British Airways Customer Relations Dept.

Fred_Bear_2

DW, DD and I were caught up in the Terminal 5 chaos on 27th March. Our flight was cancelled and BA offered to pay for an overnight stay in a local hotel so we could fly out the next day. They offered us up to £425 for accommodation, food & drink and transport. We claimed only £248.17 and sent off all the receipts to cover this amount. Yesterday I received a letter stating that they were withholding £25.75 because I had not sent them all the receipts. I phoned Customer Relations and told them that I was sure I had sent all the receipts (in fact I had stapled them to the letter). They agreed they had made a mistake and confirmed that they had indeed received bus tickets for £24.00. But that still left £1.75 for drinks which they still refuse to pay. It amazes me that they risk alienating a customer for such a trivial amount. Customer Relations indeed!

uktim29

But how many con artists would have tried to claim more vs the amount of people where mistakes have been made in working out the amount claimed?

grannybroon

Unfortunate all the chaos re Terminal 5 but at least they have refunded the bulk of your expenditure. Everyone usually spends something when at an airport awaiting flights so if you are only £1.75 short I think you are not doing too bad!

I know that some of these big companies and Customer Relations are not the best to deal with sometimes but BA must be handling huge amounts of claims like yours just now.

GB

Sssssss

and what do you expect them to do when the auditors come around? of course they need proof.

omen666

Sssssss wrote: »

and what do you expect them to do when the auditors come around? of course they need proof.

Good point

IvanOpinion

Years ago BA lost our luggage and told us all to go out and buy what we needed .. they promised us our luggage would be there before tea time the following day (which it was). I picked up basic necessities and put in a claim for under £50. Some people on the plane were tlaking about how they had bought 'new wardrobes' including suits etc. and had claims for hundreds of pounds. Sadly big companies need to protect themselves against opportunists which means that they need to dot the 'i's and cross the 't's which means the honest people also have to be scrutinied .. one of those things.

Ivan

uktim29

To be honest it won't alienate most customers, just intolerant/impatient ones!

Twopints

uktim29 wrote: »

To be honest it won't alienate most customers, just intolerant/impatient ones!

How crass. The OP could have booked a more expensive hotel, had more expensive food and drinks and generally taken the p***. He didn't and is now being messed about for a few quid - of course he's annoyed. The clear message is that he should have spent far more than needed rather than try to be reasonable as he cannot expect such reasonable behaviour to be reciprocated by BA or its apologists on here. Also BA cocked up yet again on their initial calculations causing even more hassle for the OP when he had behaved reasonably throughout.

When you consider that this was supposed to be compensation for BA's initial failure they clearly haven't got a clue about decent customer service.

uktim29

Thats not the point, if he didn't spend what they allowed that was his fault if you're making how much he spent an issue.

Twopints wrote: »

they clearly haven't got a clue about decent customer service.

Like most people who come out with a phrase like that, you never define it do you! Thats why the British are rubbish at complaining, because they don't define what they expected or make unrealistic expectations when there are just unfortunate circumstances.

HC_2

uktim29 wrote: »

Thats not the point, if he didn't spend what they allowed that was his fault if you're making how much he spent an issue.



Like most people who come out with a phrase like that, you never define it do you! Thats why the British are rubbish at complaining, because they don't define what they expected or make unrealistic expectations when there are just unfortunate circumstances.

What makes you think the British are 'rubbish' at complaining? Please provide evidence to back up the phrase 'the British are rubbish are complaining or make unrealistic expectations when there are just unfortunate circumstances.'

How were these 'British' measured, and how many were part of the survey? What demographic weights were used?

IvanOpinion

HC wrote: »

What makes you think the British are 'rubbish' at complaining? Please provide evidence to back up the phrase 'the British are rubbish are complaining or make unrealistic expectations when there are just unfortunate circumstances.'

How were these 'British' measured, and how many were part of the survey? What demographic weights were used?

I worked (from an IT point of view) for a call centre a few years back and, if I were being honest, I would have to agree that the Brits are very very poor at complaining.

Many seem to think being as obnoxious as possible is complaining, they seem to think that by swearing or yelling then they are being effective, some seem to think they should be entitled to ridiculous sums of money for being 'mildly inconvenienced' .. on the other hand other allow themselves to be fobbed off too easily. In both cases such people are used for the merriment and ridicule by call centre staff during training sessions. I have seen call centre staff having a competition as to who could wind a particular serial complainer up the most (the person would phone 2-3 times per week).

To complain effectively you need to ensure that you have all your communications, facts and figures to hand .. you need to be 100% aware of what your goal is and make sure it reasonable ... take time to consider the sort of repsonses you may receive and how you will counteract them .. never phone when you are angry .. be firm, but ALWAYS polite ... finally avoid using the phrase 'compensation' (which implies liability) but instead use 'gesture of goodwill' (which implies no blame).

Having said that, the one thing that annoys me most is when you get everything together have fired yourself up for a good scrap, get on the phone, explain the problem and they apologise, sort it out and immediately offer a gesture of goodwill. This happened me a few weeks ago (basically I got £80 back on a £160 deal), the girl was very efficient, apologised for the trouble I had had, sorted it out .. I then said to her 'could we start this again please because I came on the phone expecting a good scrap and have lost out'

Ivan