British Airways can now expel you from the Executive Club if you criticise it online

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• memesweeper says:

  29 Sep29 September 08:49

  any conduct […] which causes […] a detrimental effect […] on the reputation of British Airways

  … taken literally that could extend to calling up the BA call centre and complaining about something that actually happened, if the member of BA staff you spoke to might be left with a less glowing picture of BA than when the phone call started. Surely that’s never going to survive a challenge to an ‘unfair term’ in court.

  Truthful statements made in good faith need to be excluded from retaliation by BA against its EC members.

• Julian says:

  29 Sep29 September 08:55

  I would suggest that “threatening, abusive or derogatory language or behaving in a threatening, abusive or derogatory manner in dealing with or directed at British Airways’ staff” is in fact also capable of being misinterpreted and unfairly misused by certain types of particularly unhelpful BA telephone advisers and/or particularly unhelpful agents at check in or a certain type of BA flight attendant as revenge for any form of verbal criticism of their lack of knowledge or helpfulness.

  Of course no one would support genuinely physically threatening behaviour or truly racist or demeaning language but the reality is that these things are always a matter of interpretation and certain BA staff members (especially those in remote overseas call centres with limited English language speaking skills) can all too easily cause momentary losses of patience by customers.

  And the key concern has to be that if The Ultimate Sanction is invoked that BA will then maintain that any right to compensation for lost Avios points will be at some tiny fractions of a penny per Avios.

  My view is that the existence of fierce terms and conditions such as these will only allow the less helpful specimens amongst BA’s telephone customer service, ground staff or flight attendants to make even less effort to be helpful to customers than they did previously.

  Of course not all BA staff are like this and many do like their passengers and do go the extra mile but it does not seem to be compulsory to be like this in order to hold down a job at BA and certain members of BA staff seem to rather actively enjoy doing the minimum……

  • Jen says:

    29 Sep29 September 09:10

    Imagine being threatened, sworn at, racially abused and told I hope you lose your job, because they can’t check in online.

    Then you have to remain calm, positive and polite and no action is taken.

  • Callum says:

    29 Sep29 September 11:30

    Is “momentary loss of patience, particularly against foreign staff” a codeword for “abuse”?

    You seem pleasant enough so I’m assuming it’s not, but if that’s not the case then what’s the problem?

• J says:

  29 Sep29 September 09:06

  I’ve actually worked for British Airways in the contact centre and the level of abuse received by some passengers is disgusting.
  Whether it’s a member of the general public or a celebrity, you get verbally and racially abused quite often and sometimes daily.
  It’s about time some action is taken.

  • Kip says:

    29 Sep29 September 09:31

    I find the idea that staff are racially abused on a daily basis in BA call centres unbelievable. If it were the case then the whole business model BA are using for that part of the business is clearly failing and management should be changing how they approach customer contact.
    On the other hand, the idea that the ‘level of abuse received by some passengers is disgusting’ could possibly be true but I don’t think you meant that.

    • Callum says:

      29 Sep29 September 11:34

      Then you clearly live under a rock. I used to work in a much, much smaller call center (5 agents) and would hear racist abuse at least once, often several times, a week. I don’t doubt for a second that it happens on a daily basis in a company like BA.

      And ABSOLUTELY NOT, the answer to racist scum is not to appease them and get rid of any foreigners/immigrants.

      • Paul Pogba says:

        30 Sep30 September 14:14

        You seem as intolerant of people that have a different view to you as racists are of people of a different background. Is exchanging one form of intolerance with another form really progress? Are you really any better than them?

  • Bazza says:

    29 Sep29 September 10:21

    I believe it – happens to us in the NHS everyday and we are only trying to care for peoples health.

    And nothing is every done about it.

    So, good on BA for looking after their staff.

• Steve says:

  29 Sep29 September 09:20

  Hilarious. The BA section of Flyertalk wouldn’t last a week if this was to be implemented to the letter of the law.

• Willie Walsh says:

  29 Sep29 September 09:32

  Definitely don’t use your real name or any handle that they can trace you back on then!!

• Andrew says:

  29 Sep29 September 09:49

  Ooh

  So if you really hate your ex-boss, you could post all sorts of complaints about BA (with just enough detail to identify them) and then have their account closed.

  Such fun!

• Julian says:

  29 Sep29 September 10:00

  Clearly the problem with these extreme new Terms and Conditions is that they allow BA to do whatever it wants with absolutely no specified right of appeal on your part as the BA Exec Club card account holder, even if you have several million points. Or if BA are bound by some form of ombudsman or regulator in relation to the Executive Club points scheme then I am aware of who or what that system is?

  I think as a minimum if an Executive Club account is closed in these circumstances that customers should be fully refunded a realistic value of their accumulated Avios points at 1p per point. Otherwise BA may target customers with especially large points balances as a way of targeting these overhanging points balance liabilities on their balance sheet.

• BJ says:

  29 Sep29 September 10:09

  *BA were bad

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