Bits: 100 Clubcard points on kids books, football tickets for Emirates miles

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• Matt says:

  13 Sep13 September 08:44

  I’ve never had an issue with Car Rental (I regularly book with Avis).

  However, my recent experience with a EU261 Cancellation claim on a CW flight to Chicago has left me shocked and appalled with BA customer service. I accepted an AA flight 3.5 hours earlier on a sub-par 767 angle flat cabin.. EU regulation is very clear that I am eligible for compensation under article 5 (which covers cancellation) however BA seem to be insistent on applying Article 6 which covers delays, arguing that I arrived within 4 hours of my scheduled arrival time and thus am not eligible for compensation. It feels inevitable that this will end via a complaint to the CAA.

• cheekychappie says:

  13 Sep13 September 08:55

  Whilst there’s no actual criticism of Troy Warfield in the article, I think you should give the guy the benefit of the doubt & wait for some evidence that he can be positive for BA. His background/ CV looks like solid corporate progression in big, strong listed companies. BA’s biggest problem is maybe that it pays its people too much – so that means there’s less money available in lots of other areas.

  You long-haul F & J people won’t necessarily see it as often as I do, but the European product – where Club is generally irrelevant – is pretty good these days. (Not that silly sweet bun in with the sandwich, though.) If I had to point out the biggest weakness, it would be the quality of the flight attendants, so again: people.

  • JQ says:

    13 Sep13 September 10:31

    I find the flight attendants to be fine. Most try their best and while some are a bit lazy / shouldn’t really be working in a service industry, they can’t really do anything if the hard product they are given is substandard.

    • cheekychappie says:

      13 Sep13 September 10:40

      Oh, most are polite enough, if sometimes a bit complacent & the odd eyebrow gets raised when you trundle down the back for an extra tinny. But when you compare them to Virgin/ Lauda (going back a few years!)/ all SE Asia airlines, they are pretty much ALL certainly not exactly in their youth & no longer exactly eye-candy. (That’s Europe, maybe the better ones go on long haul?)

      In short, middle-aged, not very eager to please & fat. The ‘gay male’ attendant is usually the exception, the only one to keep himself in shape & looking good.

      I know that all sounds a bit sexist but sorry, it does have quite an impact on your flying experience.

      • CC says:

        13 Sep13 September 11:08

        Last time on BA back in March to Barca had useless attendants. Forgot to offer us drink and when one of them went passed collecting rubbish I asked if we could have a drink and he said “This is for rubbish not drinks”. They were 2 overweight middle aged men who for the rest of the flight talked about the various arguments they had been involved with recently!

      • Kathy says:

        13 Sep13 September 13:23

        They are not actually there to be eye candy for you. They’re not models.
        God, that’s such an offensive attitude – I wonder what they’d say about you? Sometimes people get the service they deserve.

        • Erico1875 says:

          13 Sep13 September 21:20

          When the s~~t hits the fan and the plane is nosediving into the Atlantic, Id rather they were experienced and know what they were doing. than just “eye candy.”.
          Anyway, I don’t suppose they enjoy sweaty,fat bald guys leering at them either,

        • Danksy says:

          14 Sep14 September 10:24

          +1

        • Leo says:

          14 Sep14 September 16:13

          Well said Kathy.

      • Sussex bantam says:

        13 Sep13 September 23:03

        Is it April 1st already ??

• dynamo says:

  13 Sep13 September 08:56

  With the Emirates Skywards for football tickets, does the skywards account holder have to attend?

  • Head for Points says:

    13 Sep13 September 09:26

    No – at least, when I booked last season, you could put in any name as the person who would attend. That person MUST bring photo ID though.

• Jason says:

  13 Sep13 September 09:09

  For those looking for a “Clubcard Boost” check out their latest instore magazine (or I believe you can get it online. Coupon on first page for 20 extra points for buying a pack of Maggi noodles. Good thing is the noodles are reduced at the moment to 20p!!! So 20 points for a 20p spend. Grab as many mags as you can or print off as many as you can. Can only use one at a time but do 5 trips a day to self service tills for 10 days and thats an easy 1000 clubcard points bagged for £10 – if you dont like noodles chuck them in the foodbank area on the way out.

  Tesco seem to be generous with points – they have sent me a reuseable coupon which gives 25 points every day I buy The Sun for 3 months!!. Good thing is I have used it 3 or 4 times a day and recycled the paper.

  • Head for Points says:

    13 Sep13 September 09:27

    Interestingly I had an email from someone who had used that Sun coupon and his local store manager had unilaterally decided to remove his points because he felt using the voucher ONCE per day was an abuse – even though that is printed on it!

  • Liz says:

    13 Sep13 September 09:54

    I just scrolled through the 98 pages of the Sept magazine online and there is not one money off voucher or points coupon in the whole thing !

  • The Urbanite says:

    13 Sep13 September 09:55

    Thanks for this, I feel a supermarket sweep coming on!

  • Brian says:

    13 Sep13 September 10:01

    That is dedication, I’ll admit. For the limited return, I couldn’t be bothered! My time is worth more than that, I think. I tend to value Clubcard points at 2p each, since I know I can definitely get double face value in a Boost or with train tickets. So this offer is only enabling you to get them for half-price.

• Cheshire Pete says:

  13 Sep13 September 09:30

  I complain a lot to BA, and often wonder if I’m just becoming too fussy! I agree though that their responses are of such poor quality copy and pasted from a dictionary of set answers, but the last sentence trying to imprint a personal note concerning how much they want me to enjoy my next flight!

  Broadly speaking I find you need to reject their first answer and get another one, which in my case has resulted in twice this year receiving ex Gratica service recovery of 5000 Avios. My latest complaint was concerning having no air vents on their refurbished A319 on row 6,9, and the rear two rows. Is that being fussy do you think!

  I hope this new guy shakes thinks up in customer relations.

  • ee says:

    13 Sep13 September 11:03

    I just got a copy and paste reply concerning the mishandling of our bags due to a sequence of failings. I won’t give up yet though!

    Did you get anything for the lack of vents in row 9? I sat there boiling a few months ago. Note made never to select that row again!!

    • Cheshire Pete says:

      13 Sep13 September 12:59

      Yes , I got 5,000 Avios on Friday after I complained about their response to my complaint! Basically the cabin crew encouraged me to submit a form on board, they even sent it in for me to save me posting. I complained as they sent a reply saying my report of a faulty vent was noted on landing and the maintenance team informed! Which is not the same as complaining about no vents existing at all!

      Actually I was caught twice in one day, row 9 MAN>LHR and then row 6 LHR>BRU. It was the CSM on my Brussels flight who gave me the form, and actually he was very accommodating and sent some champagne up from CE!

  • Will says:

    13 Sep13 September 11:36

    I had a row 6 flight with no air vents 2 weeks ago with a savage hangover, was literally in disbelief that the vents did not exist.

  • cheekychappie says:

    13 Sep13 September 20:03

    I reckon I’ll be looking for row 6 or 9 then, in future 🙂

    Worth it for 5000 Avios.

  • AndyGWP says:

    14 Sep14 September 12:17

    I may be wrong, but I’m sure there’s a flyertalk thread in the BA forum that tells you which rows do / don’t have vents 🙂 (might be for 320’s though? Thread title would’ve probably been in relation to identifying what plane you’re on)

• Nick says:

  13 Sep13 September 10:51

  In other words troy is appointed to cut costs, lower customer experience and not give a toss because the board want results results results at any costs. This explains their ancient aircraft, their pissed off staff, totally cheesed off customers and general meh attitude to business. Coupled with the devaluation in the past year I emptied my entire stash of 250k avios leaving me with 90! Had a great on Qatar in the process so thanks for something BA:)

  I can’t be the only one who now thinks sod you BA I’ll fly biz far better on a cleaner aircraft elsewhere I’m not bothered about my status anymore it’s as worthless as your experience of customer service!

• Henry C says:

  13 Sep13 September 10:59

  Well, BA have been partnered with Avis for a while commercially. So what’s the betting after a few meetings, and a little subsequent conversation, maybe a team night out, this guy jumped into bed with someone at BA… and the rest is history? Maybe I’m just cynical though… but it explains it all in my book 🙂

• Thomas says:

  13 Sep13 September 11:38

  To BA’s credit I recently had situation of 7 bags failing to arrive coming back from France.
  BA at their own expense delivered all of them, once they arrived over a course of 3 days, to our London address, then returned and picked up 5 of them for onward delivery to the US (3 of them) and to South Africa (2 of them).
  To cap it all, was offered 70,000 Avios or 700£ in compensation.

  • ee says:

    13 Sep13 September 13:25

    OK, I definitely need to push with our issue then…. not as bad as yours, but kept us at Heathrow for 2 hours longer than should have been after a very long TP run/holiday!

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