BA never issued Avios e-ticket

[Cranzle]

This is a common occurrence. Something the HfP editorial should do an article on.
You can book, but then it’s a manual process on BA’s side.
So you need to continually chase until you’re sure it’s done.

In typical BA fashion – buyer (or redeemer) beware!

[memesweeper]

kaiW90 wrote:

7a25) If you have not paid the fare (or any applicable carrier imposed charges and surcharges, and any applicable taxes, fees and charges) for your journey.

Lots of voices here are focused on the contract aspect of this. There are of course cases where it is clearly BAs fault such as not paying the correct of fare/taxes because BA miscalculated or it was not ticketed properly.

But in OPs case, it’s not entirely BAs fault.

So under BA’s contract with OP, they were right to deny them boarding(?). So does IDB apply? I don’t know (I am not a legal expert)

I am not a legal expert but the clauses you quote would need to be deemed reasonable in the circumstances by the court to provide a defence against a breach of contract. I sincerely hope I never get in this situation with BA, and thus end up finding out the hard way, but I wouldn’t fancy their chances of defending them as “reasonable”.

[JDB]

@memesweeper – if you were to claim for a breach of contract, what are you saying the measure of damages would be? What arguments would you use to say the clauses quoted from the Conditions of Carriage aren’t reasonable?

[DB Cooper]

Haven’t read all your replies but an almost identical event happened to us returning from Tenerife in February. Discovered it at the returning airport. I checked and Avios had been taken for both reward flights and cash paid appropriately for both outbound and return. Over an hour on the phone to BA and they issued the return tickets. I had the booking on the app already and had selected seats prior to leaving the UK. When I got home I discovered they had charged my BA Amex with another identical fee to the one already paid. I complained and received Avios. There was no way on earth that any refund would be considered as they said I had not paid for the return flight prior to departure. I responded but got a blocking reply. Then checked next flight to Hong Kong and saw that they had done the exact same thing. We managed to rectify this . No thanks to BA who I believe are incompetent at best. Bottom line is check all your bookings have e tickets. If so Screen shot the details. If not query it and maybe save yourself some grief. Their system seems to have no fail safe or safety net to detect these errors. It really should not let them happen. Furthermore submit a complaint on that basis you should get some Avios back at least.

[kaiW90]

Haven’t read all your replies but an almost identical event happened to us returning from Tenerife in February. Discovered it at the returning airport. I checked and Avios had been taken for both reward flights and cash paid appropriately for both outbound and return.

Totally different situation. You paid avios and taxes for return. OP did not.

You were also double-charged.

[tiberius]

Similar thing happened to me, with the run to the aircraft and a frantic phone call to BA. Avios had been taken but no cash taken. The taxes were £200 so fairly easily missed as during the booking they said the charge would appear in the few days. I complained and recevied £50 compensation last week for flights that were in October so would expect you receive at least the same, with hopefully less of a delay.

I have been into the points game for almost a year and had never heard of this “e-ticket” concept before this issue (and neither had any of my family). Its unreasonable to expect any lay person to know how an airlines internal ticketing process works, especially when a booking displays in the BA app.

[JDB]

@tiberius – e-tickets have been mandatory for IATA airlines for more than fifteen years and were originally introduced possibly before you were born!

[kaiW90]

tiberius wrote:

Similar thing happened to me, with the run to the aircraft and a frantic phone call to BA. Avios had been taken but no cash taken. The taxes were £200 so fairly easily missed as during the booking they said the charge would appear in the few days. I complained and recevied £50 compensation last week for flights that were in October so would expect you receive at least the same, with hopefully less of a delay.

It’s a different situation. You paid Avios and were told that taxes would be charged automatically in a few days, but you were never charged. It is their mistake.

In OPs case, no Avios nor taxes were paid. BA said they would call in a few days once they’ve calculated the necessary taxes, but they never did contact OP and OP did not chase either. Both are at fault.

tiberius wrote:

I have been into the points game for almost a year and had never heard of this “e-ticket” concept before this issue (and neither had any of my family). Its unreasonable to expect any lay person to know how an airlines internal ticketing process works, especially when a booking displays in the BA app.

It is quite unreasonable to expect any layperson to know about e-ticketing. For the majority of straight-forward bookings, flyers do not need to know about it. And if you’ve paid for the flights, you certainly should have nothing to worry about.

[Skywalker]

Slightly off-topic (but on-topic too).

BA emailed me to state there were flight changes, and when I checked my return leg, the 125 number had fallen off

I called BA and someone with a bit of know-how was able to fix this, which is good.

Has anyone else ever experienced a flight change resulting in the 125 number dropping off?

[JDB]

@Skywalker – yes that’s normal, but doesn’t happen in every single case. The status code of your booking has to be changed to reflect your acceptance of the change and that should trigger a revalidation of the e-ticket which will then make it visible again.

It’s something to watch for as sometimes BA doesn’t notify small time changes and there are occasions where a flight schedule gets changed but shortly thereafter reverts to the original so doesn’t get noticed, but the code still needs to be changed to HK.

[Skywalker]

Thanks @JDB – that’s good to know

I am glad I checked because like OP, it is also an Avios booking and I would also be calling from overseas to rectify.

[stevenhp1987]

Skywalker wrote:

Slightly off-topic (but on-topic too).

BA emailed me to state there were flight changes, and when I checked my return leg, the 125 number had fallen off

I called BA and someone with a bit of know-how was able to fix this, which is good.

Has anyone else ever experienced a flight change resulting in the 125 number dropping off?

Yup. Our flight on 6th July to ATH was cancelled while at the airport and we rebooked using the rebooking option as soon as it appeared for the same day.

I had to call BA to get it ticketed as we could not check in to the new flight.

These were also Avios bookings.

[JDB]

@stevenhp1987 – what the OP experienced was, I think, just a minor change which only requires ticket revalidation which will usually be actioned without a hitch and is very simple. Following a cancellation as you experienced, the ticket will usually need to be re-ticketed which can fail because there’s a change in the fare line. Of course, BA should pick this up and resolve but in fact has no process for this.

[LD27]

Skywalker wrote:

Has anyone else ever experienced a flight change resulting in the 125 number dropping off?

Yes. It happened to me last month. Single ticket leaving UK. Couldn’t check in on line/at airport machine. When I got to check in desk was told of issue and had to make call. Fortunately hbo and Fastrack. Got new e-ticket number just as check in was closing. Ran through airport and was last to board. What does seem odd is when I look at past bookings in the app, both flights appear but only one e-ticket number. The other flight has a blank space by it.

[JDB]

@LD27 – having no ticket number against the cancelled flight is normal as an e-ticket coupon is a negotiable instrument so needs to be either cancelled and a replacement ticket issued or revalidated to apply to the new flight. Unfortunately it appears BA failed to take the right steps so left it against the cancelled flight which doesn’t (and shouldn’t) get removed.

[janed9388]

reading this I thought I’d better check my upcoming flights, on my desktop I get the following.

Sorry, an e-ticket receipt is not available for the method of payment used for this booking.
Please use ‘Print/View itinerary’ to print details of your journey.

no 125 numbers in the ‘print details’ option

so I thought i’d better install the app (yes, I know, very much behind the times), I can see a ticket number in the app, but there are 4 of us on the booking, I can’t for the life of me find the other 3 x ticket numbers – can someone explain very slowly….

[JDB]

@janed9388 – in the app, logged into your account you will only see your ticket number and there needs to be one against each segment. It might be the same number (which is fine, a single e-ticket can have multiple coupons) or possibly a different number.

So you need to look in each person’s app.

You can also go into Manage my Booking on the Finnair website using the BA PNR and download all the e-tickets. BA used to do something a bit similar but less detailed.

[janed9388]

Thanks JDB, I’ll try the Finnair option, that’s something I can do on the ‘big computer’ !

[Mick S]

Yes, there is a responsibility from the passenger to ensure that the avios is missing, the tax is paid etc, BUT why isn’t the person at the check-in desk (for the outbound flight) not pointing out that an e-ticket has not been issued for the return.

all outbound and inbound sectors are wrapped up into the same booking reference, it doesn’t seem to be that difficult – something that a decent IT system could flag-up.

the airlines adopting the f**k you approach, it’s all YOUR fault – we want your business but we’ll make sure the customer has to pick up the pieces from our crap IT systems falling over, crap processes not working and letting things fall down cracks, and incompetent back-office staff.

[JDB]

@MickS – the answer is simple – the check-in agent doesn’t have access to the whole PNR (and many people might have more than one PNR anyway, just the e-ticket for the sector(s) they are checking in so they can take the coupon. The presence or absence of an e-ticket for a future isn’t especially something an agent would look for even if they had access.

[LD27]

JDB wrote:

@LD27 – having no ticket number against the cancelled flight is normal as an e-ticket coupon is a negotiable instrument so needs to be either cancelled and a replacement ticket issued or revalidated to apply to the new flight. Unfortunately it appears BA failed to take the right steps so left it against the cancelled flight which doesn’t (and shouldn’t) get removed.

Thank you for that. I knew you or someone else would have the answer. If we haven’t done so already, this thread has woken us all up to the need to check e-tickets.

I have no excuse for not checking, even though the whole trip was very last minute. My daughter has worked in the travel industry since leaving Uni and her initial month of training included ticketing!

[JDB]

@LD27 – you are very right! It’s funny that I still remember my parents always checking Passports, Tickets, Money and saying if you have got those, you will be OK as I was put on a flight back to school. We had paper tickets to make sure we had in those days, but the need to check PTM is still valid 50+ years later.

[Garethgerry]

I can sympathise with not noticing avios not taken. I don’t check my account after every booking.

I can’t understand not noticing no payment.

However most importantly after every booking is the email from BA confirming the booking. I studiously wait for this to turn up. Normally in half and hour. However I know the poster didn’t expect it this fast. However if it hadn’t come in a few days as promised I’d have been on to BA to chase it up. Sorry I’m paranoid and print these ot before every flight.

Yes BA made mistakes , but why ruin a holiday by basically not being organised.

[LD27]

JDB wrote:

@LD27 – you are very right! It’s funny that I still remember my parents always checking Passports, Tickets, Money and saying if you have got those, you will be OK as I was put on a flight back to school. We had paper tickets to make sure we had in those days, but the need to check PTM is still valid 50+ years later.

Ah. Paper tickets. I can remember when I worked in Paris all expats used to book return tickets either to London or from London. If we hadn’t used the return segment we used to pin the ticket up on the notice board for someone to take if they wanted to fly that day. It didn’t matter that the names were different. On one occasion at CDG I got stopped before boarding. Did a Gallic shrug of the shoulders and off I went with no questions asked.

[Wiseoldman]

This expectation of all the onus being on the passengers is unreasonable. BA IT is terrible and they need to take responsibility for the issues. Emails being sent to all non-paid tickets 48/72 hours should be mandatory to avoid issues. They should be able to separate the travel agent/BA holiday tickets from this.

We all have to check and double check but lives do get in the way and most people do have real/busy lives that dont revolve around chasing airlines. We are too forgiving and expect too little of our airlines & other suppliers. They have all the T*C’s in their favour and we are just “rule takers”. Its not like we can go elsewhere with limited choice and competition.

Why are CEO’s not responsible personally for these known issues? In my company if issues occur more than x number of times they need to be fixed!