Reply To: If you just booked an ORD > MAD IB flight, thank BA for destroying my trip

[spawn606]

slidey wrote:

What needed to be changed that would require cancelling a booking rather than having the airline make the change?

It sounds like terrible advice from BA as once a flight is cancelled, you have no control over if it will reappear, when it will reappear or if it will still be there for you to rebook.

The connection to be added to the outbound failed to display on BA’s system. However, when doing a search for the flight that includes the ORD>MAD portion, it shows up as bookable.

And yes, the risk is obviously there, but the failure occurred because of the IT systems failing today. That failure blocked the refund and the person I spoke with (after 40 mins of waiting), had to do something manually to unblock it, then it instantly refunded.

So whilst the risk of losing those seats is there, it is typically marginal, so long as you are quick and ready once cancelled, as I was.

But again, the gross failures of BA over the years in its choice to outsource IT, grossly increase the average time to connect to an agent + maximising profit, is the path that leads to these things. And this all whilst creating an accountability structure such that I have a human BA employee on the call acknowledging how awful this situation is, and how the IT failure contributed to it, yet openly admit to having no power to enforce any change to any outcome.

sigh