Ticket number not issued

[sjs0612]

Myself and my husband were flying BA Club World from Hong Kong to London Friday evening on a flight booked with avios. We were unable to check-in online via the app so ensured we were at the check-in desk when it opened. At check-in we found that despite being booked on the flight our ticket numbers hadn’t been issued so they were unable to complete our check-in. What followed was a 90 minute telephone call back to the UK spending most of the time in a queue or on hold trying to speak to someone who could issue the ticket numbers. We were transferred to incorrect departments, told that the agent and supervisor we were speaking to was unable to do this etc etc. Meanwhile we also instigated an online chat and managed to get a ticket number issued less than 5 minutes before check-in closed. The desk manager at Hong Kong was very sympathetic and tried to assist contacting BA but ultimately she was unable to help us.

I wish to raise a complaint to BA as that was a very stressful 2 hours at the end of an amazing holiday. Does anyone on here have any experience of a similar situation or any advice on the best way to register our complaint or even if we would be entitled to any compensation? Appreciate any tips/advice please. Thankyou.

[NorthernLass]

There are regular reports of this happening – it’s really important to check that you have a ticket number starting 125 on your booking or confirmation email. At least you got on your flight which hasn’t happened for some people. I think ground staff can now only re-ticket via the BA call centres, which isn’t helpful, either.
There’s a fairly easy complaints form to complete on ba.com but I don’t know what they would offer. There’s no formally recognised compensation for this so you’d have to decide what to ask for and see what BA’s response would be.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

BA will toss you a few avios but that’s it even though this is clearly their error.

Were there any previous changes to the booking? That would be a sign to double check in MMB that you had been properly reticketted.

One of the problems with BA withdrawing the ability of contracted check in staff to do anything other than make simple changes / rebooking is that what was once a relatively simple task to reissue the ticket taking a few key taps and taking seconds now takes much longer.

[SamG]

The app is the best place to check this, if it’s just showing a – then you’ve got a problem

I don’t know why the check in there couldn’t get this resolved, my understanding is they have a phone number to a back office who can look at these kind of issues. Slightly surprising, I could imagine this at a Greek island station served twice a week or something but HK you’d have thought would be more proficient!

Not sure what compo you’d get, maybe some Avios

[BajiNahid]

I had this as well but I booked a codeshare flight operated by Qatar on the BA website! I was denied boarding as even though the ticket numbers were showing on my ticket. they could only see my old reservation date and not the new one i had changed to, even after typing in the ticket number into the Qatar and BA website which both showed my new dates on the system. Absolutely ridiculous.

[marks7389]

Similar, but not quite the same. We had an experience with a Virgin UC booking where we were kept waiting for around 40 mins at check-in at the UC Wing at Heathrow because of issues with my wife’s ticket, relating to what we believe was an error made by them in reticketing following COVID disruption changes. We had ticket references.

During that time the agent was trying to get through to the ticketing team downstairs, who weren’t picking up. All-in in took us about a hour to get through UC check-in and security, somewhat longer than the 10mins they claim 🙂

In our case, following feed-back to the executive team, which included other issues with the journey that we weren’t happy with, they awarded us 10K Virgin points each.

[sjs0612]

Thankyou for your replies.
@BA Flyer IHG Stayer there was a change to our booking as we were originally booked on the 23:45 flight but BA cancelled that flight and rebooked us on the 23:00 flight instead. As this new flight showed in our app we didn’t think there would be any issues. Will know what to look for with any future flights!