Reply To: BA never issued Avios e-ticket

[AJA]

PS If you were working for BA, wearing your accountancy hat, I’m sure you also wouldn’t be offering a ticketing desk, even at T5.

Actually @JDB I think I would offer a ticketing desk/facility at T5 and add the ability to deal also with Avios ticketing. The staff do not have to be a dedicated sales team but IRROPS is something that does happen often, if not regularly, I think they could also help with check in but I think it would benefit passengers who could actually talk face to face with someone at BA empowered to help and issue and amend tickets.

Not sure why you wouldn’t offer that? The cost would be higher than the back office teams but it would also be offset by reduced IDB claims or other EC261 compensation. I suspect you just work on the cost saving ethos in agreeing with the way BA operates. I happen to think not everything comes down to saving cost. There is such a thing as economic advantage from customer satisfaction.

It wouldn’t help those at remote stations like the OP and the other person who had the Avios but not the cash taken but it would provide another avenue to help customers at its main hub when it is time critical.

I also don’t think the ticket number is as visible as it could be in MMB. I take your word it is very visible in the app but the reality is that you do not have the app in order to travel or check in. I don’t have a booking to check but I think on the website it’s one of those things where you have to click on the flight number for it to then be viewed. I tend to just use the Finnair website to get an e-ticket receipt which definitely does show it. Not sure why thw Finnair functionality cannot be built into BA’s MMB.

As for not taking payment and the passenger not noticing the key is that the passenger tried to contact BA to resolve the ticketing issue and pay BA albeit at the airport. The fact that they couldn’t resolve it in time before check in closed was why they were denied boarding. BA is at least partly responsible for the inability to solve the issue in time. The OP stated they spent 2 hours trying to solve the problem and in fact ended up paying to fly the following day.

And as apparently you don’t need to have paid to have a contract then I can’t see why IDB is not due.