Flight wasn’t ticketed

[sturgeon]

I tried cancelling an Avios flight this morning and kept getting technical errors. After a very long BA live chat it turns out they never took payment for the fees, despite deducting Avios and having the flights in my account with seats selected etc. I presume it wouldn’t have let me check in to the flight at which point panic would start 24 hours before with no ticket and I’d face a very steep last minute charge for this one way flight.

How does this happen and what’s the best way of checking/preventing for the future? Thankfully in this case I was cancelling as I’d booked two Avios flights later in the day with better timing but otherwise I’d be a bit screwed.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

Check if there is a ticket number in the booking starting 125-

[strickers]

Out of curiosity, where on earth do you find the ticket number on the website? I can find mine on the app but not those for the rest of the group.

[NorthernLass]

Not sure about the website but it also appears in the email confirmation.

[davefl]

It’s not possible on the website any more. If you use either of the Print/email e-ticket receipt options all you get is an error that says “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.” and the ticket number isn’t in that document.

BA IT strikes again.

[Garethgerry]

You get 125…. ticket Number on confirmation email and on APP but not for reasons known only to BA IT on website

[LittleNick]

Garethgerry wrote:

You get 125…. ticket Number on confirmation email and on APP but not for reasons known only to BA IT on website

Is quite annoying as you used to be able to get full e-ticket breakdown on website. It seems this functionality disappeared around May/June time of this year when I stopped being able to see the e-ticket on site.

[strickers]

What utter nonsense. I’ll tell you what though, if I even get denied boarding for a lack of a ticket I can now tell them I couldn’t find where to check it!

[sturgeon]

The above makes sense but the fact that after successfully booking a ticket, seemingly paying the taxes, having Avios deducted and seeing the booking in your account with seats selected STILL
means that you have no ticket as they’ve not charged you is ridiculous. This could’ve led to a very costly situation. I’ve never heard of anything like it.

[davefl]

sturgeon wrote:

The above makes sense but the fact that after successfully booking a ticket, seemingly paying the taxes, having Avios deducted and seeing the booking in your account with seats selected STILL
means that you have no ticket as they’ve not charged you is ridiculous. This could’ve led to a very costly situation. I’ve never heard of anything like it.

Read back a couple of weeks. There was a very long thread about just this situation where certain people blamed the customer for BA’s failure to take payment and said the customer should have known that the lack of a 125 ticket and chased BA. It got pretty heated.

Since the vast majority of customers don’t even know what a 125- ticket number is or where to find it or even that they should have one, the blame is entirely with BA and their shockingly poor IT.

[SamG]

You can request an eticket receipt on finnair website

[davefl]

SamG wrote:

You can request an eticket receipt on finnair website

And 99.999% of BA customers wouldnt know that and 100% shouldn’t have to. If the web site is the primary booking platform then all information should be easily visible on there. If Ryanair or Ezyjet did this there would be uproar.

[Travel Strong]

https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/ba-never-issued-avios-e-ticket/

[JDB]

davefl wrote:

SamG wrote:

You can request an eticket receipt on finnair website

And 99.999% of BA customers wouldnt know that and 100% shouldn’t have to. If the web site is the primary booking platform then all information should be easily visible on there. If Ryanair or Ezyjet did this there would be uproar.

Perhaps BA is incorrectly assuming its passengers have a bit of common sense??

When I buy my train ticket online/in the app I receive a receipt. Can I get on the train or go through the barrier with that receipt? No, I need my electronic ticket. When you go to see Oasis, will they let you in with your Ticketmaster receipt? No. Why should it be different for travelling by air?

[Travel Strong]

Honestly, what is so complicated about it?

1) Book the flight with BA
2) If there are name errors, go to Finnair
3) If you need to change loyalty number, use RAM
4) If you have booked Finnair via BA, go to Finnair to book seats.
5) Use the BA app, but not the website, to open the booking details and scroll down to see if there is a number beginning 125- against the booking
6) Insist any travelling companions do the same unless you have inside knowledge of the ticketing process and can have confidence that all will have been ticketed
7) If there is not a 125- number, call them up
8) If you can’t check in on the app, use the website
But don’t log in to the website, just use your booking reference and surname
9) If you still can’t check in, use a travelling companions surname and hope them system allows that combination
10) Allow extra time at the airport in case it is still not resolved
11) Go to the passport check desk if your boarding pass does not allow you past security
12) If the flight has still not been ticketed, call BA before your flight leaves without you
13) If you reach this step, you are a silly goose and have not followed the simple logic process – go back to step 1 and restart.

[davefl]

JDB wrote:

davefl wrote:

SamG wrote:

You can request an eticket receipt on finnair website

And 99.999% of BA customers wouldnt know that and 100% shouldn’t have to. If the web site is the primary booking platform then all information should be easily visible on there. If Ryanair or Ezyjet did this there would be uproar.

Perhaps BA is incorrectly assuming its passengers have a bit of common sense??

Do you see many people with a modicum of common sense in your daily life? I don’t.

When I buy my train ticket online/in the app I receive a receipt. Can I get on the train or go through the barrier with that receipt? No, I need my electronic ticket. When you go to see Oasis, will they let you in with your Ticketmaster receipt? No. Why should it be different for travelling by air?

Because you have a booking reference and the flight shows as valid in the Manage My Booking pages until such time as you actually try and check in for it. Your comparison is completely spurious.

@Travel Strong, absolutely. That should be 100% clear to any self loading cargo that books a holiday once a year. They must be really stupid if they can’t piece that sequence together themselves from a booking ref and a web site that doesn’t show the required information.

[Froggee]

Are we going to do this again?

I have flown a fair bit in my life. I remember the old carbon paper type tickets that you physically handed over.

But I have never ever been asked to present a ticket when travelling with an e-ticket. ***

On a train, a conductor comes along and says “tickets please”

For Oasis there will be detailed instructions saying when your QR code will be activated and how to use it.

Whereas when I check in for a flight, the airline asks for my passport. Not my ticket. Or sometimes they settle for an apparently random combination of six letters and numbers. Ticket? Nah.

British Airways now seems to want to make it as difficult as possible to even find out if your flight has been ticketed.

People on this forum, who are more streetwise than the significant majority of the travelling public, get caught out. Even me old mucker @yorkshireRich almost got done over. Hope you got to Singapore okay buddy! By the way, Granny Froggee is flying there tomorrow so look out for her and her buddy the lapsed nun.

So seriously @JDB stop being a devilishly advocatey provocateur.

*** so the closest I came was when Air France failed to get me to Asia on my first ever trip there by being too late into Edinburgh to give me a chance at making my connection. I got put on a Cathay Pacific flight and was given a small piece of paper to enable this called a Flight Interruption Manifest. Such was the familiarity with check in staff on these things, they didn’t take it off me at either Edinburgh or Heathrow so, in effect, I flew to Hong Kong without presenting my ticket. On landing at Hong Kong there was a man waiting for me with my name on a board. I said hello and he asked if I had my Flight Interruption Manifest. What’s that? It’s a little piece of paper with writing on it, said he. Oh, this thing? Yes! Can I have it please? Sure, said I.

He then explained that what I had in my possession was effectively an open ticket with any airline from Edinburgh to Hong Kong and without this piece of paper, Cathay Pacific would not be getting paid by Air France.

But unlike most people, @JDB knows all this.

[polly]

@Travel Strong

Just love the irony there. Simply, what could be easier! For 99% of the flying population….

But seriously, it is becoming more of a problem, especially if an insurance company needs to see a tkt no, like we had recently. Very tricky.

[NorthernLass]

Are you going to Wembley or Heaton Park, @JDB?!

[AJA]

@Travel Strong
Or circumvent the whole thing and book flights on another airline.

If you are still determined to give BA your custom I would insert your step 12 after step 9 and before you even head to the airport. Simply because once you arrive at the airport and can’t check in you are going to have to call BA anyway. So might as well do it at t-23:55.

It also seems using Finnair to check whether BA has ticketed you isn’t that straightforward these days.

So don’t be upset as it seems it’s not just BA that has IT gremlins powering the cogs.

And whatever anyone does with regard to BA’s failure to ticket make sure you’ve exhausted all other efforts before requesting help from @JDB because it is all the passenger’s fault and in no way does BA have any culpability. /s

[kelliea1]

Regarding 125 ticket numbers. If I booked a flight using a 241 voucher then called to add the return to that would the ticket number be the same for both flights? It’s showing the same ticket number on the app for outbound and return?

[Turbo908]

When you make a BA booking your credit card is authorised but not debited. It is only when the booking is ticketed that there is a charge on the card. Additionally, you only get the eTicket confirmation email when ticketing takes place. Therefore, if you never get the confirmation eTicket email and there is also no final charge has come through on your card, you know there was an issue with ticketing and you should contact BA.

[JDB]

@NorthernLass – good spot; Al Ain is an agreeable oasis I visit. The last popular music event I attended was Bryan Ferry and Eric Clapton at Highclere in 2007.

@AJA – this isn’t just a BA issue, but I don’t think you have much global travel experience, so why not criticise BA further. And yes, like in the old days when one checked that one had the tickets with one to fly, go on the train, attend a film or concert etc. it seems a fairly basic personal responsibility to check that you have a valid travel document every time you fly. Why should the move to very clever e-tickets suddenly make the passenger have no responsibility? Both parties to any contract need to accept their respective responsibilities.

@Froggee – as one might expect from HfP nobility, you have correctly identified the issue. In reality nothing has changed. In the olden days, one handed over a physical ticket and the agent took the relevant paper coupon(s) to check you in and that piece of paper enabled the operating airline to claim the cash from the ticketing airline. It’s no different today, save that you don’t physically hand the e-ticket coupon to the agent, instead they take an e-ticket coupon for each sector. It’s also why they don’t ask for your PNR because they are looking at the flight manifest, associated service requests and a valid flight coupon.

I don’t really understand why the move to e-tickets has made it so difficult to understand the concept that each time you travel you are handing over a travel voucher coupon with monetary value and if you don’t, the airline won’t transport you. As such the receipt for your payment means nothing, nor does the fact you can see your booking in MMB, choose your seat etc. You still need a ticket. A good illustration of this which makes @davefl’s point rather silly is BAH bookings with only the deposit paid. They look like a normal booking and even have ticket numbers, you can choose your seat etc. Can you travel if you don’t pay the balance? No. The features claimed to be those of a valid booking don’t necessarily allow you to fly.

Anyway, as with the previous thread, if anyone wishes to rely on various red herrings to reassure themselves they are good to fly, they are welcome to do so, but I shall not be following their example and shall continue to check the basics every time – PTM.

[Lady London]

@JDB…When you’re in a hole, stop digging

[Michael C]

*runs off to check email for next US flight in Oct* !!