Bits: limited BA First food for 96 hours, reader loses 220,000 Avios, double Heathrow Rewards

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• Alan says:

  10 Jan10 January 08:34

  Wow 220k! I don’t quite understand how someone misunderstood the comms though, I thought they were pretty clear! It’s not like the person didn’t know they had the points at all – making an active decision not to move them must make it all the worse! 😮

  • the real harry1 says:

    10 Jan10 January 08:43

    probably didn’t give change of address

    • Alan says:

      10 Jan10 January 08:50

      Must have changed email address too?

  • Frenske says:

    10 Jan10 January 09:56

    Yeah it is at least worth £1500 so big ‘oooch’

  • the_real_a says:

    10 Jan10 January 12:55

    Very easy to leave a very old email if you have had the account for nearly a decade. Was anything posted if you were NOT an MBNA card holder?

• James67 says:

  10 Jan10 January 08:37

  OT: Virgin EC 50% off sale through Friday.

  • Genghis says:

    10 Jan10 January 09:58

    Yes. I’m v annoyed about this. Spent just under £100 on Sat for tickets I could now pick up for £25!

    • John says:

      10 Jan10 January 11:30

      Perhaps you can buy new £25 tickets and pay the £10 change fee to change the existing tickets to another time where cheaper advance buckets are out?

      • Genghis says:

        10 Jan10 January 11:35

        Thanks for tip John but I don’t follow.
        I tried to rebook this morning but the tickets (two singles) are non-refundable so no way to get cash refunded. I could change (no need for other tickets at the moment) and then change again but that would result in £40 of lost value (£10×2(two single tickets)x2(two changes)). As such, I decided to leave it.

  • Anon says:

    10 Jan10 January 10:15

    That’s funny when I saw EC I read it as VS EConomy sale rather than the trains…

• Matthew says:

  10 Jan10 January 09:05

  BA has lost the plot. This is surely a breach of contract. Bang a small claims court action for the fare difference. They will settle out of court for more than £100 or 10,000 avios. Treat them as they treat us walking cargo, err sorry customers.

  • Rob says:

    10 Jan10 January 09:11

    No. You have no contractual right to anything apart from being carried in a seat nominally called First. They could swap in a short haul plane, put a First cover on the CE headrest and under the conditions of carriage not owe you anything.

    All of those pictures of F seats and service online are not part of your contract with BA.

    The Small Claims Court takes a different view but that is where you would need to head.

    • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

      10 Jan10 January 10:51

      I’m not sure that’s true any more. Since 1st October 2016, the Consumer Rights Act applies to airlines. Crucially:

      “Every contract to supply a service is to be treated as including as a term of the contract anything that is said or written to the consumer, by or on behalf of the trader, about the trader or the service, if it is taken into account by the consumer when deciding to enter into the contract”

      All of the marketing bumf is now implicitly guaranteed contractually. Food might be a tricky one as it’s a bit subjective, but certainly IFE, wifi, lounge access all would now seem to be in scope for legal remedy in the event of non-provision.

      • Alan says:

        17 Jan17 January 17:50

        Interesting points, Andrew. I’m sure BA would be keen to settle before this reached Court – amazing they’re making such a derisory offer but I guess they expect only a small number will complain, let alone take things further.

  • Sarah says:

    10 Jan10 January 09:21

    Don’t forget that as far as BA are concerned, the meal is “complimentary” and you are not actually paying for it.

    • the real harry1 says:

      10 Jan10 January 12:08

      But otoh the food & beverage were advertised as included (for free or not) – so removing them is a clear deterioration in the offer

      still got my screenshots 🙂

  • RussellH says:

    10 Jan10 January 10:52

    I think the preferred term is “Self-Loading Cargo”.
    🙂

  • the_real_a says:

    10 Jan10 January 12:57

    They will never defend a £200-3000 claim. Just raise a moneyclaim.

• Clive says:

  10 Jan10 January 09:20

  I’m not sure First food is much different anyway. The last F flight we had, there were 3 people in an 8 seat F cabin – I was second to be asked my choice of starter and was told they’d already run out of my choice… so they had loaded 1 of what was clearly the most desirable option… I understand wanting to minimise waste but this seemed ridiculous.

  • Graeme says:

    10 Jan10 January 10:49

    What was it???

    • xcalx says:

      10 Jan10 January 13:08

      Hahaha nearly pmsl here. My kind of humour

  • Andrew says:

    10 Jan10 January 11:20

    Yes I had similar – outbound LHR to IAD, they only loaded two of my choice and I was fourth to ask for it. But all options were fantastic in fairness.

    That said, the crew themselves were bemused that BA had only loaded 2 Christmas dinners for a full First cabin of 14 on Christmas Day.

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:

    10 Jan10 January 12:50

    It’s not the food you have to worry about, it’s the whole service. It’s not the caterers going on strike, it’s the crew. So the reason they’re using CW food is so they can simplify the service, no need for dine on demand, no dedicated attentive service, you’ll just be part of the CW service run but with better seats.

    This means they don’t need F trained crew on the service and they can be deployed elsewhere. Of course you may be lucky and still get a full crew with a decent attentive service but with the CW food, this will be down to luck.

• BA is Bloomin' Awful says:

  10 Jan10 January 09:30

  BA doesn’t offer priority luggage. The tags sometimes work in small outposts, but anything other than that and it’s mainly chance your bag or other bags with tags on will arrive before non tagged bags.

• Genghis says:

  10 Jan10 January 09:56

  I found the service on the HKG-LHR in J in Oct to be icy. Compared to our outbound to PVG which was fantastic. I guess it just depends…

  • Gavin says:

    10 Jan10 January 10:31

    I found them quite good in J on this route on the way back from HKG, I had a severe nose bleed and the crew were very helpful.

    Cathay crew earlier that day were by far the best though

• Genghis says:

  10 Jan10 January 10:54

  Thanks for confirming. I had £45 payable this morning. It said “5% bonus”. Took the cash.

• Javier Pena says:

  10 Jan10 January 11:39

  OT – 100 Tesco Clubcard points when joining the Tesco Baby Club for those of you lucky to have a baby 🙂

  https://www.tesco-baby.com

  • Lumma says:

    10 Jan10 January 12:19

    Or if you just make up that you have a baby perhaps? That’s what I did.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      10 Jan10 January 12:45

      tempting fate 😉

    • Genghis says:

      10 Jan10 January 13:10

      Mrs G back in Oct got a big surprise when I signed her up without telling her!

      • ankomonkey says:

        10 Jan10 January 13:49

        I signed up for legitimate reasons 7 years ago and am still getting mailings offerings 20p off baby food and wipes. They don’t seem to have realised that my 7 year old wants to hang out at the cinema with her friends without parental supervision, not eat baby food. Unless you remove your wife’s name she may still getting these when she becomes Grandma Genghis…

    • James67 says:

      10 Jan10 January 13:56

      Last year it was fake cats & dogs. Would love to see how HFP readers respond if tesco launched funeral plans.

      • Steve says:

        10 Jan10 January 16:49

        I’d be dead keen

        • Rob says:

          10 Jan10 January 21:23

          The first private equity deal I arranged was the buy-out of Britain’s biggest undertakers!

      • Fenny says:

        10 Jan10 January 21:51

        Well, Ma & Pa are going to snuff it at some point!

        • the real harry1 says:

          10 Jan10 January 22:10

          so is my pet rabbit

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