To expect British Airways to sit me next to my breastfed baby's basinette on a 27 hour flight?

[TheToadLessTravelled]

Looking for advice from more seasoned travellers.

Booked for a 27 hour flight with DH and 11mo DS tomorrow.
Had booked to all sit together but British Airways lost/changed the seat allocation somehow and we have ended up with DH near the basinette and me where I could not even see the baby.

BA have been really unhelpful and I am really stressing about the flight now.

Three calls to BA have given three different stories about whether/how we can be moved but we are still not together although at least I can see DS from where I now am moved to several rows back.

The last agent said all bulkhead seats are now allocated and all cot positions booked on the whole flight in all classes which I thought would be unlikely.
Also told me there are no flights close to that time I can switch to.
Also told I cannot switch seats with DH so I have the cot position seat.

DS is tall and wriggly so even if me and DH swap seats so I can BF on takeoff the person next to me is going to have kicking feet in their lap. I don't want to be a total pain to other passengers but us sitting apart is going to mean a lot of getting up and down, shouting out etc I can just see it going wrong.

Any advice on how to get this resolved?
Not sure what else I can do

[flow4]

(Sorry - didn't spot this was an old thread )

[flow4]

Don't worry. Whatever anyone 'official' says, no-one else is going to want to sit next to your baby. Even if you are exceptionally unlucky and a find there is a really really stupid mean person sitting in the next seat who refuses to swap, they will change their mind the very moment your baby first starts crying for a feed and you say sweetly "Go ahead, s/he likes the left breast first" !

[TheToadLessTravelled]

Yes I second the motion to vote backinthebox as the new head of customer experience!

[UnexpectedItemInShaggingArea]

Backinthebox - can I vote for you to be the next Managing Director of Customer Experience please?

[TheToadLessTravelled]

Backinthebox thank you for all your advice! I will send off an email tonight and let you know what happens.

Not sure why we got a paper ticket. Everyone has been surprised we got given one, even Jetstar who supposedly required it did not know how to process it! And it seems to have caused probs with the online system as well a we cannot do anything online.

[StrawberrytallCAKE]

I could access my online booking but it still didn't let me seat me, dh and my just 3yo daughter together earlier in the year.

[Rosa]

The 6 digit code is also on the paper ticket ...even if they are the 'cardboard boarding pass ones or even the mega mega old carbon copy ones...not seen one of them for years. You should be able to access your booking on line as well with this. It is on there..

[Backinthebox]

PS I am really surprised that you were issued with paper tickets - it is almost unheard of these days to have paper tickets, normally you would be issued with a 6 digit/letter booking reference. The same system is used by most major travel and holiday companies round the world. It's the most reliable way of letting passengers access and change their bookings on their own computers - which, if you had been able to access your booking online, you wouldn't be having this trouble now!

[Backinthebox]

Hello, am back. I can't comment on any individual situations, (and very tired at the moment, having been out flying.) But if you really want to write to a relevant person, that person would be Frank van der Post, Managing Director - Customer Experience. He is very high up. You could try him on frank.vanderpost at ba.com, but I didn't tell you that.

[TheToadLessTravelled]

Update from BA... Or rather non update. The local call centre cannot even see our ticket terms as we were issued a paper ticket, so cannot advise on refunds.

They have recommended calling the UK call centre (at our expense) to see if they can help. Now we just have to wait till UK working hours.

The call centre could not even assist with a complaint.

All in all yet another appalling customer service experience from BA to add to our collection.

[MrsMuddyPuddles]

oh, absoultely! Try to get your arms crossed, if you can. For the baby, I'd go with screaming it's head off, if possible

[Downandoutnumbered]

BA used to be great but are pretty crap these days (brother works for them...). Def change to Air NZ if you can.

[TheToadLessTravelled]

Daily fail story you say?

Do I get to do the classic disappointed face while pointing? Perhaps we can get the baby to look disappointed as well

[SoupDragon]

They didn't used to charge extra for those bulkhead positions

IME, BA still don't. They charge you to prebook your seat allocation, not for the bulkhead seats per se. In fact, I was unable to prebook the bulkhead seats until I got to online check in 24 hours before departure - I had paid to reserve 4 different seats and simply changed them to bulkhead ones on check in.

[Lueji]

:o

[MrsMuddyPuddles]

This sounds like the sort of story the Daily Fail might like to cover... just sayin, like...

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

And yes they didnt used to charge extra but flying has become much more competitive so it isn't surprising they do now. I expect BA are not the only "mainstream" airline to do so.

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

Hi grimma yes I don't know why they couldn't change the boarding passes but practically speaking the OP and DH would have been able to swap whatever the reason.

I do think the OP was given poor info as the person on the phone could have said that although the boarding passes couldn't change, they could swap seats with each other.

[GrimmaTheNome]

But Grimma, the baby was seated with the DH
who is doubtless a fine father, but not much good when if an ascending baby needs suckling. From what the OP has said, they didn't just let them simply swap places. That's why I said 'of the parents' choice' - we all know which parent our child needs most (in my DDs case, when scared of flying it had to be dad).

They didn't used to charge extra for those bulkhead positions, they used to allocate those seats based on need. A decent airline would still do the latter, even if it meant refunding legroom charges

[Alligatorpie]

I put in a comment / complaint about BA saying I would get my stroller, yet sending it on to my final destination, leaving me with a five hour stopover, a 10 week old and no stroller. I was told it could take 28 days for a response. It has been 21, I am still waiting.

[Rosa]

The standard cust rel email , generally has an I am sorry and then totally ignores your complaint and then gives you phone numbers of the offices. I once printed off my email , as gota crap reply posted it and got an email reply 21 days after my posting with a ?100 voucher and a proper apology... It was a genuine complaint as yours is.....but a short haul flight. Don't give up....

[StrawberrytallCAKE]

This is the email address showing for the CEO of BA, Keith Williams - [email protected]

[TheToadLessTravelled]

My issue is that we were showing as sitting together when I booked the flight we have just taken. Who is to say we would not get moved again

I will try and get a sky couch held on AirNZ before we cancel the BA ticket so that if we have to we can use the BA ticket if they are full.

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

Toad when is your flight back? If you are currently showing as sitting together you might be better to stay as you are than risk Air NZ being full?

[TheToadLessTravelled]

Yep we tried BA on Facebook and Twitter but no response apart from a standard format reply on twitter.

I find it shocking that it is so hard to get then to address the issue. Which is why I will be calling them today to see if we can cancel the flight and book on AirNZ instead .

Cannot face going through this again!