticket number is incredibly clearly visible in the app, no scrolling needed.It’s amazing how many people always blindly support the passenger without analysing the facts.
For the man on the Clapham omnibus, the concept of no pay, no fly would be fairly easily understood.
But the passenger did try to pay albeit only when they got to the airport but it was in advance of check in closing and before flying. The fact that they had to phone BAEC to try (and failed) to sort out the ticketing issue is because there is no ticketing desk at airports and check in staff are not empowered to do anything on behalf of the passenger. That is down to BA.
@AJA – I’m afraid that the fact that BA doesn’t offer ticketing facilities at the airport is entirely irrelevant to any denied boarding claim. One can’t not pay until confronted and then expect everyone to jump through hoops to accommodate one’s failures. The passenger probably had months to sort it out and the idea that at no point did it occur to them they had paid nothing for their flight is just too ridiculous for words.
As others have noted, I’m sure that if 100,000 Avios were missing, the OP would be making a right fuss. Look at the comments under the weekend article about the Marriott promotion with people complaining they were being slow to give 250 free Avios. There are endless reports of people spending hours chasing £5 from Amex offers. Yet here it’s all BA’s fault? It’s just not serious.
PS If you were working for BA, wearing your accountancy hat, I’m sure you also wouldn’t be offering a ticketing desk, even at T5.
The ticket number is visible in the app (or not!), but it is not highlighted, and if you are not well informed (ie a regular visitor to here or Flyertalk or similar), there is limited reason why a normal traveller would know to look for it. You’ve booked a flight, the flight is there in the app, you can pay through the nose to select seats, it’s all done.
This issue has come about because BA’s systems are crap – they should have either taken payment, or notified the passenger that they still needed payment, long before check in. If the problem was allowed to persist until checkin, they should have been able to sort it out rapidly.
While I agree that I likely would have noticed that I hadn’t had the avios taken at some point, and probably that the cash hadn’t been taken, it’s easy to put it to the back of your mind, especially when you would be expecting it to be taken at some point, and the alternative action would be to spend an hour on hold to BA only to be told that it will be sorted at some point.
Give that there was a reservation, but no ticket number, I’m not 100% sure on whether compensation is due. For the OP, I’d suggest asking for advice on the Flyertalk BA 261 thread: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/2146208-2024-ba-compensation-thread-your-guide-regulation-ec261-uk261.html where the knowledge around edge cases is generally good and the moral judgement in both directions perhaps sometimes a little less overt.
DOI I have previously spent quite a while queueing at checkin at LHR because I was unable to checkin due to the cash not being taken for an avios booking (short haul though).
@Matt – you don’t need a ticket for EC261 to be engaged – Article 2(g) permits proof other than a ticket to evidence a reservation.
If I were BA however, I would be playing on that aspect; it’s not totally clear cut in the passenger’s favour. Another case reported on this thread (where just a small amount of cash not taken, but Avios were taken) and other similar reports would definitely fall in the passenger’s favour.
What is definitely wrong is seeing an apparent booking and being allowed to reserve a seat which clearly gives a false impression, but that doesn’t constitute a contractual agreement if you haven’t paid for it. Might get you some sympathy if pitched the right way, but won’t change the legal aspect.
You don’t need to pay to form a contract binding in law. You need to agree to pay. Thus BA are well within their rights to dock the Avios and chase for payment after the event (flight), and the consumer is entitled to the promised service even if payment was not taken promptly (IANAL).
@jdb you don’t know my mum, I do, and I spend a lot of time unpicking stuff because she doesn’t check and takes sales people/customer service at their word. She’d be exactly the sort of person who have no idea what a ‘125’ was in this context and frankly why should she?Also @jdb if this was your company, you were the CEO, you knew this sort of problem occurred regularly, would you not ball out the people responsible until it was fixed? I would, as would many CEOs i’ve worked work. I suspect you would be extremely intolerant of sloppy administration causing customer pain.
@LadyLondon – nobody is suggesting the passenger was intending not to pay but the notion that BA is entirely culpable and should compensate the passenger’s failure to pay is risible. BA has a very strong case to fight this.
A contract is an agreement, payment is not required to make it enforceable. BA might be able to fight a denied boarding claim, but I’d personally peruse it as a simple breach of contract (as well or instead).
Companies can’t get out of contracts by refusing to take money (or returning money when they realise they’ve made a bad bargain either). There are some limited exceptions for errors and impossible contracts and so on. The contact is the binding agreement, not the contract plus the money. Call recording logs and app screenshots are going to be highly persuasive that a contract was agreed between the parties.
Some business T&Cs are now cleverly constructed to avoid some of the consequences of this, for example, title in goods not passing until payment is made. BA T&Cs may have some weasel words in too, but in this case it would be for them to convince a court that there’s no contract until some magic 125- number appears on an internal database.
I made a booking on a BA flight over the phone several weeks ago, cash and avios both taken, and e-mail received with e-ticket number starting 125-. All good? Nope.
Checked the app for a 125- number anyway (because I know to look for it) and there was none.
Tried to complete the API info and it would not save, with no reason given.
Went to MMB on Finnair instead to manage this BA flight (because I know that you can do different things other one world carriers sites) and only there did it display to me how there were too many characters in first name field – as the phone agent must have put all the names in there.
I corrected the data and weeks went by and still no e-ticket number. I called BA and they spent an hour confused, insisting there was never any name problem (there was), and that I couldn’t have amended it (I did) – but they ‘can see it was not ticketed’. Eventually they cut me off whilst on hold.
The 125 numbers later appeared in my app do now match the original confirmation email.
I can’t be certain it will let me check in online, or whether I’ll board without problems on the day.
Different situation, sure, but bottom line:
– It’s ‘more fool us’ if we don’t check because we are in the know
– It’s beyond ridiculous to expect all of the general public to do the same
– The systems are shambolicDifferent situation, sure, but bottom line:
– It’s ‘more fool us’ if we don’t check because we are in the know
– It’s beyond ridiculous to expect all of the general public to do the same
– The systems are shambolicIt’s a totally different situation and it’s not ridiculous to check whether you were charged for a booking – avios and cash.
On BA website, where do you find the ticket number?
@TravelStrong – I have every sympathy in your situation because you cannot know whether BA has ticketed a booking correctly. If you have paid and received a confirmation with a ticket number, there is nothing more you can do and unfortunately the error usually only gets discovered at OLCI or at the airport.
Here the passenger never paid either Avios or cash and allegedly had no idea they hadn’t paid the large number of Avios and £! Pull the other one.
The desperate support for the OP and denial of the concept anyone taking personal responsibility has even stretched to one poster implying BA had refused to take the payment! BA is allowed to make mistakes – even the very best managed companies do. The customer could and should have realised they hadn’t paid in the months before travel.
@slidey – open your booking in the app, then look below the blue “View/change seat” instruction.
@slidey in the web browser MMB click the ‘View e-ticket receipt’ link, and the 125- number is towards the bottom of the page.
It’s much easier to find in the app, on the summary screen for each flight.
Perhaps someone should do a poll. How many Avios do you need to have in your account before you don’t notice you’ve got 100K too many?
We see stories like quite regularly in these forums. And while I think there is some responsibility for pax to check that they have at the very least paid for the flight, I do think BA should do more to prevent these issues.
Regardless of how bad BA’s IT is, it would surely be a simple matter to run a daily report of reservations that were created 14 days ago but have not been ticketed, and reservations with flights due in 7 days time that have not been ticketed. Such a report could be used to generate emails to pax with unconfirmed bookings, advising them that their bookings are unconfirmed and that they will not be able to fly unless tickets are issued.
This would improve the customer experience, and should also make things a little easier for BA by preventing these situations from occurring.
@AlexG – I don’t think we do often read of this situation where no cash or Avios were taken and thus no ticket issued. We do read of cases where changed bookings had payment taken but weren’t re-ticketed, cases where only part of the payment was taken and incorrectly issued tickets but those two situations are quite different and entirely outwith the passenger’s responsibility. There was one recent case where payment hadn’t been and the pax was aware but hoping to chance it out.
Your suggestion re running a report of un-ticketed reservations has some immediate appeal, but isn’t practical as it’s very common for corporate or travel agent bookings not to be ticketed at the time of booking and BAH bookings are on time limited tickets until you pay the balance when the limit is removed. It also wouldn’t remove the problem of tickets that haven’t been revalidated eg after a schedule change or the common issue of incorrectly (re)issued tickets.
Perhaps they could limit it to unticketed Avios tickets – I’d say most of the stories we read about on here involve Avios bookings and there shouldn’t be any reason for those to be sat unticketed for long periods of time
Having personally been in this situation through no fault of my own (agent incorrectly booked a “child turns 2 during travel” flight) and only made the flight because Spanish handling agents do have the ability to speak to someone with ticketing access in Madrid I do have some sympathy with the OP – it’s frustrating that the airport doesn’t have the ability to issue tickets or speak to a dedicated team who can with no delay.
But also agree that it’s surprising that the lack of charge wasn’t noticed and I think even if not the OP in many cases people see the flight in their app and think they’ve got away with it and get a nasty surprise at the airport!
PS If you were working for BA, wearing your accountancy hat, I’m sure you also wouldn’t be offering a ticketing desk, even at T5.
Actually @JDB I think I would offer a ticketing desk/facility at T5 and add the ability to deal also with Avios ticketing. The staff do not have to be a dedicated sales team but IRROPS is something that does happen often, if not regularly, I think they could also help with check in but I think it would benefit passengers who could actually talk face to face with someone at BA empowered to help and issue and amend tickets.
Not sure why you wouldn’t offer that? The cost would be higher than the back office teams but it would also be offset by reduced IDB claims or other EC261 compensation. I suspect you just work on the cost saving ethos in agreeing with the way BA operates. I happen to think not everything comes down to saving cost. There is such a thing as economic advantage from customer satisfaction.
It wouldn’t help those at remote stations like the OP and the other person who had the Avios but not the cash taken but it would provide another avenue to help customers at its main hub when it is time critical.
I also don’t think the ticket number is as visible as it could be in MMB. I take your word it is very visible in the app but the reality is that you do not have the app in order to travel or check in. I don’t have a booking to check but I think on the website it’s one of those things where you have to click on the flight number for it to then be viewed. I tend to just use the Finnair website to get an e-ticket receipt which definitely does show it. Not sure why thw Finnair functionality cannot be built into BA’s MMB.
As for not taking payment and the passenger not noticing the key is that the passenger tried to contact BA to resolve the ticketing issue and pay BA albeit at the airport. The fact that they couldn’t resolve it in time before check in closed was why they were denied boarding. BA is at least partly responsible for the inability to solve the issue in time. The OP stated they spent 2 hours trying to solve the problem and in fact ended up paying to fly the following day.
And as apparently you don’t need to have paid to have a contract then I can’t see why IDB is not due.
Frustratingly my post keeps disappearing – apologies if you see duplicates…
I’m no legal expert by any means, and I have no idea how much weighting does the BA General Conditions of Carriage have against laws (if any), but section 7a24 and 7a25 explicitly says:
7a) Our right to refuse to carry you
We may decide to refuse to carry you or your baggage if one or more of the following has happened or we reasonably believe may happen.7a24) If you have not presented a valid ticket.
7a25) If you have not paid the fare (or any applicable carrier imposed charges and surcharges, and any applicable taxes, fees and charges) for your journey.
Lots of voices here are focused on the contract aspect of this. There are of course cases where it is clearly BAs fault such as not paying the correct of fare/taxes because BA miscalculated or it was not ticketed properly.
But in OPs case, it’s not entirely BAs fault.
So under BA’s contract with OP, they were right to deny them boarding(?). So does IDB apply? I don’t know (I am not a legal expert)
Apologies if you see duplicate posts…
I’m not a legal expert by any means, and I have no idea how BA’s General Conditions of Carriage weighs up against laws, but sections 7a24 and 7a25 clearly say:
7a) Our right to refuse to carry you
We may decide to refuse to carry you or your baggage if one or more of the following has happened or we reasonably believe may happen.7a24) If you have not presented a valid ticket.
7a25) If you have not paid the fare (or any applicable carrier imposed charges and surcharges, and any applicable taxes, fees and charges) for your journey.
Lots of voices here are focused on the contractual side of things. There are cases where it is clearly BAs fault, such as not paying the correct taxes because BA have miscalculated, or bookings were not ticketed properly.
But in OPs case, both BA and OP were at fault
So under BAs contract with OP, they were right to deny them boarding(?). So does IDB apply? I don’t know – I am not a legal expert
One for those in the know. I used to work for another airline (not BA) and booking tickets was more or less my job.
After a certain amount of time (depending sometimes on ticketing rules and indeed load factors – but usually 48 hiurs) revenue management would warn someone in the PNR that an unticketed booking would be cancelled and eventually the sectors cancelled.
Does BA not do this? Surely eventually this would result in the itin no longer being visible in MMB?
I know this doesn’t answer the question but surely BA should have this in place.
Am I right in thinking the BA Ticketing Desks that were formerly landside at Heathrow, got too busy and so BA removed all ticketing desks from Heathrow ?
I seem to remember they were always busy.
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