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Are you locked out of your British Airways Executive Club account? And how can you get in?

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Last Thursday something odd happened at British Airways Executive Club. We don’t know what, but a substantial number of Executive Club accounts were locked.

I only know of one HfP reader who had fraudulent transactions made from their Executive Club account just before the lockdown happened, if it was linked to a security issue. What is not clear is what the criteria were for locking down accounts, and why it has been done so harshly.

(BA told us that “there is nothing to suggest a data breach/cyber attack” so the above example may be a coincidence. Accounts were locked following “routine monitoring”.)

Are you locked out of your British Airways Executive Club account?

If your account is locked, it seems that it will not be unlocked until you speak to British Airways and request it. There is no point in sitting around and waiting because, based on multiple reports from discussions with the call centre, it won’t happen.

What went wrong with BA’s response?

British Airways could have handled this better, frankly.

When accounts were locked last week, British Airways did one of two things:

Option 1 – nothing

British Airways has admitted to us that many people were not told that their accounts had been locked. This has been blamed on an ‘error’. I was in this group.

Option 2 – members were told their accounts were UNLOCKED

My wife was in this group. Last Thursday she received the following email:

“Subject: We’ve unlocked your account

We take the protection of your data seriously. We’ve unlocked your access to your Executive Club account. Please log-in and change your password to keep your account secure.”

This was untrue, of course. BA had actually locked her account, not unlocked it. Resetting the password was also not enough to get the block lifted.

Bizarrely, for an email sent as the result of a security issue, the email contained her full Executive Club account number, her Avios balance, her tier point balance and her lifetime tier point balance.

Why were accounts locked?

Different people are receiving different emails. This is what I got when my account was unlocked (we’ll get to how you do that in a second):

“Dear Mr Burgess

Following a thorough investigation by British Airways Revenue Protection, we have re-instated xxx,xxx Avios to your British Airways Executive Club account.  Your account has now been unfrozen and is fully active.

I would like to thank you for your patience during this investigation and hope that you can now continue to enjoy the many great benefits of your Executive Club membership.

If you would like to contact me again about this case please click on this link: www.ba.com/your case

Best regards
Audit Executive”

Are you locked out of your British Airways Executive Club account?

Here’s a different version that is going out:

“In line with all major companies which operate a financial rewards and incentives scheme, British Airways constantly reviews transactions on its Executive Club members’ database. This is to ensure compliance with the Terms and Conditions of the programme and to protect our members from any activity, which could be considered unusual.

During this process we found some activity of concern with your account. We believe it is still secure but as an added precaution please can you update your password. You can confirm you have done this by contacting me on the link at the end of this email.

In the meantime, to make sure your account is safe, I have had to place it into Lock status. Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience this may cause but please be assured you will still be able to accrue awards as normal.

If you wish to make a Reward booking during this period, you will need to contact your nearest service centre.

To reset your password you’ll need to click on the ‘Forgotten PIN/Password?’ link under the login box on ba.com, enter your Login ID and then submit your request.

If you’re still unable to successfully reset your password, you’re welcome to call us or click on the link below, so we can talk you through the steps to get you into your account.

Once I have received confirmation I will look into unlocking your account.

Thank you for your patience and co-operation during this time and I hope to hear from you soon.”

Note that, in this case, BA will not consider reopening the account until the password is changed.

How can you get your account unlocked?

As far as I can tell, no-one has had their account unlocked without proactively contacting British Airways.

The call centre needs to make a request to the Account Security team, and your request will be looked at. Some people are being told it will take 7-10 days but in reality it seems to be clearing within a few hours.

Reports on Flyertalk bring up people who have not had their case automatically escalated but have been told to email callba.loyalty@ba.com or ec.documents@ba.com.

If you are not in a position to call and do not need quick access, you may want to try emailing the addresses above. You must email from the address associated with your BAEC account. Good luck!

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (145)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Steve says:
    15 Jun15 June 07:42

    My account wasn’t locked the other day, but I couldn’t access any of my bookings on the app. I’ve since checked in ok and come on holiday and still can’t see any of my bookings

    • Matthias says:
      15 Jun15 June 07:47

      Same here, I need to reload my bookings quite regularly anyway but this time it just wouldn’t.

      Worked ok again this morning but who know whether they’ll still be there tonight.

    • Lindsay East says:
      15 Jun15 June 08:52

      Me too. My account has shown no forward bookings for about 3 months or so. I have emails, locator no etc, so bookings are there, just not showing on my exec gold account.

    • Simon says:
      15 Jun15 June 08:54

      Same with me. No issues with logging in, but unable to access any of my bookings for about a week now.

  • GeoffreyB says:
    15 Jun15 June 07:47

    “BA told us that “there is nothing to suggest a data breach/cyber attack””

    I give it a week before they release a statement about a data breach

    • zapato1060 says:
      15 Jun15 June 08:03

      they did have a data breach last week, albeit internal.

    • Rob says:
      15 Jun15 June 09:03

      There is almost certainly a breach. Perhaps technically its not a breach because it is using credentials stolen in the breach 4 years ago which are now being used.

  • Paul says:
    15 Jun15 June 07:47

    My account locked on Friday, I had checked in for a flight at T-24, chose to collect boarding pass on app, left website to log into app which then told me I was locked out. Went to log back into BA website to find I was locked out, message said ‘see email or letter sent’ which there was none. Messaged on Twitter to be told it will Auto Unlock after 24hrs but that came and went, still locked out. Messaged again on Twitter and then eventually it was unlocked. Wasn’t told proactively, was told incorrect info but thankfully managed to sort without phone calls, since not what I want to do from abroad on hols.

  • Patrick says:
    15 Jun15 June 07:52

    Phew, currently abroad and managed to log in to my BAEC account via a password reset…morning scare over 🙂

  • Tom says:
    15 Jun15 June 07:54

    This is honestly the final straw with BA for me. Absolutely furious at the lack of communication, taking about 5 days to unlock it, causing inconvenience when I needed to book urgent work flights, causing stress as I thought initially someone had hacked my account and taken my avios. I honestly think those affected deserve some sort of compensation for this. It’s shambolic.

    • Jack says:
      15 Jun15 June 12:37

      Why ? It is a security check which companies legally have to do when you hold a currency of thought with them (avios in this case). Why do people need to be compensated for BA looking after your information and asking you to reset your password and then unlocking you account . Sorry it took as long though I wouldn’t call it shambolic though

      • Sundar says:
        15 Jun15 June 19:00

        Technically, one loses the ability to earn additional avios via the online shopping portal, no ? So some form of compensation for that ?For arguments sake, Not expecting anything ofcourse 😀

  • Me says:
    15 Jun15 June 07:54

    Another criticism of ba. I recently had to csncel a flight and car hire due to fsmily issues. I emailed and they were very helpful, even providing a solution to the costs incurred on seat reservations and the admin fee on avios booking. They were very helpful. Let’s not slag them off all the time rob.

    • Chrisasaurus says:
      15 Jun15 June 07:59

      To be fair to Rob the news of your experience hadn’t been published so it’s unlikely he knew about it.

      But he does know about their locking of accounts and decision not to communicate about it so was in a better position to report on that.

    • GeoffreyB says:
      15 Jun15 June 08:07

      Yeah don’t report when they mess things up

    • Catalan says:
      15 Jun15 June 08:20

      It’s simple. Bad BA news generates clicks. Clicks generate advertising revenue. HfP can pay their staff. Staff then take holidays flying BA. Rinse and repeat.

      • Richie says:
        15 Jun15 June 08:42

        Which ads on the homepage are click ads and whats the evidence that ads are ‘click ads’?

        • Rob says:
          15 Jun15 June 09:00

          We have ZERO programmatic advertising. 100% of ads on HfP are sold at a flat rate for a week, irrespective of click volumes, or are ‘space fillers’ which only pay commission if you buy something.

          Any ‘pay per click’ ad would have one of those little arrows in the top right corner.

          • Richie says:
            15 Jun15 June 09:02

            Thanks Rob.

          • Nick says:
            15 Jun15 June 12:47

            Bit disingenuous saying that though Rob, it’s clear you’ll sell more direct ads if you have higher view/click/engagement rates, even if it’s not programmatic.

          • Rob says:
            15 Jun15 June 12:58

            Obviously if we have a big day with lots of first time visitors then some will stick around and that drives long term daily page view rises and increased ad rates. This generally requires us to be featured in the national press or go viral on social media with something.

            One off articles which are only read by the existing base don’t do anything for long term growth.

            The story of HfP is a very boring one of 10% annual growth (after the initial spurt in 2011-15), sustained over many years.

  • Tom says:
    15 Jun15 June 07:57

    Oh and I called the BA Silver number when I was locked out to do an Avios booking and she said it was impossible even on their side until the account was unlocked. Then lost the reward flight I wanted to get. BA really are useless.

    • Jack says:
      15 Jun15 June 12:41

      That surprises me as the email from the auditing team said if I wanted to book before my account was locked to call the call centre who could do it for me so surprised you were told different

  • WaynedP says:
    15 Jun15 June 07:59

    BAEC will continue to be a soft target for fraud until BA increase their permissible password length – something ridiculously inadequate like 12 characters at the moment if I recall correctly.

    • SonicStar817 says:
      15 Jun15 June 09:38

      Mine is more than that so it’s definitely possible. Saying that, I haven’t been affected by this.

      • RussellH says:
        15 Jun15 June 13:54

        My pw for BA is 18 chars: 4 figures, 11 letters (some upper case) and 3 “other chars”.
        Things will, I expect, have changed since I attended a lecture on pw security, but at that time (pre-covid) we were told that 12 chars was beyond the practical capability of cracking software.
        Annoyingly, there are still organisations out there with shorter restrictions than 12 chars.
        And then there is Amex – pws still not case sensitive, though they do permit a wider range of special chars than some.

    • jjoohhnn says:
      15 Jun15 June 10:38

      They need to enable 2FA on all accounts.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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