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Hi
I’ve made a complaint, firstly to BA but then to Iberia about a recent flight experience. BA said it had to go to Iberia and Iberia admitted it was substandard but asked me to “consider this an exceptional event” and offered no compensation. I’ve summarised the issues below. I’d be interested in people’s thoughts about whether this should be compensated.
Many thanks
I booked a flight through British Airways using avios in the knowledge that this would be operated by Iberia. I have had positive experiences with Iberia in the past. However, I received emails from Iberia stating that my flight would be with Wamos Air instead and that they would offer compensation. The compensation appears to be a voucher for 20% off a future flight. I do not want this compensation as I have no intention of booking another flight with Iberia and I would like to request a different outcome.
It was clear why Iberia felt the need to offer compensation as soon as I entered the Wamos Air flight. The aircraft was old (seemingly a retired Virgin Atlantic plane with the inward facing seats). This is clearly a far inferior product to Iberia business class.
* There is no WiFi
* the seats face inwards and have no privacy
* the seats do not recline very far and when in the upright position, they are very uncomfortable
* The flat bed is achieved by moving the back of the seat forward meaning a total reset of the setup
* The toilets are economy style.
* the entertainment option was very limited with a small number of old films and tv episodes. There were no games or flight map feature.Virgin used to utilise a bar in the upper class and this was on the aircraft but not in use.
During the flight back the end of the seat fell off. This was a significant issue for me as I was in the first seat next to the curtain. So when I attempted to sleep, my feel went off the end of the seat and the staff regularly made contact with my feet as they walked past me, waking me multiple times during the short sleeping period. I say short period because it took the staff absolutely ages to give out the food meaning I wasn’t able to go into sleep mode until several hour into the flight.
Overall, this product did not seem like a business class experience and certainly not what I have come to expect from Iberia / BA. I feel like I booked one product and got something completely different so really shouldn’t be charged the same amount in Avios.
What are people’s thoughts?
@Lazybones45 – this is quite a difficult one as you are dealing with Iberia. Usually good service on board and on the ground, pretty poor on reservations and terrible on 261 or customer relations as you are experiencing. It’s also problematic because it’s somewhat difficult to quantify in money terms what you experienced. I think you are going to have a devil’s own job getting cash compensation out of Iberia, let alone any meaningful cash sum. A voucher for 20% off is on the mean side but probably not too far off what might be considered reasonable. Perhaps you could ask for Avios instead of a discount voucher? There’s unfortunately not much you can threaten Iberia with (and my experience is that they ignore threats eg of litigation). I suspect someone will be along to say claim via your credit card but with BA sitting in the middle of the transaction, that breaks the chain so is effectively closed as an option.
If I were in your shoes, I would start by saying that you only accepted the change of operating carrier reluctantly and on the basis that you would be duly compensated and such compensation needs to be reasonable, but that in the event not only did you get a change of operator, but that operator failed to provide a product that was not only not remotely comparable to Iberia Business Class but actually provided on board a defective aircraft and your seats and services were absent or defective. Thus the 20% compensation only reflects the unwelcome change of operator but not all the specific defects that affected your journey. The effect of the latter was a journey more comparable to economy rather than business as you paid for. Compensation in the form of a voucher is unacceptable but you would accept compensation in Avios – x,000 to reflect both aspects. Failing which ???!
I’m not really seeing a lot to complain about here. You received a flat bed product as you bought, was the onboard service standard Iberia and served by Iberia crew?
Maybe a few thousand avíos for no WiFi and poor IFE.
The one exception is the broken seat, although you’ll need to explain it better as I can’t see what happened here. And remember the person who receives your complaint will have probably never travelled in business class, so you’ll need to explain what it meant (the seat was broken which meant I couldn’t sleep and was constantly bumped into by the crew). Actually, did you raise it with the crew at the time? Did they try to fix it or move you? Did they make a note somewhere so it’s easier for you to complain?
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