Forums › Frequent flyer programs › British Airways Executive Club › BA to prevent UK callers ringing US
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I wonder if a deliberate policy which had the effect of disadvantaging some nationalities but not others would square off against UK equality legislation.
Any policy would be based on residence, not a protected characteristic. Any change, if it happens, would merely be a bit of sensible housekeeping.
It’s one thing using an overseas call centre if one is suffering a disrupted journey while the UK lines are closed but for booking reward seats is just not what these agents are supposed to be doing and the only people currently being disadvantaged are locals.
The increasing pressure being placed on these call centres for this purpose has the unfortunate side effect of drawing attention to all these reward bookings being made outwith the terms.
BA could of course have their UK phone lines open after 8pm of course…
And what if you’re in the USA travelling and need to ring BA?
They cannot simply block these callers limiting them to calling a UK number (which is currently abroad) or calling during UK hours which may be unreasonable.
I wonder if a deliberate policy which had the effect of disadvantaging some nationalities but not others would square off against UK equality legislation.
Any policy would be based on residence, not a protected characteristic. Any change, if it happens, would merely be a bit of sensible housekeeping.
Things that correlate highly (like nationality/residence) with a protected characteristic are protected, there’s plenty of case law on that. If I opened a pub and only served people who could evidence a specific nationality/residence, I think it’s obvious I’d be acting illegally.
It’s one thing using an overseas call centre if one is suffering a disrupted journey while the UK lines are closed but for booking reward seats is just not what these agents are supposed to be doing and the only people currently being disadvantaged are locals.
If a US or Indian or Japanese national in the UK is given an advantage over a UK national in the UK (and that’s a big *if*) then I’m fairly sure that would be unlawful. IANAL. I believe similar laws the US explicitly protect consumers on nationality, so a BAEC member who happened to be in the United States but unable to book at midnight when a US national can book the same ticket would presumably also have a basis for action.
The increasing pressure being placed on these call centres for this purpose has the unfortunate side effect of drawing attention to all these reward bookings being made outwith the terms.
“Increasing pressure” … if true, that would suggest the vouchers and seats are popular. Good news for BA.
If the terms were enforced for everyone then that would be fair, lawful, and significantly harmful for some members of the BAEC who like to book outbounds/returns at midnight on the day seats are released. BA has plenty of history of making customer-hostile changes but that might be a step too far, even for them. It also doesn’t address the issue of people calling at midnight to book an outbound/one-way ticket, which is inside the terms, and presumably also adds to “pressure”.
If BA want to open the US/Indian/Japanese lines only for local calls, I imagine that would be legal, but with the way modern telephony works, impractical to operate. Which is really the problem here, isn’t it? BA is an international 24/7 business — but unlike Singapore Airlines or Virgin Atlantic or numerous others I’ve called “out of hours” from the UK — is trying to avoid providing a 24/7 customer service response globally. Customer workarounds for BA inadequacies are not the problem.
I have to agree @memesweeper, why doesn’t BA have one number that is routed to whichever call centre has availability and is available 24/7?
Having only ever called to add a safe return leg or request 50% avios back I have no skin in this game, but I wonder how many of those increased calls are from people who learn how to do it here!!
I have to agree @memesweeper, why doesn’t BA have one number that is routed to whichever call centre has availability and is available 24/7?
I swear ‘follow the sun’ has been around for decades.
Not sure why BA haven’t adopted it yet.I have to agree @memesweeper, why doesn’t BA have one number that is routed to whichever call centre has availability and is available 24/7?
They don’t do that because there is different training for people handling calls from different regions (even if a call made say to Japan is routed to a UK based agent) and service is offered in different languages so those people work local business hours. BA doesn’t want UK callers using the specialist overseas numbers routinely.
I have to agree with @memesweeper and @strickers. The system is ridiculous. I know 3 people who have tried to book return tickets to the UK this week using 241. Although most schools will have started 355 days from now, the lines were very busy. Everyone I know tried the US number. The only person who got through and successfully purchased a return ticket was actually in Miami at the time! There has to be a better system. However with all that’s happened recently, I think we need to be careful for what we wish for.
I have to agree with @memesweeper and @strickers. The system is ridiculous. I know 3 people who have tried to book return tickets to the UK this week using 241. Although most schools will have started 355 days from now, the lines were very busy. Everyone I know tried the US number. The only person who got through and successfully purchased a return ticket was actually in Miami at the time! There has to be a better system. However with all that’s happened recently, I think we need to be careful for what we wish for.
I think your last sentence is very astute and prescient! I don’t think people recognise that BA is doing them a favour taking these calls to make 241 bookings that are not only against the rules but should be chargeable as they can be completed online. Same with booking online and later calling to reclaim 50%.
It’s not reasonable for any customer to expect BA to have a 24/7 team to handle these sorts of calls and if people make a fuss about it and/or overburden call centres, these concessions will surely get removed which would probably be a good thing.
@JDB and many others. I just want to thank you all for enlightening me on the value of IB 241 flights to South America from MAD and for all the info you have posted about Argentina and other parts of the continent. We loved our first visit so much last year that we’ve just booked flights to Panama for later this year, returning again from Buenos Aires. Fortunately we can be flexible and we were able to use the UK number during normal hours to book our flights.
Tour operators usually have a 24/7 helpline (duty office) for stranded customers and those needing urgent help because of emergencies eg death or illness. This should not be necessary for booking a return 241. I’m no IT expert. However it’s 2025 and there should be some way BA IT can enable customers throughout the world to log on and book their return tickets at 355 days when tickets are released and indicating it is the return to a previously booked outbound ticket. If that’s not possible, then there should be a specific number for customers to ring worldwide, so everyone is treated equally. Rant over!
I have to agree with @memesweeper and @strickers. The system is ridiculous. I know 3 people who have tried to book return tickets to the UK this week using 241. Although most schools will have started 355 days from now, the lines were very busy. Everyone I know tried the US number.
Meanwhile my friend was online at the stroke of midnight yesterday and booked 2 Club seats for his return flight from Tokyo without any issues, then phoned later in the day to tack it onto his voucher and get his Avios back (it took four agents before one finally managed it, and the right amount – apparently one said “oh no it’s really bad you did this”, went to get their supervisor to help work out how many Avios were due, then hung up!)
The moral of the story – have enough Avios to just book it online, then phone at your leisure later! (Of course, that works even better for BA, as you’ll have a large balance of Avios hanging around doing nothing…)
Same with booking online and later calling to reclaim 50%.
I phoned last week to cancel a redemption I’d booked for a friend (she no longer wanted to fly), and while I was on the call I asked about the 50% policy. The agent I had was very helpful, chatty and friendly, and he said the policy they follow is that if you couldn’t book the return leg when you booked the outbound, as the flights hadn’t been released, they would refund 50% and waive any fees. It may not be written down in our Amex voucher terms and conditions, but the staff are all trained to do it – it presumably written down somewhere BA’s side!
@CJD – it isn’t a question of improving IT, it’s deliberately designed so that a customer has a different level of access/functionality vs an employee; that’s pretty standard for lots of businesses. There is already too much gratuitous T-355 booking so I’m not sure giving the passenger the ability to hold seats would necessarily be a positive.
One also needs to bear in mind that these calls (which should be chargeable) and/or adding a return, booking the outbound separately from the return etc. are against the terms, so are being allowed as a fairly generous concession that is very disruptive for the call centres. The trouble is that too many people now appear to be doing this so the last straws may be being placed.
BA had no issue deliberately forcing everyone to call to make changes or cancel during Covid….I believe that was incredibly disruptive for call centres and customers.
They could just the booking facilities easier to operate online…..oh wait, I remember, it’s 2025 and us customers don’t understand how technically it’s not yet possible to so that and it’s far too much of a complex task for an airline that operates at margins that are the envy of competitors. I mean, that would lead to gratuitous use of companion vouchers for faux customers. BA wouldn’t want that when they are probably currently focussing on reducing the 10g snack sachet to 8g and spending hundreds of thousands of pounds advertising the improvement that was requesting this ‘upgrade’. Imagine the fuel costs savings! Competitors would be in awe of BA and kicking themselves that they hadn’t thought of it first.
It would indeed be hugely more convenient if the 241 was more flexible, e.g. being able to book an open jaw trip online. However, don’t forget that the equivalent Virgin cc voucher can’t be used at all online, and there’s a user group who call at 5 am on release to get those precious upgrades or companion seats.
The recent-ish changes to the 241 such as the facility to use it on IB and EI must have necessitated IT tweaks, so who knows why they couldn’t make the other adjustments?!
BA had no issue deliberately forcing everyone to call to make changes or cancel during Covid….I believe that was incredibly disruptive for call centres and customers.
They could just the booking facilities easier to operate online…..oh wait, I remember, it’s 2025 and us customers don’t understand how technically it’s not yet possible to so that and it’s far too much of a complex task for an airline that operates at margins that are the envy of competitors. I mean, that would lead to gratuitous use of companion vouchers for faux customers. BA wouldn’t want that when they are probably currently focussing on reducing the 10g snack sachet to 8g and spending hundreds of thousands of pounds advertising the improvement that was requesting this ‘upgrade’. Imagine the fuel costs savings! Competitors would be in awe of BA and kicking themselves that they hadn’t thought of it first.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is post of the day.
BA had no issue deliberately forcing everyone to call to make changes or cancel during Covid….I believe that was incredibly disruptive for call centres and customers.
They could just the booking facilities easier to operate online…..oh wait, I remember, it’s 2025 and us customers don’t understand how technically it’s not yet possible to so that and it’s far too much of a complex task for an airline that operates at margins that are the envy of competitors. I mean, that would lead to gratuitous use of companion vouchers for faux customers. BA wouldn’t want that when they are probably currently focussing on reducing the 10g snack sachet to 8g and spending hundreds of thousands of pounds advertising the improvement that was requesting this ‘upgrade’. Imagine the fuel costs savings! Competitors would be in awe of BA and kicking themselves that they hadn’t thought of it first.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is post of the day.
Apologies for all the typos during my 7am rant. I don’t see to be able to edit the post.
Would increasing cancellation fees for more than a couple per year help reduce the t-355 scramble?
Would increasing cancellation fees for more than a couple per year help reduce the t-355 scramble?
From a margin point of view, I think BA should introduce a ‘service’ charge, rather like restaurants do. Compulsory, of course. That way BA can increase their margin with no additional cost (except, of course, the IT involved with implementing a system to take this charge). Although it might take them 30 years to implement tech required.
@CJD – it isn’t a question of improving IT, it’s deliberately designed so that a customer has a different level of access/functionality vs an employee; that’s pretty standard for lots of businesses. There is already too much gratuitous T-355 booking so I’m not sure giving the passenger the ability to hold seats would necessarily be a positive.
It removes an incentive for customers to call. If call centre agents can effectively remove flights from my basket during the online booking process, why wouldn’t I call if I wanted to book a high demand route?
I have to agree @memesweeper, why doesn’t BA have one number that is routed to whichever call centre has availability and is available 24/7?
Are you MAD??? This would involve IT, common sense, and a commitment to better customer service.
Sort your brain out! 😂 In the meantime, we’re changing our nationality, learning the New York accent, staying up late at night and figuring out how to call the USA cheaply – all in the name of booking a flight according to BA’s rules.
@Ihar – “all in the name of booking a flight according to BA’s rules” ???
The whole point is that these flights are being booked against BA’s rules/voucher terms and conditions by concession so making a fuss about this seems remarkably counterproductive and see BA stop a practice many seem to find helpful.
@CJD – it isn’t a question of improving IT, it’s deliberately designed so that a customer has a different level of access/functionality vs an employee; that’s pretty standard for lots of businesses. There is already too much gratuitous T-355 booking so I’m not sure giving the passenger the ability to hold seats would necessarily be a positive.
It removes an incentive for customers to call. If call centre agents can effectively remove flights from my basket during the online booking process, why wouldn’t I call if I wanted to book a high demand route?
I’m afraid that’s just how most airlines operate. Imagine how allowing a customer to hold seats would open up the system to bots or just someone with lots of open devices blocking nine seats on each of them. It would be total chaos.
@Ihar – “all in the name of booking a flight according to BA’s rules” ???
The whole point is that these flights are being booked against BA’s rules/voucher terms and conditions by concession so making a fuss about this seems remarkably counterproductive and see BA stop a practice many seem to find helpful.
Or perhaps BA could try and do something remarkably productive and implement a system that’s more helpful for their customers to use the voucher, save their a lot staff time? Or would such a move not impress investors or the board/management?
But I guess the reality is that it might risk margin reduction if more people were to use the voucher if it were easier to use. I’m sure plenty go unused.
@Cranzle – this has nothing to do with margins or profitability! These calls are disruptive, time consuming and not necessary and therefore may reach a point where there get stopped. BA really doesn’t need to take these calls or allow people to circumvent the rules and not even charge them the telephone fee, so it seems rather silly of people to keep poking the bear.
PS from a household that has earned/used 2 x 241 since inception over twenty years ago, they remain easy to use.
@CJD – it isn’t a question of improving IT, it’s deliberately designed so that a customer has a different level of access/functionality vs an employee; that’s pretty standard for lots of businesses. There is already too much gratuitous T-355 booking so I’m not sure giving the passenger the ability to hold seats would necessarily be a positive.
It removes an incentive for customers to call. If call centre agents can effectively remove flights from my basket during the online booking process, why wouldn’t I call if I wanted to book a high demand route?
I’m afraid that’s just how most airlines operate. Imagine how allowing a customer to hold seats would open up the system to bots or just someone with lots of open devices blocking nine seats on each of them. It would be total chaos.
I can certainly imagine such a common system being used. Many successful businesses selling capacity operate this way, where you have circa 7 minutes or so to complete your online basket purchase of seats, tickets, items etc or they go back into the bucket. Ticketmaster is such an example of a system operated across the globe, in many markets.
It’s got nothing to do with bots, nor people with open devices.
You like the sound of your own voice @JDB, and, in many respects, manufacture your responses in an attempt to, it seems, massage your own ego with nothing more than your opinion dressed up as fact or inside knowledge to underpin it.
Appreciate it doesn’t suit your narrative, but Ticketmaster’s IT works, BA’s is sh*t. thats the fact here.
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