Terrible customer service from British Airways

[Dreamqueen]

Is it unreasonable to expect a refund of more than £50 when BA don't provide what you've paid for? My Mum asked me to post this on FB for her so I thought I'd ask for opinions on here too. Here is her story.

On 2 June 2017 I travelled from Port of Spain to Gatwick with British Airways. As I’m 81 years I booked Club World because it was a night flight and I wanted a good night’s sleep especially as I had a ticket for Sadlers Wells on the day of arrival. Plane was 11/2 hours late coming into Trinidad and we had a long wait in a cold lounge but that was OK because I was looking forward to a comfortable bed on the flight.

My seat couldn't recline and after 2 stewards failed to move it, I was told it was broken. They couldn't offer me a different seat as the flight was fully booked. I had a very uncomfortable night looking around at everyone else asleep under their blankets. Towards the end of the flight the manager took the details and offered me £50 or 10,000 Avios miles. Bearing in mind the cost of the upgrade is 30,000 air miles, I refused the offer.

I wrote to BA to inform them what had happened. On 13 June I had a call from Jim ( who refused to give his surname ) of Customer Relations BA and he made me the same offer of £50 or 10,000 air miles. I explained to him that I had paid for a seat which should recline and asked for an upgrade from Premium Economy to Club World on my next flight from Port of Spain to Gatwick. He refused on the grounds that I had “enjoyed “ Club World and that they had apologized. The meal wasn't very good, I don't drink alcohol, my seat wouldn't recline and having to sit up all night didn't feel any better than Premium Economy so his
apology was no comfort.

I feel British Airways is trying to short change me so I told him I should get what I paid for and would put my case on Facebook to get a fair opinion.

We don't fly BA anymore. Shocking service. An embarrassment to our country. We are flying Singapore Airlines on our forthcoming holiday, and expect it to be much better.

Wow.

I got 25,000 air miles for a piece of falling overhead locker in Economy Class.

So, I would say they definitely need to offer more.

That's ridiculous! They should definitely be doing more to compensate.

Although working in customer service myself in the job I do we are told not to give out our surnames. It's pretty common as people can take to blaming the CS agent directly for company policy and finding them on social media, abusing them etc. It sounds extreme but there are people out there that do this. I've been on the receiving end with someone trying to ask me out on Facebook, it got really creepy towards the end and I was very intimidated. The agent was perfectly correct not to give his surname. Just thought I'd shed some light on that in case it came across as him being deliberately evasive.

The rest of it is completely ridiculous though. Don't settle for 50 quid! I hope it all gets sorted for her
Xx

I can understand the reasoning for not giving full names but that doesn't excuse the terrible customer service. maybe because the passenger is old they don't think they will complain or have social media skills..

Please keep persisting & escalate each time. I think it generally takes at least three letters before they give in!
I'm sick & tired of BA thinking we are happy for them to compete with the budget airlines; what we pay through the nose for is a quality service to try & lessen the discomfort of travelling; if we wanted shit service we'd fly the green or orange ones!

I'd not be fussed by the seat not converting on a day flight but on a night flight the major selling point is a bed, you aren't there to "enjoy the club world experience", you get on have a bite to eat and sleep.
My daughter ended up in premium economy after her flight with them from New York got cancelled and the next flight didn't have any seats in Club, she got over £600 back without any quibbling. Your DM has had a premium economy experience, maybe with slightly better food - certainly worth more than £50 and some avios points!

I had a seat that wouldn't recline on a flight from Helsinki to Seoul, Finair however have an inflight chair engineer who were able to fix. Does show what airlines can do if they want to change.

That's very poor - I would do the suggestion above of writing into the Times.
Keep pushing for it.

I was disappointed by BA when I last flew with them about 2 months ago. I was flying with my two DCs (both under 6) and the food situation was a joke. I don't mind paying for food on a flight, but the new system was so disorganised that the air stewards spent the entire 2 hour flight blocking the gangway with their trolley and we finally received our food as we were landing! A lot of frustrated customers on that flight....

Disgusting way to treat a customer

Second contacting Simon Calder.

BA is getting ridiculous. High prices but poor service, especially on the ground. The Mixed Fleet cabin crew is paid absolute peanuts, to the point where they need a second job to pay their rent -it's really shameful. It's apparently not possible to pay people salaries on which normal people can live on...

Your claim is very valid, escalate it. Their offer is simply unacceptable, the mind boggles that they didn't offer any better actually.

thank you for all your ideas. I'll contact Simon Calder at his column today and continue on social media.In the grand scheme of things these days it's a minor difficulty but BA's response is poor. Would have expected betterfrom a national carrier.

The new CEO, Alex Cruz, previously worked for some offshoot of American Airlines and it shows.
Was due to him offshoring the IT function that they had that total service meltdown recently.
I don't know what on earth they are thinking... they are now Ryainair without the efficiency yet they still charge premium prices.

That is bad.

What saddens me also is that someone younger didn't swap seats with your mum.

I had a complete nightmare with virgin Atlantic. A catalogue of screw ups. They ignored my 2 page letter/email of complaint for three weeks, till I started copying Richard Brandon's email address into every 'chase'. I got overall about 3k (family of 3) in the end.
YANBU - keep
Chasing- I'm afraid they are all as bad as each other!

Does your mum do a good DM sad face?

Complain on their portal on their website too but you may have to respond a few times, I had one reply from someone who clearly couldn't speak English as the reply was laughable and they hadn't grasped the complaint at all . We continued with complaint, rejected the first offer and actually got more than double cost of the flight as compensation.

BA has lost its selling point for me, their customer service used to be fantastic, they are no better than the economy lines now.

Re Emirates good customer service, yes Emirates are so good they will demand that their female employees get an abortion and aren't allowed to be dropped off by anyone other than their husband.

Most airlines have shit Cs, but it's party for people demand - no one wants to pay extra for tickets that would cover good C's.

That's shocking. "Club World experience" my arse! Your poor DM. I agree with PP that ageism was likely a factor and that yes, you should persevere until you get a satisfactory outcome. TripAdvisor is a good place to air grievances also.

The last time I flew BA, which was long haul and my first time flying with their precious Club World, my screen didn't work so I spent most of the night flight flipping through a magazine or trying to get comfortable on the fully reclining seat with the very prickly blanket and the chemical scented pillow. Unlike the flight out, (Vancouver to Heathrow, which was great) the meal on the return flight was mediocre.