Bits: BA hand baggage fares, Hotels.com sale, 4000 free Alitalia miles, Finnair starts Dublin

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• Nick Burch says:

  3 Mar3 March 05:58

  I can see why BA want to offer HBO on their very cheapest fares, especially on routes where there’s strong competition from lower-cost players, so they look good in comparison searches.

  I can’t work out why they offer HBO on their most expensive fare buckets though? With lots of companies using booking systems/rules which force the cheapest fares, lots of corporate travellers (including status card holders) are presumably ending up HBO on their work travel without any way to avoid it

  • Andy says:

    3 Mar3 March 07:58

    Agreed – I’ve found myself unwittingly on a HBO fare to London when booking through the corporate travel agent. To be honest, I don’t know how I’d select a non-HBO fare on the system let alone be able to justify it if challenged.

    • Tim says:

      3 Mar3 March 09:22

      They do it due to IT system compatibility. If the outbound has an HBO fare available but the inbound doesn’t, the system does not compute and won’t allow HBO out and normal back. So in order to get HBO out, you need and HBO back option

      • Calchas says:

        3 Mar3 March 23:26

        Yes but if your customer is already willing to pay a full Y fare why not retract the option of the cheap HBO, O fare?

  • Calchas says:

    3 Mar3 March 23:24

    BA make a saving in the charge they pay the airports to handle checked baggage when they sell HBO fares

    • Rob says:

      4 Mar4 March 08:18

      90% of HBO passengers would never have taken a bag in the first place! I would guess they don’t pay any more than £2 for handling a suitcase either.

• Riku says:

  3 Mar3 March 06:21

  BAEC tier points on Helsinki – Dublin seem a poor deal when compared to HEL-MAN or HEL-LHR. You get half the tier points even though you fly further (and probably see Manchester down below on the way from Helsinki to Dublin). This is because BA offer more TP for some far away european places like Helsinki and Finnair match that but ONLY that, so longer Finnair european flights revert to normal TP rates if the airport is not in the UK.

  • Calchas says:

    3 Mar3 March 23:27

    BA only offer extra TPs on their band 4 routes and routes out of the UK.
    They don’t give me extra TPs on my 1600 mile north American flights either. 😉

• Poincianakings says:

  3 Mar3 March 06:33

  Is that right Raffles? Isn’t it you can pay to select a seat on HBO at the time of booking As well?

  • Rob says:

    3 Mar3 March 08:24

    Yes, you can pay to select a seat at time of booking. However, as doing that would take the cost to the same price as a non-HBO fare, it is unlikely your corporate travel department will allow it.

• al says:

  3 Mar3 March 06:41

  Re Not being able to choose your own seats. Add this to the recent points changes and I have to ask the question of whether there is a mole working on behalf of the competition in BA’s marketing team.

  How else can you explain a raft of measures that disincentivse me and I am sure others from booking a flight with BA.

• Paul says:

  3 Mar3 March 06:44

  I had been pretty sanguin about the BAEC changes that come in April but am genuinely furious at this latest downgrade to BAEC benefits. I could have accepted a number of scenarios with regard to seat selection but the blanket ban on changes without payment is a step to far. I wrote to BA, my first such email with regard to benefit changes. The BA cut and paste department obviously worked overtime during the night to come up with the following nonsense.
  “

  • Paul says:

    3 Mar3 March 06:45

    I am sorry to hear that this change of seat selection when travelling on our Hand Baggage Only fares is making you reconsider your travelling future with British Airways.

    We believe that these fares continue to offer our customers who choose them excellent value for money, however in order to offer such low fares we have to restrict the terms and conditions on them.

    Of course everyone on our short-haul flights, regardless of the fare purchased, is offered benefits such as:
    – an allocated seat number before boarding their aircraft
    – a generous two-bag cabin baggage allowance (http://www.britishairways.com/information/baggage-essentials/hand-baggage-allowances)
    – free online, mobile or airport check-in and boarding pass issuance
    – parties travelling with infants get free seat choice at time of booking, and families are allocated seats together (where possible) a few days before departure
    – infants and children on Hand Baggage Only fares may still check in a fully-collapsible pushchair and a car seat.
    – semi-flexible and fully flexible fare choices, offering extra benefits
    – Executive Club benefits including earning Avios points that can be redeemed for flights
    – a unique London proposition – British Airways is the only short-haul airline to fly from London Heathrow, London Gatwick and London City with fares that can combine choice of airports

    Please be assured that we will share your feedback with our Executive Club team.

    I hope that this will not come as too much of a disappointment.

    • Olivula says:

      3 Mar3 March 07:31

      BA is doing a fantastic job of making their airline less and less attractive to use. A business that tries hard to disincentive customers has a problem, sooner or later.

    • Worzel says:

      3 Mar3 March 07:45

      I had a similar response from BA in April last year when I emailed to have a moan about them “forgetting” to make mention, in the Executive Club Members Area, that they were increasing cancellation charges. Not happy I chased it up and got:

      ‘Thank you for taking the time to write back to us. I would like to apologise for the delay in replying to you. I am sorry you felt that our website was not updated with the information related to the increase in amendment charges to your booking. Please accept my sincere apologies.

      I would like to assure you that we do listen and take account of what our customers tell us. I have now recorded the details of your complaint. A group of senior managers from across the business look at the problems our customers face, and how we can improve. Some issues are easy to fix quickly, and some may take a little more time to put right. We want to iron out the difficulties, and our chief executive expects us to make continuous improvements across all areas of our business for our customers.

      Thank you for taking the time to follow up with me again. We hope we will have the opportunity to welcome you on board again soon’.

      • callum says:

        3 Mar3 March 14:01

        No rational person without vested interests would whine about those responses. Just because they don’t tell you what you WANT them them to tell you, doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it.

        • Worzel says:

          3 Mar3 March 15:54

          OK Callum.

• Kai says:

  3 Mar3 March 07:20

  Regarding Alitalia’s MilleMiglia: I had a Tokyo-Paris-London flight three days ago. The ticket is sold by Air France but the first leg is an AF code-share operated by Japan Airlines, which is not a partner of Alitalia. The miles for my second leg has already posted but not the first one, I wonder if the flight being operated by a non-partner means I don’t get the miles?

  • Rob says:

    3 Mar3 March 08:23

    Potentially. Does SkyTeam work on the operating carrier or the marketing carrier? That would be the clincher.

    For oneworld it is marketing carrier (so you can’t credit the JAL flight to BA). With Star Alliance it is operating carrier.

    • Kai says:

      3 Mar3 March 09:16

      Thanks! I know FlyingBlue works on the marketing carrier but I’m not sure if it’s the same across SkyTeam. I will probably reach the customer service if nothing happens in the next week. I don’t wanna lost 12k miles!

• andystock says:

  3 Mar3 March 08:13

  The orange lot must be loving this latest move by BA.

• Jovan says:

  3 Mar3 March 08:16

  Re: Finnair flights – I was on MAN-HEL about four weeks ago and it was operated by FlyBe E190. Has something changed recently and it is operated by the mainline?

  And a thought re: BA HBO fares, would it be better to check in as late as possible, if the allocation of seats will start with the rubbish ones?

  • Rob says:

    3 Mar3 March 08:20

    Thanks, have tweaked the text as (if Flybe is running Manchester at present) that cannot be the reason for the lack of Avios seats.

  • timezonehopper says:

    3 Mar3 March 10:00

    This isn’t a recent change – Flybe Nordic have been operating the MAN-HEL route for a couple of years now. You still get tier points and Avios as if flown on AY.

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