View Full Version : BA auto-ticking insurance box?
MrSoft
2nd May 2008, 16:06
Just realised I have accidentally bought single-trip travel insurance on a BA booking, cost £9.
I have gone back and simulated my exact booking on ba.com and just cannot work out what I did wrong of how I got stung for this!
Tried all day to get through to EC and customer services without success - wonder if any other posters have experienced this insurance issue with BA?
I am usually vigilant to this sort of nonsense and hope, against hope, that BA aren't joining in on the hidden charges game . . .
G-BPED
2nd May 2008, 17:21
Just realised I have accidentally bought single-trip travel insurance on a BA booking, cost £9.
I have gone back and simulated my exact booking on ba.com and just cannot work out what I did wrong of how I got stung for this!
Tried all day to get through to EC and customer services without success - wonder if any other posters have experienced this insurance issue with BA?
I am usually vigilant to this sort of nonsense and hope, against hope, that BA aren't joining in on the hidden charges game . . .
Hello Mr.Soft
I have just been on the BA website and made a simulated booking.
Regretably BA seem to have stooped someway towards hidden charging.
On the Passenger Details part of the booking there is the Insurance box and it is automatically ticked!!!
I guess they are trying to get back some of the money they lost in the T5 fiasco :}
Bit of a low step I feel.
Good luck with getting your money back
Regards,
G-BPED
candoo
2nd May 2008, 17:30
Not a new thing, Easy have been doing it for some time.
Just make sure you process your "ticket buying experience" to your requirements and all will be well.
Hidden charge for numpties?
PAXboy
3rd May 2008, 00:23
In the same area - FlyBe automatically 'check box' you one suitcase in the hold for each sector you book - and charge you for it. You must remember to un-check.
MrSoft
3rd May 2008, 07:01
...I posted before about the need for travellers to keep their wits about them ;)
I check for these things religiously with the LCCs, but never thought BA would do it. How sad that BA seem on a mission to destroy expectations of them as reasonable.
Anyway got through to the EC. Yes, no problem, they will refund. (Plus an off the record quip about "random practices" un-quote). They sounded totally ready for it, and it was done in 30 seconds. The fulfilment was so professional, a nice gracious letter plus quality colour-printed, BA branded insurance booklet. Trust BA to get it wrong, but do it beautifully.
VAFFPAX
3rd May 2008, 14:44
Oh yes, I got that too the other day, but I did untick it... I'm very sensitive to crap like that.
S.
Travel insurance of this type normally pays about a 50% commission to the seller, so that's £4.50 extra for BA.
The CAA should be insisting that anything auto-ticked should therefore be included in the advertised ticket base price, rather than added on. Of course, they would find it too tedious to enforce their own regulations.
PAXboy
5th May 2008, 11:26
How lovely to see, WHBM, the quaint idea that the CAA should monitor the airlines for fairness to their customers. I agree but the world has changed too far.
The Conservative party that privatised the airlines and the airports and then made the CAA into an 'agency' to protect the politicians, dreamt up the slogan 'a light touch of regulation'. We have been doomed ever since - and across a wide range of services.
the quaint idea that the CAA should monitor the airlines for fairness to their customers.
It's not quaint at all. There is a whole department of the CAA, the Consumer Protection Group, set up to do this very task :
http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=148&pagetype=90&pageid=2319
http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=436
Lots of cost to a combination of the taxpayer and the various fees the CAA charge us. God knows what this department actually achieves.