British Airways vent

PoorCharleyBear

What has happened to BA?

They used to be OK but now are awful.

As a treat we went away with friends and paid to upgrade to Club...on the day staff did not want to tell us but we were downgraded as the seats were oversold.

They wanted to refund us via BA vouchers (to spend on flights!!!) which we refused...especially as it was 50 pct for our child who paid full fare.

4 weeks later, we get some money refunded...and none at all for our child! ABTA rules state refunds should be within 7 days, but BA just do things their own sweet way.

My emails to them receive an auto response saying 'we will replay within 4 days' and then radio silence.

Either they have so many disgruntled customers, they cannot keep up their service level, or emails go into the 'too hard' basket.

BA- you are living up to your name of Bloody Awful.
(and Club class is really not worth it, as I have subsequently experienced their offerings. Asian airlines are far superior)

dickydonkin

Did you check in on line or at the desk on the day?

You are probably aware that all airlines oversell their seats and you have unfortunately been a victim of this.

Checking in on line 24 hours prior to departure may reduce the risk of downgrading or being bumped off the flight altogether.

As for BA overall, you cannot really compare them with Asian carriers like for like, but like all airlines, they are cutting back which will inevitabely impact on the service they provide.

If you want to see how really bad an airline can degrade from its glory days, then I suggest you fly (or don't) Virgin Atlantic.

marmitepotato

I wanted to book flights with VA in October. I had priced it up and it was £675 each return to Johannesburg. The very next week I went online to book four seats only to find the price had jumped to £935! I rang VA to see why the price hike and if they could do me a deal as I was going to book four seats. The CSA told me the price hike was due to demand and she couldn't do me a deal. I booked with South African Airways for just under £800 each.

I know VA are in it to make money, but an excess of over £200 price hike in one week is a joke. I am a frequent flyer with VA.......not any more!

bcl999

marmitepotato wrote: »

an excess of over £200 price hike in one week is a joke.

It can happen from one day to the next, never mind a week - and then down £300 the day after that. Sometimes there seem neither rhyme nor reason to it.

Amba_Gambla

marmitepotato wrote: »

I wanted to book flights with VA in October. I had priced it up and it was £675 each return to Johannesburg. The very next week I went online to book four seats only to find the price had jumped to £935!

All airlines do this - from day to day, week to week, month to month - I've been watching flights that have varied in price from £600-£900 over the last month. It's business.

marmitepotato

Amba_Gambla wrote: »

All airlines do this - from day to day, week to week, month to month - I've been watching flights that have varied in price from £600-£900 over the last month. It's business.[/QUOTE


It maybe business, and I understand that, but such a jump in price is unjustifiable.

paddyrg

Price jumps and drops are absolute luck of the draw. It's not that the price changes, but that the availability in different price bands becomes available/unavailable - it may not be intuitive, but in essence...

On each flight maybe 10% of seats are in band 'A', 20% in band 'B', 40% in band 'C' and the remainder in band 'D'. The band A ones are deeply discounted to get a glamorous 'From £x' price for the websites and ads. Band B might be a bit more, but still inflexible, band C may be partly flexible fares, and D fully flexible (ie you can cancel on the day, turn up when you want, etc). When you go to a travel agent, they will 'hold' seats for you for 24h - but these held seats are very often speculative, and so after 24h revert to being free again. This means if you see tickets in band A and don't book them, and come back only to find that only band C tickets are available, it looks like a price rise, but isn't - it is a different load of tickets being sold. Now if I had "held" 6 band A tickets shortly before you returned to the agent, the A's had all gone, but when I didn't show up with the cash 24h later, they are released again, so the next person gets the A price again (unless they want the semi-flexible fare, or whatever).

All the cheap fares are actually heavily discounted promotional fares, the full-price fares are significantly higher, but come with extra benefits such as flexibility. It is archaic/bonkers in many respects, but this is how prices rise and fall chaotically when a band is filling up.