British Airways Holidays - potential disability discrimination

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Right, name changed for this. Bear with me, this could be long.
The young student whom I support with multiple SNs and his mother have been treated appallingly by BA and I need some alternative perspectives from those who know more about these things.
Yesterday, they booked a seven night break away. While the booking was going through, several things happened. The screen froze, then seemed to go back on (there were a few compare options open on the BA website), mum (who has a vision impairment which BA already knew about) could not focus well because of all the flickering and completed the booking for what was the only suitable hotel for their disability needs i.e. not on a clifftop. Only after she got the email did she notice that it was the wrong one and for whatever reason, a clifftop resort in the middle of nowhere had been booked instead. She called and called but no reply.
She finally got through today, she mentioned all of the above. The agent was really off, saying that it was her fault, not BAs and saying that she could potentially charge £500 to book the hotel which she actually needed/had wanted all along. In the meantime (you've guessed it) flight price raised by £200 odd quid, the change fee of £100 not negotiable as "charged by the hotel" even though the hotel have confirmed they know nothing about it as BA pre-purchase a block of rooms from them and allocate among paying customers without their input.

Mum was in tears. Ended up being charged over £400 extra in total when it should have been £130 if the booking had gone through properly.
Mum asked to speak to the complaints team but was told by the manager that he wouldn't be putting her call through because she had no basis for a complaint as far as he was concerned.
He also tried to remove the breakfasts which were clearly stated as included (and listed that way on the BA website as well 'because this is not a new booking' but put them back on after she insisted. He also made the point that she should take responsibility as though it were her fault even when she explicitly pointed out their visual disabilities.
I know their ratings are down in the shit but isn't this blatant, unpleasant disability discrimination? It sounds like they could have just charged the difference from the point of sale price but instead forced over £400 extra out of her which makes their holiday more expensive than what it is selling for on their website in general or if they had booked it directly on the Hilton website. What about deliberately refusing to put her through to complaints? She also offered to take a full refund and book with another company but they would have charged her over £500 for that as well.

WWYD? Thanks for bearing with me!

Sounds like crappy customer service rather than discrimination

She should tweet them about it (not DM) and hope it gets a lot of traction… could even get picked up by a paper etc

What about telling her off for having visual impairments and telling her that it was her fault when she was not properly able to check every single page of the screens which were playing up due to problems with their website?

I have been trying to book flights with avios points for weeks. Their website is a joke and customer service even worse, good luck!

They're bastards. A relative of mine recently got an airport job, doing check-in and boarding. At the moment they're undergoing training. The trainer told my relative that BA can be a nightmare to work for (relative has thankfully been placed with a different airline). They routinely oversell seats, for flights where there is a pattern of passengers not showing up. In the worst case scenario, and all passengers turn up, staff are instructed never to turn away loyalty card customers, but to refuse old people, backpackers and students.
Awful, greedy company.
Sorry, irrelevant to what you are asking OP. But your predicament doesn't surprise me at all.

Your description doesn't sound like problems with their website rather a browser/device/ wifi problem.

No, this isn’t disability discrimination. This is poor customer service and it just happens that the customer has a disability. Really, she should have phoned up if she couldn’t see what she was booking, that was daft to say the least 🤷‍♀️ I mean, you can try the complaints route and they may give a goodwill gesture but there were alternative options for booking.

Very normal to oversell airline seats and to prioritise your frequent fliers.
Those bumped to the next flight a.) have to volunteer and b.) are usually rewarded in some way.

It's not discrimination. Their website will be fully accessible. User error is another matter.

The flight details were all ok. Is it actually true that the hotel would dictate to BT the terms for un-booking it when it clearly stated on their voucher that BT had purchased this product for resale which it was selling on to the customer?

Oops BA 😂

Why didn't she get someone else to book for her if she couldn't see the screen properly?

Shit customer service but failing to see how it's discrimination

Telling somebody off for their disability which contributed to the error is not on though?

Why would anybody dream of buying a package from them with this level of customer service when the majority of booking sites offer free cancellation up until the day you travel? Infact, my own experience is that I have memories of being refunded for non-refundable chain hotels in various places.

This.

How would you even know if it was BA's 'fault' that the screen glitched? Far, far, far more likely it was this lady's internet or own PC.

It is obviously poor customer service not to change the holiday out of goodwill but it would be goodwill, not an obligation as she'd booked under whichever T&C's.

Awful customer service maybe, but they haven’t actually done anything wrong here. There’s no way you could just book all that due to a website error. Unfortunately user errors are personal responsibility.

What exactly was the telling off for having a disability?

It sounds like a horrible situation for your friend, but unfortunately, I suspect that BA genuinely can’t do much about the hotel booking. I fly regularly with them and have booked accommodation and cars through their website.

Before you book a hotel, a statement comes up saying that hotel bookings are separate to flight bookings and are subject to different T & C’s. I can’t recall all the details, but I’m fairly sure that your friend will need to contact whichever company handles the hotel booking, not BA.

She definitely had crappy customer service from BA, but I suspect that they can’t alter the hotel booking. It’s the same with car rentals, you have to contact the car rental company directly to make changes.

Non-refundable or non-cancellable are usually cheaper so not at all unusual.

Did her disability stop her re-checking the details post-glitch? Presumably she could see as well as before (i.e. the glitch didn't make the font go half the size for the remainder of the booking?)

If she is unable to properly read Internet pages she should call instead or get someone to help with it. There's nothing to say the issue was with the website.

They could and should have been more helpfull. But I'd she was insisting its all their fault outs nor going to go down well.....

BA are not known for their stellar customer service. It doesn't sound like discrimination, they're awful at helping anyone with an issue, they don't discriminate in that respect.

That's helpful. Why did BA not say that to her and proceed to 'sort it out' themselves if it was outside their remit I wonder? Do you know which company deals with the hotel side of things by any chance?

It seemed to me to be disability discrimination that they openly blamed her as being at fault when their own website information states that they will do everything they can to support disabled passengers and ensure that their holiday proceeds smoothly (there are several pages of this kind of pledging).

Agree it sounds like very poor customer service and a total lack of empathy rather than discrimination. Get it on Twitter as, sadly, that seems to be the only way to get help from a lot of big companies. I would also go back and explore the available complaints routes as it sounds as though she should have been able to escalate the issue.

The most annoying thing was just afterwards, they put the price up to what they had made her pay for that particular package - for a couple of hours! When i was checking for her on my device (has do not trace, rejects cookies etc.) it was showing up at the inflated price.

I think it was really shitty of them but I do hear that they are like that towards all passengers. It is a sure way to end up down the plughole.

I wont tell her about the overselling but I am sincerely hoping that they won't cause any more issues.

BA customer service is known to be pretty dire, they are certainly an equal opportunities offender 😢 I would tweet them as previously suggested.

I have suggested the Twitter to her but she feels afraid to do it so not sure if the complaints route is feasible as she is really upset and actually doesn't even want to go. It is already hard due to disabilities and this has made it much worse as that should have been her food budget for the week. She also wanted me to to know that she is usually a Travelodge-budget customer. She was only considering the Hilton because all the other hotels on their website are high up on cliffs. It's a shame because if she had looked elsewhere, there were other options like small rentals dotted around the city but too late now.