British Airways Unauthorised Charge to Credit Card

BritLivingAbroad

Morning, hoping I can get some advice from here (long time lurker)!

In January I booked a return flight to the UK for March for about $400.  Last Saturday I decided to check to see how much upgrades from economy to premium economy would cost - I'd just returned from another trip back to the UK and BA was offering upgrades of between $190-$200 on various marketing emails for the flight back to the US.  On Saturday it showed that I could upgrade both flights from economy to premium economy for $275 so considering I'd only paid $400 for the ticket I decided to treat myself.  The charge showed immediately as pending on my credit card.  On Monday I nearly had a heart attack when I saw that BA had subsequently charged an additional $3200 as a separate charge to my credit card.  It never showed up as pending, it just went through as a separate charge to the $275.

I've contacted BA through Twitter DM who initially tried to fob me off that the $275 would have been the charge to change the ticket and the rest would be the actual ticket cost and taxes.  I pointed out that I was familiar with BA and that the website only showed a $275 fee, which was in line with my experience on other trips home.  They admitted that it did look odd and referred it to their website faults department.  I sent them screenshots of those previous offers and highlighted that if the website had showed that the cost of the upgrade was going to be almost $3500 I would never have progressed with the booking on a $400 ticket.

They've come back to me today to let me know that as the website team couldn't find any fault there's nothing they can do.  I've checked the flights a number of times since and yesterday premium economy was more expensive than business class so they've obviously overbooked premium economy and I've somehow been caught in the issue.

I'm about to dispute the charge with my credit card (I had to wait until I'd raised the issue with BA) but wondered if there was anyone on here who could offer advice or had something similar in the past that they managed to successfully resolved. 

Thank you!  Sam 

Westin

I can’t think of any immediate possibilities of what has happened. Could you let us know what routing you are talking about and if this $275 cost was for a one way upgrade.

BritLivingAbroad

Hi Westin,
The route is JFK-LHR and then LGW-JFK.  The $275 was to upgrade both directions.
Thanks
Sam

Westin

Thanks for clarifying.

That upgrade amount seems very low for a round trip.  Even one way ex LHR with the high Taxes and APD I think $275 is low.  

I would be interested to hear the outcome.

BritLivingAbroad

Thanks - I agree it's a bit of a bargain but that's why I went for it.  I'd been sent quite a few marketing emails for the trip the other week offering 1 way upgrades for quite a bit below that amount (ended up paying £200 at Gatwick for an upgrade on the return to JFK because the inbound flight was a bit emotional (another story!)) so it didn't seem like it was some sort of glitch I was taking advantage of.  I paid $1500 for a return premium economy at Christmas at the outset of the booking process, which I was happy to do because it was a high cost travel time but to pay for an upgrade for an out of high season travel period for over twice that is ridiculous.  I travel a lot for work and am not naive to costs etc which makes this all the more frustrating!  I haven't been stupid here, I never authorised the charge. 

shaun_from_Africa

BritLivingAbroad said:
I'm about to dispute the charge with my credit card (I had to wait until I'd raised the issue with BA) but wondered if there was anyone on here who could offer advice or had something similar in the past that they managed to successfully resolved.  

I can't see that you will have any problem getting your money back from the credit card company simply because:

BritLivingAbroad said:
The charge showed immediately as pending on my credit card.  On Monday I nearly had a heart attack when I saw that BA had subsequently charged an additional $3200 as a separate charge to my credit card.  It never showed up as pending, it just went through as a separate charge to the $275.

I upgrade on BA on a fairly regular basis and whenever I've done this, the full payment (upgrade cost, taxes and fees) is always taken as a single payment so there would be no reason for BA to charge separately for the fee for the ticketing change and the actual cost of the upgrade.

Before contacting your card company, I would give BA another call and point this out as it would be far better for them to refund you as if it's done by the card company, it could possibly end up with BA cancelling your ticket.

BritLivingAbroad

Thanks Shaun, that's a big help and relief!  

I woke up this morning to the "sorry, suck it up" message from BA which I responded to.  I queried why it went out as 2 payments from the outset but they were initially focusing on the fact that it might have been a problem with the website - they say it isn't but I've just checked the costs of flights for the same trip again and it is seriously slow (have tried at work and home on chrome, IE and edge over the past week with the same problems).  I asked that question again this morning but it'll obviously take a little time for them to get back to me.  I'm in the middle of a faff of screenshots of the DM conversation not uploading to my google docs so I can add them to my credit card dispute, but will keep trying this morning!  

I'd rather get it sorted amicably with BA, even to the extent that if they refunded me both charges and I flew economy I'd take that rather than aggressively stick to my guns and demand the premium economy seat when it's clearly overbooked.

If they cancel the ticket completely it will be annoying and disappointing, but my leave is flexible at work so I'd just look for the most cost effective dates around the same time with Virgin.

Thanks for the reassurance, will keep you posted if it works out!

Sam

BritLivingAbroad

BA sticking to their guns - I checked on the process to upgrade this morning and I would have had to miss 4 opportunities whereby BA informed me that the cost of upgrading the $400 ticket would have been almost $3500, and it shows as 1 charge on the end not 2 separate transactions.  The charge is being disputed through my credit card, hopefully I don't just caught in the situation whereby BA denies any responsibility so I'm left with the bill.

Westin

Is there any possibility that you misread the offer at some point? I just think $275 for two transatlantic upgrades from what was a cheap economy WT ticket to premium WT+ is dare I say it unlikely.  It wasn’t to select and prebook an exit seat or similar was it?

stoneman

Westin said:

Is there any possibility that you misread the offer at some point? I just think $275 for two transatlantic upgrades from what was a cheap economy WT ticket to premium WT+ is dare I say it unlikely.  It wasn’t to select and prebook an exit seat or similar was it?

Not really. I upgraded  one way from PE to Club from Miami to Heathrow for £250. Sometimes the loads are really light. 

Westin

Was that an airport upgrade though?  £250 = $320 - oneway ex US so no APD.

OP mentions $275 for upgrades for both directions so two upgrades from what was a cheap fare class in Y to WT+ at £107.50 each way. Just seems very cheap to me.