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Blimey! Is it really too much to expect that the passenger checks they have their tickets, passport, visa, vaccinations and everything else with them beforehand and before setting off for the airport? Should BA also be reminding them to make sure they have packed a toothbrush and clean pants and to make sure they have enough petrol to get to the airport? Oh, and don’t forget to lock the front door when you leave the house. When one adds this to moans from the poor mites who are so upset and seek compensation for not getting their first choice of food, this is proper snowflake/no personal responsibility stuff.
There are things we need to take care of; passport, visa..making sure kids are taken along. Is the booking showing in the app real that is definitely on BA, have the airline taken the necessary oayment points/cash definitely on BA. When the petrol guage shows the tank is full we are allowed to rely on that and not have to check inside the petrol tank that there is actual fuel in it.
I am not advocating every incident should result in compensation but lets not just blame everything on the individual.
There are some people who will do the work; making sure contracts are read, FAQs are read, dots and dashes are correct..but to expect everyone to do this is unrealistic and is a game we should not allow. Trust in fellow being and systems.
There are things we need to take care of; passport, visa..making sure kids are taken along. Is the booking showing in the app real that is definitely on BA, have the airline taken the necessary oayment points/cash definitely on BA. When the petrol guage shows the tank is full we are allowed to rely on that and not have to check inside the petrol tank that there is actual fuel in it.
I am not advocating every incident should result in compensation but lets not just blame everything on the individual.
There are some people who will do the work; making sure contracts are read, FAQs are read, dots and dashes are correct..but to expect everyone to do this is unrealistic and is a game we should not allow. Trust in fellow being and systems.
It’s just absurd to put all this on BA. They make mistakes and so does the passenger. They are dealing with hundreds of thousands of tickets and some things go wrong and slip through the net. You only have to check one small set of tickets; it’s not a big ask.
If you go to the theatre, Wimbledon or any similar event, do you not check your tickets and all the info carefully and make sure you take them with you or have them downloaded for every member of the party? If you go by train do you not either allow time to buy a ticket or check you have the necessary paper or e-ticket with you? If you are the organiser of group travel, do you not check all the tickets and arrangements or do you just leave it to chance that the providers have done everything right? If you park your car in on street parking that requires payment, do you expect the council to chase you to pay or do you take responsibility for ensuring you have paid? If you forget to pay are you going to challenge a penalty on the basis they should have taken greater steps to warn you to pay?
Just because we have moved from paper tickets to e-tickets, are you suggesting that this means the passenger no longer needs to check anything? It’s pretty obvious whether one has paid for an air ticket or not. It seems so incredibly casual and totally contrary to all the posts one reads here of people chasing low three figures of Avios and pennies here and there not to notice or pretend not to notice whether they have paid for a ticket for a major event like a holiday.
The implication of your post is also that we don’t need to bother to check anything now we only use e-tickets, but if it goes wrong we should run to nanny and seek compensation. It is incredibly easy to check one’s ticket and it’s a really basic and fundamental part of travel planning, along with knowing your passport is valid, any visa, electronic travel authorisation etc. is in place, together with hotel confirmations for the right accommodation/dates, all tours further travel plans correct.
Much more fun of course to play to the crowd and blame big bad BA.
Another consideration here, regardless of error is that clearly both parties have made a mistake. And it’s clear there is a genuine error.
So considering this, should BA not have systems in place that allow someone to be called to enable them to issue a ticket at the agreed Avios and cost.
So, yes sir there has been an error and also you haven’t paid. If you are willing to pay now and let us redeem the Avios, we’re all good. Surely that is the answer?
@ekposh – it’s a nice idea, but they are issuing hundreds of thousands of tickets each year, things get lost in the system, your family’s tickets are one tiny drop in the ocean. The passenger only needs to check their own and/or their travelling party’s tickets, money paid, tick, Avios paid, tick, ticket numbers for every flight for every passenger, tick. If not, call BA. If the booking has been amended, check again.
How difficult is that? It shouldn’t be strictly necessary, but nobody’s perfect and it’s frankly the tiniest step for the passenger to take to ensure their holidays run smoothly. BA, like most big corporations, doesn’t care, but the passenger should.
“they are issuing hundreds of thousands of tickets each year, things get lost in the system”
Precisely why they should be running a programme regularly to identify reservations that have not been ticketed.
The work comes back to BA one way or another. The can either deal with unhappy customers trying to board flights, or they can be proactive and carry happy customers who have given them money.
Precisely why they should be running a programme regularly to identify reservations that have not been ticketed.
The work comes back to BA one way or another. The can either deal with unhappy customers trying to board flights, or they can be proactive and carry happy customers who have given them money.
Maybe it’s part of their multi billion dollar transformation plan. They already know if there’s an issue with a booking (example – OP denied boarding because they didn’t pay avios and taxes). They just need to show that information to the user ahead of their flight via the app or otherwise.
However, whether it is worth spending their budget on Vs something else is a something only BA knows. I suspect that the cases posted on this thread are actually quite rare – it just seems more common to readers because forums tends to focus on advice or having a moan about a bad experience. No one posts about a perfectly normal flight.
“they are issuing hundreds of thousands of tickets each year, things get lost in the system”
Precisely why they should be running a programme regularly to identify reservations that have not been ticketed.
The work comes back to BA one way or another. The can either deal with unhappy customers trying to board flights, or they can be proactive and carry happy customers who have given them money.
So still no responsibility for the passenger to check their tickets as they would for every other mode of transport or event? For most people, holidays/trips abroad are a big deal so I guess, on your analysis, why bother checking if you have a ticket?
If you happen to have a seven figure Avios balance you might not notice the ‘odd’ 100K, but that only applies to a very small percentage of people (regardless of how many hard core collectors may now say ‘I have’).
Look at it from the other angle. How many people would not notice if BA took an extra 100K by mistake? OK so it’s more difficult to notice that a transaction which should be there isn’t, but as several have observed we’re talking about significant numbers.
What is definitely wrong is seeing an apparent booking and being allowed to reserve a seat which clearly gives a false impression, but that doesn’t constitute a contractual agreement if you haven’t paid for it. Might get you some sympathy if pitched the right way, but won’t change the legal aspect.
Our HHA balance hovers around 1m Avios. Given our adult children will also book Avios flights independently to us, I probably wouldn’t notice if BA took an extra 100k.
@Tracey – same here, but I do ask those fishing in the Avios pool to let me know when they have booked with Avios so I know the transaction automatically notified to me by BA is genuine.
However many millions of Avios or cash you have, that doesn’t alter the fact that one should check one’s travel arrangements. If I book theatre tickets, when they turn up, I check the date/time and seats. Why wouldn’t one do that for air tickets? I check all the other travel arrangements carefully; it’s basic good practice.
All you need to do is to check that you have paid the Avios and/or cash and that there is a ticket number against every segment for every passenger. It seems like the most basic holiday admin to make sure the trip runs smoothly.
The thrust of the comments is that it’s all down to BA, they should have better systems etc. so the passenger shouldn’t need to do anything. Well, I’ll make the tiny routine effort and make my own luck. Others can not bother if they wish and it appears that some really can’t be bothered, but would prefer to have some big drama at the airport and then blame BA.
@JDB you write:
“ticket numbers for every flight for every passenger, tick. If not, call BA. If the booking has been amended, check again.
How difficult is that?”Did you notice that OP @ferrinha wrote that they spent over 2 hours at the airport on the phone to BAEC trying to pay and get tickets issued. Unfortunately to no avail.
@Not Long Now… also spent “quite frantic 2 hours on the phone to Exec club before finally being transferred to ticketing”.
@SamG was only able to catch a flight in Spain “because Spanish handling agents do have the ability to speak to someone with ticketing access in Madrid”.@Travel Strong “called BA and they spent an hour confused, insisting there was never any name problem” but eventually appears to have a ticket.
@DB Cooper had a similar situation in Tenerife and spent ‘Over an hour on the phone to BA and they issued the return tickets”.
@tiberius suffered a similar fate “with the run to the aircraft and a frantic phone call to BA. Avios had been taken but no cash taken”.
@Skywalker had a flight change and the ticket number dropped off. “I called BA and someone with a bit of know-how was able to fix this” which sounds like it wasn’t a straightforward call.
@stevenhp1987 had a flight to Athens cancelled and “had to call BA to get it ticketed as we could not check in to the new flight.”
@LD27 also had a flight change which resulted in no ticket and “had to make call. Fortunately hbo and Fastrack. Got new e-ticket number just as check in was closing”.That’s 9 HfPers in this thread alone so actually close to 20 passengers who have had problems with ticketing and all only resolved by having to phone BA, at least 7 of them while they were at the airport and it taking at least one hour and often two to resolve.
I’d say one occurrence of having to phone BA is just down to bad luck but at least 9 times is not down to passengers. That is down to BA.
Therefore I’d say its actually quite difficult and time consuming as none of them have managed to solve having a simple ticket issued in less than an hour.
Anyone else notice, by the way, that @ferrinha returned a couple of times to refute accusations of dishonesty but has since dropped out of the conversation? I wonder why?
JDB is trolling.
“I couldn’t board because my reservation hadn’t been ticketed” is a fairly frequent-flyer of a complaint on the flyertalk BA forum.
It’s simply an unforgivable lapse by BA and denied boarding compensation + UK261 re-routing on any airline at BA’s cost is clearly due.
For the average person, checking that your BA flight shows in the BA app to such an extent that BA allows you to choose your seats, should be sufficient to allow the person to assume they have a ticket.
Similar to seeing your seat marked on a theatre seating plan.
Giving you a seat, giving you the power to change said seat doesn’t compute with BA saying we actually haven’t ticketed this AND it is your fault!
@AJA all those people hadn’t taken the trouble to check they had tickets and in one case hadn’t even paid for them.
You are very welcome not to check your own tickets and blindly to support those who can’t be bothered but then suffer the consequences, make a big fuss and blame it one someone else. I prefer to analyse the evidence rather than always blame BA.
Not checking one’s own travel tickets is just so casual, bordering on negligence. Like not bothering to check an insurance policy. There are rights and obligations on both parties to a contract. The passenger has a duty to mitigate his losses.
Do people seriously not check other sorts of tickets to check they are present and correct? Seems improbable, but if that’s the way you want to live and don’t mind the consequences, it’s a free world.
I hope people’s travelling companions are as understanding as @AJA when their plans are ruined because the booker couldn’t be a*sed with basic personal admin.
PS it’s not trolling, but merely a response to the ludicrous modern blame / shame culture and unthought through comments. Yes dear, it’s always that nasty company’s fault.
@Skywalker had a flight change and the ticket number dropped off. “I called BA and someone with a bit of know-how was able to fix this” which sounds like it wasn’t a straightforward call.
Not quite right – the advisor had the know-how and and knew how to do it – it was a remarkably straightforward call.
Believe me, I was fully prepared to do battle, but soon realised I had turned up with an M16 to a pillow fight.
She fixed it in 10 minutes.
I suspect though that experiences may vary and this may not always be the case – I was just lucky that day (but it shouldn’t just be down to luck – it should be the standard).
@AJA all those people hadn’t taken the trouble to check they had tickets and in one case hadn’t even paid for them.
Not quite right either – I had paid and checked I had paid, and re-checked my tickets upon my flight changes, hence the call to BA ahead of travel
😇
@AJA all those people hadn’t taken the trouble to check they had tickets and in one case hadn’t even paid for them.
You are very welcome not to check your own tickets and blindly to support those who can’t be bothered but then suffer the consequences, make a big fuss and blame it one someone else. I prefer to analyse the evidence rather than always blame BA.
Not checking one’s own travel tickets is just so casual, bordering on negligence. Like not bothering to check an insurance policy. There are rights and obligations on both parties to a contract. The passenger has a duty to mitigate his losses.
Do people seriously not check other sorts of tickets to check they are present and correct? Seems improbable, but if that’s the way you want to live and don’t mind the consequences, it’s a free world.
I hope people’s travelling companions are as understanding as @AJA when their plans are ruined because the booker couldn’t be a*sed with basic personal admin.
PS it’s not trolling, but merely a response to the ludicrous modern blame / shame culture and unthought through comments. Yes dear, it’s always that nasty company’s fault.
@JDB – I have a lot of admiration for your wealth of knowledge, but sometimes your posts assume that people are operating with the same set of cognitive tools.– Age: lot of youths/young people won’t know all of the finer nuances and would just expect it all to just flow/work – elderly travellers may also be travelling for the first time
– Bereaved people are time constrained (and grieving) if they are flying for a funeral or simultaneously arranging repatriation – it may not occur to them to check a 125 (or any other number)
– As it’s just public transport at the end of the day, people with all kinds abilities, disabilities and impairments are travelling and these impairments may well impact. Not everyone who has a disability has a carer to do these things for them.
– I have also made bold one word in your response which may also have a big impact on why someone might not check their tickets – visual impairments.
– Inter aliaSo when folks come up against an issue, if they don’t know what the problem exactly is, they may not even know what questions to ask.
So – on here, we are probably expected to know better and you may have a checklist for everything (and I am a similar character at times (though perhaps not so extreme 🙂 )) – but we do have to cut some slack for “lay-people” and infrequent travellers.
We need to make a distinction between those that simply cannot be bothered as you put it, and those who have other difficulties.
In this instance, I would expect an airline (and other companies) to think about the impacts their systems have on travellers who are travelling with impairments.
@JDB I’m with the vast majority of posters in that you’re in the wrong on this matter.
For the man or woman in the street, when they go online and make a flight booking and receive an email confirming that booking, they’re going to assume they’re good to fly. 99% of people wouldn’t know that this email isn’t in itself the ‘e-ticket’. There’s nothing in the confirmation email to say that it isn’t a ticket, nor that they should make further checks to ensure they have a ticket.
The OP’s case is, I agree, different as one has to take personal responsibility to ensure you’ve paid for the thing you think you’ve purchased.
@Skywalker – great to hear that you are the sensible one who checked and made the call to BA before turning up at the airport. Why leave it until the airport to find out; some people seem to like the drama. It’s not quite the right cliché, but time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.
For all those who disagree and still aren’t going to take the trouble to check their tickets, bonne chance and I hope your travel companions are very understanding.
The (normal) email that you receive is the eticket, or at least the confirmation of it. The subject is ‘Your e-ticket receipt’ and the opening paragraph clearly states ‘This is your e-ticket receipt. Your ticket is held in our systems, you will not receive a paper ticket for your booking.’
However the gaping hole in the process is that in some cases an eticket can be issued for an outbound flight but not the return, if the latter is booked later or where changes are made after the initial booking. There is nothing in the original post (a long, long way back) to say whether any email confirmation was received after the return booking was made. It seems likely that there wasn’t, or at least I assume there can’t have been a normal ‘Your e-ticket receipt’ email. If on the other hand there was, then it becomes more of a cut & dried case.
@AndrewT – an “e-ticket receipt” as you describe is not an e-ticket. That’s the difference which seems a relatively obvious distinction. You can get a receipt for all sorts of things that don’t constitute a valid ticket. An e-ticket is a negotiable instrument that precisely mimics an old fashioned paper ticket. The e-ticket coupons have value, the receipt has none.
@AJA all those people hadn’t taken the trouble to check they had tickets and in one case hadn’t even paid for them.
Not quite right either – I had paid and checked I had paid, and re-checked my tickets upon my flight changes, hence the call to BA ahead of travel
😇
@Skywalker – great to hear that you are the sensible one who checked and made the call to BA before turning up at the airport. It’s not quite the right cliché, but time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.For all those who disagree and still aren’t going to take the trouble check, bonne chance and I hope your travel companions are very understanding.
I think a lot of users here are not seeing why OPs case is different to the other cases reported.
If you’ve paid taxes and fares/avios, can see a return flight, can select seats, then you can assume all is good – if you are denied boarding because of ticketing issues, that is BAs fault. Cases where BA said they have collected taxes and avios, but one or both weren’t taken for whatever reason, that is also BAs fault.
In OPs case where BA said they will call back after calculating avios+taxes but didn’t and OP didn’t bother to chase, that is both BA and OPs fault. I find it unlikely that OP “forgot” about not paying taxes AND avios. They must have checked their bank account/App after seeing the return flight shows up. In the unlikely event that they forgot, that doesn’t excuse them! It’s still their fault along with BAs.
My opinion is – OP thought they were getting a free flight and I do not blame them for it – after all, they could see the return flight and could select the seat. If I didn’t know about ticketing issues, I would’ve done the same! Who doesn’t love an expensive freebie?? They probably thought they would just pay at the airport if called out on it and just blame BA if anything goes wrong. Must’ve given them extra reassurance when they took the outbound flight no problem.
@JDB Yes I appreciate the distinction, but an ‘e-ticket receipt’ is surely, or would be widely interpreted, as confirmation that an e-ticket exists. Otherwise what exactly is it representing, bearing in mind it clearly says ‘your ticket is held in our systems’, not ‘if a ticket is produced it will be held in our systems’.
The ticket number(s) should of course be shown further down the email.
It is quite clear the poster didn’t get the email receipt for the return flight from BA
If he had the email would be clearly BAs fault.
If BA send me an email saying here is the receipt for your E-Ticket , then to me that is clear evidence that an Ticket has been issued , no more evidence is needed. If it hasn’t been issued and I turn up with this email reciept at airport and it hasn’t been ticketed, then that is clearly NEGLIGENCE by BA . They are 100%at fault
Getting a email receipt and checking details (times dates etc) are correct is all one needs to do.
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