I have a bit of a story about BMI too, being a passenger.
Basically I wanted to book a flight for my girlfriend, LHR to EDI after she had flown in from Asia (she's not from UK). This would have been the first time I saw her in 6 months. We're both students so money was a problem, however we managed to get her a flight with Qatar landing in LHR - the only flight left that would have worked for her. We had to do everything last minute as we had just got her visa, and if I didn't see her this time, because our uni holidays, I wouldn't have seen her for another 4 months as we couldn't afford the tickets getting more expensive day by day. With this, there was only 1 flight that we could have got her from LHR to EDI. That was with BMI, and it even involved her having to wait 10 hours overnight in the airport and it was already in the late £xx's, the price went up every day and pretty fast.
So, I called up BMI to book the BMI flight for her. Couldn't use her card as her debit card wasn't recognised. OK, I said to the girl on the phone - I'll use my debit card. (maestro). I didn't/don't have a credit card. Was then told by her I couldn't use my debit card as she would have to show it at check in, and if she couldn't show it - she wouldn't be allowed to board the plane. Ok, we didn't have any time to waste because, as I said before, the ticket was getting too expensive. She held all the details and said she will call me back in a few hours once I find out how to put the money on another card - which I didn't have so i'd have to use someone's credit card.
Cue a few hours later just as I was about to go to put the money on another card, and a guy working for BMI calls me. "No, you don't have to pay using another card. You can use your maestro for your girlfriend as she is travelling after x amount of days which means the payment would have already been cleared, therefore no problem". He also said that the girl who called me before was wrong in what she said. Brilliant - finally knew I would be seeing my girlfriend for the first time in ages. Booked the flight for her and didn't need to worry about anything before.
..at least that's what I thought. 30 minutes later, the girl calls me back up. "Mr x. I told you that you cannot use your maestro card for your girlfriend". She went on to say that she would not be allowed to board the plane at all, and made that clear to me. I told her what her colleague told me on the phone, then she said HE was wrong, he is new and he didn't know what he was talking about. She was also talking pretty nastily to me, even laughing at me when I asked her to refund me the charge! She said i'd have to wait 1 week or so to get the money back - 1 week we didn't have at all as I had no other money and that ticket was the ONLY ticket we could have got my girlfriend. So it was looking like my girlfriend would be arriving in LHR with no way to get up here to Edinburgh. I should state that train/bus was not an option at this time.
Whatever solution I came up with on the phone to her, she talked it down and she even started to get sarcastic and annoyed at me - this was me, keeping calm thinking that if I done that, she might just do something that would sort it all out.
I told her that it wasn't my fault at all as her colleague had told me that there would be NO problem. I told her that she was working for BMI, she knew the situation, so she could put a note on the system when my girlfriend checks-in at LHR allowing her to board the plane. Nope, she laughed at that too and said she wouldn't (not couldn't), wouldn't do that for me. She couldn't wait to get off the phone and she basically ended it very quickly with me completely confused about the whole situation. She said she would call me later once
I have found a solution.
I ended up calling the head office for BMI and told one girl the situation. She only had to hear it once, and 2 minutes later she had put a note on the system so that when my girlfriend checked-in there would be no problem and she wouldn't need to show my maestro card to get on the plane. She was brilliant.
So, that same day as I went to the bank (to sort out student stuff) and I got a call from the girl at BMI (the one that had an agenda against me). I told her that I spoke to a lady at BMI's head office and that she put a note in the system. Cue her telling me that, no, she couldn't do that and she AGAIN continued to tell me that my girlfriend wouldn't be able to board the plane. After talking for a minute, she basically said something like "OK, up to you, if you want to take that risk then you can, however your girlfriend will not be able to board the plane". Last time I heard of her. Thank god.
1 week or so later, my girlfriend boarded the flight LHR-EDI and I was able to see her the first time in a very long time.
BMI - NO customer service at all. Also, i'm not trying to be funny, it is
very hard to understand them over the phone when calling customer service/reservations/BMI diamond club or whatever. I must have called 5-6 times in total over a long period of time, and i'm also answered by someone with a very hard accent to understand - possibly Indian?
sorry for the long post.