BMI - Absolutely dreadful level of customer care

dinglebert

I had the misfortune to have to deal with BMI's Customer Service Department last week. Over the past couple of years I have accumulated 60000 BMI miles, mainly through their credit card which gave a 20000 startup. The other half has her own one as well on which she had accumalted 20022 miles. Clearly I use the credit card more!

Finally we had a reason to use it. We're off in the summer to Florida with Virgin flying from Manchester. Last time I came back from an overnight flight I had was not really fit enough to drive back to Edinburgh as I can never sleep on planes and so we looked at the option of flying from Edinburgh to Manchester using BMI miles. Was also going to then us the remaining miles to gain discount on a hotel room for the night before we go. All very simple really.

Booking the flights was relatively easy apart from the fact that I could hardly hear the CS person. Their call centre is somewhere in India and for some reason I found myself having to speak very loudly and plainly to be understood. Not I hasten to add because they couldn't understand or speak English but because the quality of the line was so poor. We chose the flight times based on wanting to get to Manchester the night before and leave around 3 hours after we arrived back. There were 6 flights in the day 3 in the morning, 3 in the late afternoon evening. Only the last flight of the morning at 1020 hours was suitable. Trying to book the hotel was a nightmare. I had completed a search and narrowed it down to a couple of hotels. In particular I wanted the 5 bedded family room at the Hilton which I could have got at the time for £120 on the Hilton website. Could I get them to understand this absolutely not. First them told me it was vouchers that I got in return for every 6000 miles used, then I was told it was a straight discount. Then they couldn't tell me what hotels they used, finally I got put to someone back in Britian who told me they basically used Expedia but that only the hotel booking department in India were able to book hotels. Long story short after over an hour of going back and forward I just gave up. I was promised a phonecall back that afternoon.

I also needed to join both accounts together to maximise the points. BMI have a new system where family points can be joined. Person one nominates themselve head of account and emails invites to other family members to join that "family". All well and good except the email link sent to the family member basically makes them the head of a new family and therefore unjoinable to the first family. Another 45 minutes spend going from pillar to post trying to get something sorted. They acknowled the website error but stated the only way my individual problem could be sorted was for me to send a letter to a specific address who would deal with it. Problem was I needed it sorted by next day at latest. Head Office UK promised to pass it on next morning to another team as they had left earlier than usual for the night.

I gave up on the hotel and phoned Hilton direct who pointed out they had a sale on and got the room for £75 with free breakfast thrown in so the delay actually helped me.

OK thought that was an end to it but two days later I get a phonecall from BMI cancelling my return flight and offer to put us on one an hour earlier. I did point out that the chance of me managing to make that flight was slight. Our Florida flight might be an hour early which would be OK but if it arrived on time no-way would I make it and what would happen then. She stated that they would hold 5 seats on the 1530 flight to cover that eventuality. She would add details to my booking to state this and email me the details. Of course no email arrived. I phoned and again got passed around from team to team, none of whom could find any note of anyone having phoned me. Another nearly an hour on the phone trying to get this sorted. Finally got put through to the correct department who could see the flight change. Stated that what I was told earlier could and would never happen. Could not guarantee that I would get a later flight if I missed the first one. I stated I was not happy to have to spend 5 extra hours in Manchester Airport and was told effectively tough. Tried to get the BMI lounge as a freebie was was refused. Eventually cancelled both flights and will go by train instead.

Now still got 80 000 BMI miles and no idea what to use them for.

voiceofreason

bmi have always been absolutely golden so far as I'm concerned; maybe you hit them on an off day?

dinglebert

It is now over 2 weeks since this and I still have not had my money back. The points came back quickly. I phoned after 11 working days to be told it was in a queue to be dealt with. Absolutely pathetic.

CrazyClum

Found them the same, was treated like an animal in economy class and it took seven letters of complaint to get an apology out of them!

hollydays

I too had very bad cs from them some time ago.