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Forums Frequent flyer programs British Airways Executive Club BA to prevent UK callers ringing US

  • JDB 6,205 posts

    @dipesh1990@outlook.com – there are plenty of good reasons for passengers not having the ability to block seats as airline staff can; it’s just so open to abuse. BA does allow open jaw cash bookings online but vouchers are still an overly manual process, so that is something they could fix.

    How could BA possibly guarantee the return seats to everyone? The point is that you have signed up to terms that say the outbound and return must be booked at the same time and for those of us who have never booked at T-355, that’s not an issue but to add some guarantee for those who are are already getting the concession of booking the two separately would be unworkable and very unfair.

    Highonyourownsupply 2 posts

    Hello – I was looking for some simple advice, I have silver status, a companion voucher and ~150,000 avios. Could someone bullet point the best way to try and secure a flight for a family of 4 to Japan, next Easter. There seems to be so many factors, it’s confuses the hell out of me. I understand calling the US line or Japanese line gives you a sporting chance for booking, but is that all really necessary. It all seems like a monster ball ache to trying and use these damn things. Any advice gratefully received.

    Friendly bunch on here, first post gets flagged as inappropriate content… My sincere apologies, if my question, was inappropriate. Thanks @northenlass for the direction.

    Garethgerry 167 posts

    @dipesh1990@outlook.com – there are plenty of good reasons for passengers not having the ability to block seats as airline staff can; it’s just so open to abuse. BA does allow open jaw cash bookings online but vouchers are still an overly manual process, so that is something they could fix.

    How could BA possibly guarantee the return seats to everyone? The point is that you have signed up to terms that say the outbound and return must be booked at the same time and for those of us who have never booked at T-355, that’s not an issue but to add some guarantee for those who are are already getting the concession of booking the two separately would be unworkable and very unfair.

    Agree it would be impossible to guarantee return. Say all 4 guaranteed seats booked at t minus 355, you might think could ask for same guarranteed seats in X days as 4 will be released , but the person booking seats the day before may have booked return seats in X+1 days.

    Thus if you book at t minus 355, you must always have a back up plan, a mixture of a flexible return date, or cancel absord the £35 and book cash , or if gold a priority award

    PeteM 921 posts

    Hello – I was looking for some simple advice, I have silver status, a companion voucher and ~150,000 avios. Could someone bullet point the best way to try and secure a flight for a family of 4 to Japan, next Easter. There seems to be so many factors, it’s confuses the hell out of me. I understand calling the US line or Japanese line gives you a sporting chance for booking, but is that all really necessary. It all seems like a monster ball ache to trying and use these damn things. Any advice gratefully received.

    Friendly bunch on here, first post gets flagged as inappropriate content… My sincere apologies, if my question, was inappropriate. Thanks @northenlass for the direction.

    Every first post gets flagged for moderation. This is clearly stated…

    Retron 39 posts

    The point is that you have signed up to terms that say the outbound and return must be booked at the same time and for those of us who have never booked at T-355, that’s not an issue but to add some guarantee for those who are are already getting the concession of booking the two separately would be unworkable and very unfair.

    Have we? I can’t see any mention of that on the terms and conditions?

    https://www.britishairways.com/content/executive-club/offers/terms-and-conditions/amex-companion

    It’s a fact that BA call centre staff are trained to handle people adding return flights if they were beyond the 355 day window, it’s not a secret or some sort of dodgy exemption to the rules. If it were outright banned in the terms and conditions, fair enough, but it’s not – at least as far as I can see.

    I’m happy to be corrected!

    Scott 336 posts

    Hello – I was looking for some simple advice, I have silver status, a companion voucher and ~150,000 avios. Could someone bullet point the best way to try and secure a flight for a family of 4 to Japan, next Easter. There seems to be so many factors, it’s confuses the hell out of me. I understand calling the US line or Japanese line gives you a sporting chance for booking, but is that all really necessary. It all seems like a monster ball ache to trying and use these damn things. Any advice gratefully received.

    Friendly bunch on here, first post gets flagged as inappropriate content… My sincere apologies, if my question, was inappropriate. Thanks @northenlass for the direction.

    Off topic, reported as inappropriate.

    Scott 336 posts

    Thought experiment, BA completely stops the phonecall nonsense for 241s (assuming they first fix the IT to permit online open jaw!) and insist on the voucher term that out + inbound must be booked at same time.

    So no voucher holder books when seats become available at T-355. Folk making Avios-only bookings get rich pickings (or even voucher holders who only want a one-way) as they can book their in + out separately online.

    Voucher holders then get to book from whatever suitable pairs of out + in flights remain.

    Sound fair? This is essentially how the voucher is advertised, if strictly applying the T&C.

    PeteM 921 posts

    Throw in dynamic Avios redemption pricing and we have a winner! Maybe an occasional lottery where Companion Voucher holders get thrown some scraps! 🤣

    AndrewT 555 posts

    That then becomes ‘unfair’ for those booking longer trips, as they can’t book the outbound until their return is available so those booking shorter trips would get in first. Probably leading to people booking an unwanted early return and then planning to change it to a later date when availability comes up.

    Can’t really see that as an improvement either way.

    Aston100 1,731 posts

    If you remove the phone option you are still left with the situation where far too many people need to fight over insufficient number of reward seats.
    Whoever has the fastest fingers wins.

    Obviously I’m not talking about flights to Paris on a Tuesday afternoon in February, before someone throws in an example of what can be booked without being awake at 1am.

    AndrewT 555 posts

    Much of the midnight / 1am farce could be avoided by releasing tickets based on time of flight (like the way OLCI opens) rather than all at once at T-355. It would also spread the call centre load across much of the day. Don’t know how much IT effort that would involve.

    Aston100 1,731 posts

    Much of the midnight / 1am farce could be avoided by releasing tickets based on time of flight (like the way OLCI opens) rather than all at once at T-355. It would also spread the call centre load across much of the day. Don’t know how much IT effort that would involve.

    That sounds like a good idea if the phone option is to stay in place

    NorthernLass 10,480 posts

    @Aston100, you are a scamp 😜. Among the numerous exotic destinations I cited as still being available for next December/January, Paris did not feature, nor did any other short-haul routes!

    I booked our annual MAN-LHR-GCM for next January over breakfast yesterday, all seats in all cabins were still available. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but at £3k for a CW return, you can’t say it’s not a good use of the 241.

    In 3 weeks I’ll most likely do the same with the inbound then request 50% avios back at my leisure 😉

    Scott 336 posts

    In 3 weeks I’ll most likely do the same with the inbound then request 50% avios back at my leisure 😉

    But this is another concession provided by BA, not within the voucher terms. If they removed this and you had to book both legs of the return over yesterday’s breakfast, would you have been satisfied with the availability?

    NorthernLass 10,480 posts

    It’s highly likely, @scott, most of January is currently wide open. But it’s a reasonable hop from many US cities and I’m always happy to add a mini break to a longer beachy trip. So if one or both legs wasn’t available, I’d be looking at MIA, PHL, NYC, ATL and a few others for direct connections, or maybe another city if we had longer and didn’t mind 2 connecting flights. One year we had 5 days exploring Virginia and Washington DC, then flew DCA-MIA-GCM. Americans fly this kind of route all the time so cash/avios/VS points flights are plentiful and generally run smoothly.

    Moving away from the 241, another option would be to use the Barclays voucher for 2 people, outbound, then return on a different airline/route (VS dynamic pricing permitting).

    In March we are flying MAN-MCO on VS using points and the cc voucher, then heading to the Bahamas, finishing in Grand Cayman from where we’re returning GCM-LHR-MAN using avios.

    This also works for South America and some Pacific destinations!

    Michael C 890 posts

    I think the only true fair solution would be to
    take calls and release seats in alphabetical order on any given day.

    Yours,
    Michael Aardman

    Garethgerry 167 posts

    Much of the midnight / 1am farce could be avoided by releasing tickets based on time of flight (like the way OLCI opens) rather than all at once at T-355. It would also spread the call centre load across much of the day. Don’t know how much IT effort that would involve.

    It would be a bad idea to spread the call centre load , that would make it possible for even more people to jump the queue by phoning. At least at midnight UTC, the max number of people who can use phone is limited by nu per of call handlers

    Holidayguy 19 posts

    @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.

    The “too many people” argument seems a bit elitist. The Companion Voucher is BA’s brainchild. It applies exclusively to UK BA/AMEX card holders but the scheme isn’t a bit user friendly! And it could be so easily fixed! Is it really a concession to allow people to book their return separately when it’s virtually impossible to do otherwise? And how is it so disruptive for a booking agent to deal with bookings? BA in America is still BA and most people trying to secure return flights will have all their details at their fingertips to facilitate this. Don’t blame the player, blame the game…

    Mouse 221 posts

    Sorry to be repetitive of my previous post, but a lottery is the fairest and lowest cost way to administer allocation of goods or services for which demand significantly outstrips supply.

    Ihar 476 posts

    Sorry to be repetitive of my previous post, but a lottery is the fairest and lowest cost way to administer allocation of goods or services for which demand significantly outstrips supply.

    The “lottery” would also require that there are no cancellations, otherwise people would just register for all of them. This isn’t a market or supply/demand issue, as the supply is artificially restricted already.

    All that needs to be created is a “level playing field” which is what calling other countries enables. This can be solved with a couple of clicks by having a “355 phone number” that everyone can call at exactly midnight and calls are answered in order – basically a lottery!! 😁

    Having spent £4k buying Avios in the last year (along with some Barclays upgrades and AMEX 241) I know exactly what I signed up for. As for Avios-only flights they are an excellent idea! Basically guaranteed 100% loading, loyal passengers, and after March you can sell them lounge access 😜

    Garethgerry 167 posts

    If they issued voucher as 2 one-ways then everything could be done online no need for phone

    Rui N. 1,020 posts

    This.

    NorthernLass 10,480 posts

    But they won’t, because the Ts and Cs say it needs to be used in one go, and all the other stuff is just goodwill from BA. It’s incredibly frustrating, but that’s what it is.

    I suspect that a lot of vouchers don’t get used, or are only half-used because of these limitations, and that suits BA (and maybe Amex as well). But here at HFP where we’re adept at getting round the difficulties, we might want to be careful what we wish for!

    BBbetter 1,254 posts

    But they won’t, because the Ts and Cs say it needs to be used in one go, and all the other stuff is just goodwill from BA. It’s incredibly frustrating, but that’s what it is.

    I suspect that a lot of vouchers don’t get used, or are only half-used because of these limitations, and that suits BA (and maybe Amex as well). But here at HFP where we’re adept at getting round the difficulties, we might want to be careful what we wish for!

    Exactly. Just a few dozens of HfP regulars impacted by this issue. Cant see BA spending on IT to fix this. I was surprised they were able to show additional availability after the last change! I would say being unable to search additional availability after using a voucher or being unable to book for a family of 3 are bigger problems, but we just need to move on.

    NorthernLass 10,480 posts

    I really like finding ways to maximise the possibilities allowed by the system, then sharing them here, although I’m sorry to say I can’t solve the HND/CPT/SYD conundrum.

    Finally yesterday a friend of many years saw the light, when I was explaining to her how she could get to NYC for her 50th with her VS points (hopefully) in UC, then home on BA with avios (or vice versa). She’s been collecting points for over a decade and not actually ever used them, preferring the simplicity of booking economy flights for cash.

    Like most people, she wouldn’t be remotely interested in booking sought-after seats at midnight.

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