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Just wondering what is the best way to submit a complaint? And what is a realistic expectation?
We just finished our holiday flying NCL-LHR-JNB in CW booked with Avios 241. Most things were pretty good.
But my seat 53K on BA57 LHR-JNB on 13/8 was crap. I paid the horrid £122 each to pick our seats (it was filling up and I wanted to be near the window and my husband and upper deck, and I’m a lowly Blue level now hahah). The buttons to recline etc did not work. It took a good 10+ minutes of fiddling back and forth to finally get it to lay flat. Then in the morning it simply would not go back up. The FAs had to come over and manually put it in the fully upright position (which they barely managed to get it to lock into place) and I was stuck with that for the rest of the flight. My screen would not stay open, it just loosely flopped back, and since I was facing backwards the tilt of the plane was against me. My husband wedged a folded paper in the joint which worked for a while, then at times I just had to hold it in place with my hand to finish watching one movie. Both of my USB ports did not work, I used my husband’s to charge my phone.
The meal service wasn’t great. For dinner I ordered a main and dessert. I was never brought the dessert and it was so late I just didn’t care enough to follow-up. For breakfast I ordered the omelette, she brought out the tray with yogurt etc, brought my husband’s full meal, but my omelette never appeared and then it was time to land.
She also rudely pushed our screens back in for landing, a good 20 minutes early, without saying anything either. In contrast, our flight back from JNB-LHR they let us watch films until we landed. (What is the actual safety protocol with this?)
Any advice on how to go about letting BA know about the broken seat and lacking meal service?
ThanksYes it’s reasonable to complain about this. The best course of action initially is to submit a complaint via the BA contacts page. Keep it very short and simple, add each part of the complaint separately — the site allows you to do this. You can also ask for either Avios or an evoucher as recompense and could suggest an amount you feel is fair.
Basically, keep it really easy for them to help you. You may receive something like 20-50k Avios for the broken seat and 15k Avios for the food service failure if you play your cards right.
A friend of mine received a £100 voucher for a broken screen in CW on a London to Boston flight. She asked for avios instead and got a big NO. Strange. Maybe because it was a cash ticket.
@Gosia44, strange, I’ve never heard that happen before. There seems little rhyme or reason with BA service recovery but if your friend wanted the Avios, she could have probably got them by following up again or escalating to an exec email
Increasingly, BA appear to be pushing e-vouchers instead of Avios. I’ve seen plenty of people reference this of late in other forum, but I don’t know why – unless it’s related to potential cash loss when the AGL tax thing that HfP wrote about of late comes home to roost.
Generally, all large items need to be stowed per local regulations. I assume the LHR-JNB and JNB-LHR services were operated by the same aircraft type (e.g. both on 773ERs, or whatever BA put on these). It is also possible that the safety procedure could change depending on where the aircraft is landing, so you’d really need to look for evidence across a number of services where there are no variables.
@AL it’s an Airbus A380-800 (388). I’m flying on it in 1st in Nov. Hope the 1st suites are in better condition.
Screens even in 1st swivel out so will need to be latched for landing.
You may receive something like 20-50k Avios for the broken seat and 15k Avios for the food service failure if you play your cards right.
Interesting.
Where did you get those figures from?
I received 10k for a faulty seat (club suite).
I received 10k for a bad meal / experience (Club Europe)I made a complaint for a seat change fiasco and got £200 e voucher. I have contacted them that I would like Avios instead but all I hear now are crickets. Should I re-email or just take what I’m given?
You may receive something like 20-50k Avios for the broken seat and 15k Avios for the food service failure if you play your cards right.
Interesting.
Where did you get those figures from?
I received 10k for a faulty seat (club suite).
I received 10k for a bad meal / experience (Club Europe)There’s a thread on FT about “what’s the most compensation you got from BA and why” which you can pull from, and also personal experience. IMO 10k is a paltry offer and I’d have pushed back until at least 30k for the broken seat in longhaul, but it seems reasonable enough to get 10k Avios for bad meal in CE. It depends on how much value you place on things really. BA are quite receptive to reasonable service recovery requests
I made a complaint for a seat change fiasco and got £200 e voucher. I have contacted them that I would like Avios instead but all I hear now are crickets. Should I re-email or just take what I’m given?
If you replied to the email, you replied to a no-reply address by mistake (which I also have done, it’s not obvious at all!). You have to find the “update case information” link in the email they sent you, buried towards the bottom, and then ask there.
10k is far too little for a broken seat in long haul. People get that for missing a rubbish meal in CE.
It’s the most important part of business class 30-50k is the benchmark.
Ive made 2 service complaints in 3 years.
One was a cash ticket solo in 2hr CE and got 10k avios, was re: avalibility of a meat dish, TBH I was in row 12.
One was an avios booking with 2 of us on a 4hr ET flight and got £100 evoucher, I had ordered drinks on board website before service, but they bypassed me and started trolley service, they had run out of beer by the time they had got to me.The second one was recent and so people saying they are pushing eVouchers sounds correct, I wasnt expecting much maybe a small amount of avios but gave voucher.
My 10k for the food in CE was only 2 weeks ago.
I wasn’t offered an evoucher.
I’d probably have taken the Avios anyway, so all good I guess.Just to be clear 50k is for a completely broken seat and bad service not being moved from one seat to another. I’d rather put that in the 10k bracket ie minor inconvenience
It sounds like a lot of small errors/issues that add up. But you need to address the problem immediately – not complain about the service afterwards. I’d have had a word with the purser, especially if your OH got good service.
Compensation level is a lot about status and how much you paid for your ticket – which is fair. And of course the level of inconvenience/discomfort. Whilst I never use the call button (even in F) if something isn’t right then you need to say so.
UPDATE with resolution from BA:
-I submitted my complaint on 26 Aug.
-I received an auto email on 21 Oct saying ‘we’re really sorry you’re still waiting for a response from us…’
-Finally on 11 Nov I had two calls from a number I didn’t know (I was busy and didn’t answer). Turns out it was BA. They emailed on 12 Nov apologising for my bad experience, passed on the feedback, and gave me 80,000 Avios (which took a few days to appear in my account).I’m pretty happy with that amount of Avios. This was a 241 companion voucher booking for 2 adults return in CW to JNB in August, and I had paid 137,500 Avios plus £1614 (I don’t think I had enough Avios for the ‘cheapest’ points price). So one way Avios was 68,750 and I got back 80,000. Fine with me!
@KookyCat28 that’s a good result – v pleased for you! As another data point, I had lodged a complaint in late September about my CFU-LHR CE. Main issue was that my meal was served in a dish with a massive chunk broken off it. The piece(s) could have been in the food (they weren’t) so I was loath to eat it.
They also very quickly ran out of champers. This is very much in first world problem category but they were promoting the flight as a ‘big deal’ with it being one of the very first fully Avios redemption only planes. They even gave out certificates (🤷♂️) but I would rather have had some champers to celebrate tyvm!
Reply finally came yesterday apologising for the delay and crediting 10k Avios, which is a bit underwhelming. I’ll leave it there as life is too short! Anyway, pleased that you had an equitable resolution 👍
UPDATE with resolution from BA:
-I submitted my complaint on 26 Aug.
-I received an auto email on 21 Oct saying ‘we’re really sorry you’re still waiting for a response from us…’
-Finally on 11 Nov I had two calls from a number I didn’t know (I was busy and didn’t answer). Turns out it was BA. They emailed on 12 Nov apologising for my bad experience, passed on the feedback, and gave me 80,000 Avios (which took a few days to appear in my account).I’m pretty happy with that amount of Avios. This was a 241 companion voucher booking for 2 adults return in CW to JNB in August, and I had paid 137,500 Avios plus £1614 (I don’t think I had enough Avios for the ‘cheapest’ points price). So one way Avios was 68,750 and I got back 80,000. Fine with me!
Well done ! JDB is gonna be in tears when he reads this.
That’s quite a result, I’m not holding out as much hope for the complaint about the lounge in San Diego, I class somewhere to sit as a basic requirement. Complaint went in 6 weeks ago and nothing so far apart from the ‘we haven’t forgotten’ emails.
@StanTheMan – you seem to have the wrong end of the stick; why on earth would I be in tears? I’m absolutely delighted that the OP got such a generous resolution as they were gracious enough to acknowledge.
BA has offered more than needed, but good on the passenger for recognising that and particularly on going about claiming in a sensible, measured way. It confirms that setting out the problem clearly, calmly with a good level of detail and being patient can work better than trying to jump the queue and rushing off to bother the CEO like Mrs Angry last week.
That’s quite a result, I’m not holding out as much hope for the complaint about the lounge in San Diego, I class somewhere to sit as a basic requirement. Complaint went in 6 weeks ago and nothing so far apart from the ‘we haven’t forgotten’ emails.
I made a complaint about the T5 lounge having mice running around (and visible bait stations), with one mouse touching my case’s wheels. I was given a £100 e-voucher within a couple of days.
@StanTheMan – you seem to have the wrong end of the stick; why on earth would I be in tears? I’m absolutely delighted that the OP got such a generous resolution as they were gracious enough to acknowledge.
BA has offered more than needed, but good on the passenger for recognising that and particularly on going about claiming in a sensible, measured way. It confirms that setting out the problem clearly, calmly with a good level of detail and being patient can work better than trying to jump the queue and rushing off to bother the CEO like Mrs Angry last week.
Mrs Angry here. I still don’t understand why you choose to insult me. It really isn’t necessary and I’m sad that you would choose to do so. I thought HfP was better than that.
As you refused to acknowledge previously, my anger and escalation of the claim were as a result of my complaint being closed with zero communication from BA. I gave sufficient detail in my claim, as you did not see my claim then I really fail to see how you can conclude that I didn’t. Asking for a claim to be reinstated after closing with no resolution is hardly trying to jump the queue.
I would be grateful if you would not refer to me by my username or otherwise going forward.
Maybe I’m too sensitive for this forum but it’s a shame as I’ve really learned a lot and yet I am stepping away from contributing to the forum now . I respectfully request that you do not respond.Annie, I can understand your reluctance to stick around but I think I speak for most when I say you’re very welcome here and might miss out on loads if you go! There are 2 or 3 contrarians who seemingly get off on dressing people down online (and we should feel sorry for them really) – HfP is not representative of those people, even if they spend all day on here! 🙂
You get £50 and that’s it if it was up to some on here. I wholly disagree with that figure but hey everyone’s entitled to an opinion. I’m happy you got 80,000 that’s a huge win.
You get £50 and that’s it if it was up to some on here. I wholly disagree with that figure but hey everyone’s entitled to an opinion. I’m happy you got 80,000 that’s a huge win.
Stop trying to stir the pot
You know full well that the £50 was for broken IFE and you ended up agreing that was a fair amount!
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