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What I don’t understand is why there should be any circumstances that you can’t see your E-ticket. Even for an avios booking an E-ticket must exist for you to fly. So I don’t understand why they say it can’t be displayed .
It would be simple either you can see it or not, and not being able to see it means something wrong.
Personally I would never accept not having an E-ticket receipt email and keep nagging them.
What I also don’t understand is if the money owed hasn’t been paid , why they would generate a booking in the first place. Yes for a BA holiday, ans some tickets, money owed would at first only be deposit. I don’t think there is any ticket you can get without some amount being paid as you book it (count a voucher as cash) . No money no booking showing, then you know to talk to BA to sort it.
@Garethgerry – most bookings are generated without any upfront payment, can be unticketed and still allow seat selection. Go figure. As the newly self-appointed doyen of this thread, I thought you might understand the system.
Only corporate bookings have no cash upfront , yes they go on account, that’s how I got 80000 teir points
If you can tell me how a private individual can get a ticket from BA without any money being paid let me know. All the people on this forum that raise their issues are debating as individuals, not corporate accounts.
Only corporate bookings have no cash upfront , yes they go on account, that’s how I got 80000 teir points
If you can tell me how a private individual can get a ticket from BA without any money being paid let me know. All the people on this forum that raise their issues are debating as individuals, not corporate accounts.
I think you will find an awful lot of people posting here are travelling on business with tickets booked through corporate travel agents as well as travelling for their own account. Also, a great many people book through travel agents of various types and that would include via BAH where BAH holds your money on trust, it’s not paid to BA who extend credit to BAH and other agents. In the US, a rather important source of revenue for BA, private individuals usually book through travel agents and they don’t ticket or pay BA at the time of booking.
You are looking at things from a very narrow perspective and perpetuating erroneous myths about the connections/correlations between booking, payment, seat allocation and ticketing. They don’t fit into the neat boxes you suggest and different airlines operate in different ways.
As a side question, do BAH bookings have a “125” number? Looking at previous bookings, the email sent saying, “Your e-ticket receipt” only ever has the booking reference. Going to MBB and clicking on the e-ticket link produces the same information.
As a side question, do BAH bookings have a “125” number? Looking at previous bookings, the email sent saying, “Your e-ticket receipt” only ever has the booking reference. Going to MBB and clicking on the e-ticket link produces the same information.
Yes BA hols issued tickets are 125-
My next BA hol to AMS shows the 125 ticket number
As a side question, do BAH bookings have a “125” number? Looking at previous bookings, the email sent saying, “Your e-ticket receipt” only ever has the booking reference. Going to MBB and clicking on the e-ticket link produces the same information.
Yes BA hols issued tickets are 125-
My next BA hol to AMS shows the 125 ticket number
Ah, yes I can see this now – thanks. It’s only ever on the original email though. Any additional emails (when paying the balance for instance) don’t show them. Same for MBB if you’ve made a subsequent payment. Seems an omission to me.
Firstly what different airlines do is irrelevant on a BA forum.
Secondly I also don’t remember any of the people who have raised their problems on this thread saying they booked via a third party. They all booked directly with BA. NO Avios bookings go through a third party so in these cases money must be paid directly to BA. Note this website is “head for points” and forum is about Avios and BAEC. Distancing BAH from BA is questionable use same booking engine for flight component. So for any booking with BA or BAH the no money no booking rule should be valid and would highlight a problem. I still think the lack of an E-ticket receipt is best signal.
You still haven’t quoted an instance where the passenger can avoid paying money up front to BA or to a hopefully trusted and fully indemified agent of BA.
However booking via a third party does add its complications and more chance of BA not getting the money and of things going wrong in chain of communication. It is a much wider question of what the premium you pay for booking directly and is it worth it.
Ah, yes I can see this now – thanks. It’s only ever on the original email though. Any additional emails (when paying the balance for instance) don’t show them. Same for MBB if you’ve made a subsequent payment. Seems an omission to me.
It shows in the flight elements – which is where it matters.
I may just not be seeing it, but I can see no “125” number in MMB. The only place this is referenced is the original e-ticket sent by email. As an example, one previous holiday I paid the deposit initially. The “125” number is in the email sent, in the payment details section. Subsequent updates to the booking – an upgrade, then the payment of the final balance triggered new e-ticket receipts, but no “125” numbers displayed. I would have thought as this is important information, it should be sent through with each update/payment. It’s conceivable one could delete the original email as new ones are sent with the “latest” information.
You still haven’t quoted an instance where the passenger can avoid paying money up front
Er, the OP. The CS agent booked his reward flight so it wouldn’t be taken by someone else – since they couldn’t calculate the taxes, etc there and then. Otherwise by the time the back office had done their magic the seats would be gone!
Again I agree with @JDB. You’re using a very narrow use-case (leisure traveller) to a very complex set of systems. Having travelled most weeks for 10 years (thankfully no more), I can tell you I often had multiple reservations live at the same time – one or none ticketed.
I’d be more interested in how often this happens, because it has never happened to me booking direct with BA (and I chop/change flights often).
I had a similar issue on Friday.
I had booked an Avios flight to return from London to Glasgow as I had been asked to come into the office (London) fairly last minute and the return prices were ridiculous.
I booked this flight along with a separate cash flights for the outbound leg (and a few other flights in advance).
I received the booking reference number and it appeared in my MMB (as did all the other flights I booked that morning)
I was unable to check in online via the app, but as I have not managed to do so on my android phone since last year, the fact that I couldn’t log-in via my apple phone was not that worrying.
When I got to the check-in desk I was told that they could not check me in as there was no ticket associated to the booking. I was told that I had to call the Avios team as there was nothing they could do.
Obviously I was not impressed by this, but after asking for the number to call I went off to make the call.
The agent I spoke to explained that the problem was that *I* had not paid, so the ticket had not been issued.
I asked how this was possible as it has never happened to me before, they just repeated that *I* had not paid, so the ticket had not been issued.Is it really my fault for not realising that the payment transaction had been made? I had always assumed that if the booking reference had been given, that the transaction had successfully completed (except for BA Hols).
Was it right for the agent to make me feel like I had been stupid here?I’m a bit confused here – what exactly had you not paid, the avios, cash or both? I can understand if this was done over the phone but the online booking system should have taken the avios from your account and you would have had to authorise payment for the cash element.
But having a PNR does not guarantee a valid ticket, as quite a few readers have discovered!
I’m a bit confused here – what exactly had you not paid, the avios, cash or both? I can understand if this was done over the phone but the online booking system should have taken the avios from your account and you would have had to authorise payment for the cash element.
But having a PNR does not guarantee a valid ticket, as quite a few readers have discovered!
I had made the booking online.
The agent that I spoke to at the airport to resolve the issue, told me that neither the avios, nor the cash, had been paid for this booking.@ClubSmed – you don’t need a ticket to make a successful denied boarding claim, a confirmation will suffice, but in order to travel you need an actual e-ticket.
In terms of culpability, I’m not sure how much it matters (and it’s really question of risk aversion) but certainly the BA agent could, as a matter of customer service, handled the matter better. It would have been better for the agent to have said they could see the booking but it hasn’t been paid for, no ticket had been issued.
Anyway, I hope you eventually got to travel as booked?
Yes, I did manage to travel as booked.
Luckily my meetings had finished early, so I was at the Airport 3 hours+ before the scheduled flight.
This was plenty of time to be able to have the ~30 minutes conversation (where I was made to feel small and that it was my issue for not having completed the transaction?) and complete the transactions required.
So I flew on the flight I was booked on, in the seat that I had selected, so no boarding was denied. I just had to spend an unnecessary ~hour between check-in agent and booking agent to resolve it.
It was just a very painful process and I did not appreciate the complete lack of apology or accountability from the agent I spoke to on the phone.So an online booking resulted you not being charged any avios or cash (presume you entered payment method, etc)? I’ve not come across that as an issue previously, it’s usually when something’s been sent off for re-ticketing. Another BA IT failure, maybe?
So an online booking resulted you not being charged any avios or cash (presume you entered payment method, etc)? I’ve not come across that as an issue previously, it’s usually when something’s been sent off for re-ticketing. Another BA IT failure, maybe?
Definitely a BA IT failure. That exact scenario happened to me with a BA holiday, unusually.
@Skywalker – have you never had this with an ordinary retail order for goods? I have encountered a couple of times – order confirmation with order number on screen but no subsequent email confirmation and no payment taken. It’s generally put down to a communications glitch in the payment authorisation.
Hi @JDB I have once or twice, but I guess the distinction I make here is if a transaction fails on a retailer website for example, then the worse that can happen is my item will not be delivered, and the likelihood is I will get my money back if the item was paid for, or the transaction will cancel itself and be released back onto my payment card if some other error occurred.
If a BA transaction fails or as you say, if there is a payment system glitch, similar to the order confirmation number on screen you describe, the BA app will give someone all the impressions of having a flight booked (reservation in the app with pretty destination pictures, a hotel booking, emails in preparation for the journey), but the real thing that’s needed is a ticket number. No ticket number = no flight/potential hotel booking disruption/other expenses/insurance claims/BA refund chasing.
There should be a consistent process here that informs the customer to contact BA as there is a problem (which is exactly what happened with my BAH situation linked above), or something that triggers in the back office that there is a problem and send it to the “Missing Tickets” team or whatever for review – this way, the customer’s experience is seamless and they don’t even see the broken aspects.
What also doesn’t help matters, is if some failure has occurred in some way (either IT driven or payment driven), BA’s varying levels of staff training (and of course, BA staff comprehension of said training) generates a wide variety of outcomes for customers who find themselves in a similar or the same situation.
As I have said somewhere high up in this thread, I check my payment accounts and I look out for missing 125** numbers – but I have also outlined extensive reasons why someone might not be able to check their 125 numbers above.
I have also been fortunate enough to find advisors who have known exactly what to do under the circumstances.
** Other ticketing numbers are available 🙂
If the system had let me know in advance that a payment had not been taken, then I would have happily called up and resolved the issue.
However, as it didn’t, I was in a stressful and (usually) time pressured environment trying to check in and having to deal with resolving this BA issue where it was made out to be all my fault.
BA need to seriously review their ways of dealing with customers and resolving issues of their IT.
Last complaint I made regarding non-loading of my pre-purchased food too more than 3 months for them to issue a simple refund.@ClubSmed – the issue here is that BA didn’t know the payment hadn’t been taken. There are lots of unticketed bookings in the system, so there’s nothing unusual to notify you about. I understand this happens a fair bit with QR and isn’t necessarily an airline IT issue.
I find that with BA, once you have pressed the final ‘continue’, the credit card payment notification pops up from Amex a few moments before the BA confirmation. If it doesn’t, there may be an issue. I know stable door and all that, but it’s always worth spending a few seconds checking that cash and Avios have been taken and a ticket issued…
This particularly matters when booking other OW airlines via BA as some, including QR, JL and IB will auto cancel bookings if not ticketed after a certain period (usually 72hrs to a week) and you won’t get any notification.
I will of course be doing this extra check in future, but I did not know I would have to do this at the time.
Surely BA would know that the payment had not been taken as it was a BA flight booking via the BA website?What is more annoying than anything else, is I thought the issue may have been down to the email address change that I had completed that week. The reason that I thought this was because the error message I saw in the app when looking at the possibility of changing to an earlier flight was:
“To cancel or change this booking, the member of The British Airways Club who paid either in full or in part with Avios, or a frequent flyer voucher, must be logged in to their account.”
This email address change had taken a week to resolve, due to the confirmation email never being sent, and meant that I could not transact on my account during this time. So, after seeing the above message, in order to try and fix it, I changed my email address back to what it was originally. I am not having to go through the week long back and forth to get this issue resolved again.@ClubSmed – yes, BA will have known the payment wasn’t taken (which is why the ticket wasn’t issued) but there’s nothing unusual about that. There are thousands of intentionally unpaid/unticketed bookings floating around, so yours wouldn’t stand out to generate any sort of alert. It’s the same with retailers – an order might get created although the payment went wrong so the goods won’t get delivered as it’s the payment (not the order) that triggers dispatch.
I think you were quite unlucky as this very specific issue is rare, but unfortunately BA isn’t going to trawl through all its bookings whereas each individual passenger can check to be on the safe side.
Really?
I didn’t know it was possible to make an avios reward booking with BA without having to pay. How do you do that?
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