British Airways - more ground service incompetence
 

I booked 4 x leisure tickets, for about £4K.

Got a call a couple of weeks ago, from BA, asking if i could check whether they had charged me.

That struck me as being rather incompetent, but I did phone my credit card company and then reverted to BA to say that they have not.

Imagine my surprise this morning, when I received my credit card statement and discovered that BA had charged the tickets on three separate occasions and credited once.

So, more time listening (at my expense) to canned music whilst waiting for a call centre agent and a promise to sort it out.

Pathetic.

This company needs to get its act together, the ground service is often incompetent.

Would it not have been better to call your credit card company (likely vastly cheaper) and leave them to sort it out?

Wouldn't have needed to call anyone if BA had done a competent job, would I?

Could you not just add this to one of the many other "I don't like BA" threads you have started? How many is that now?

http://www.pprune.org/passengers-slf...ompetence.html

http://www.pprune.org/passengers-slf...one-again.html

http://www.pprune.org/passengers-slf...t-service.html

http://www.pprune.org/passengers-slf...cord-loss.html

http://www.pprune.org/passengers-slf...a-so-long.html

http://www.pprune.org/passengers-slf...a-service.html

Skipness 1E

Have you noticed the common relationship between all these threads?

They are fact based and derived from British Airways ability to screw up.

I have stated several times that the service in the air is usually acceptable or better, so it is not as simple as 'I don't like BA', I just have reservations (drawn from personal experience, not hearsay) about the ground service.

Come on, to invoice someone three times for the same ticket, on three separate days, is not a glowing recommendation, is it?

And then to only credit one invoice?

So no, I think this latest episode deserves a thread.

BA can stop threads such as this very easily, by doing things right, first time.

Is basic competence really too much to expect?

Final 3 Greens

From one of your earlier posts;

So what changed?

Airclues

I don't on business, the context of the other thread.

This is a leisure trip, where the schedule convenience was high.

Dude seriously if they screwed me over like they hurt you I'd really not fly with them again. You're like a rubber ball, you keep going back !

Clearly pain is something you enjoy(!) It's entertaining listening to you rant though.

F3G just loves complaining. S/he also like to tell us about J travel. (I should be so lucky.)

However, without F3G and others complaining, will BA's service ever improve?

Long may S/he complain.

if you don't want to read F3G's complaints, move on to the next topic.

Also, if you are really fed up with a particular poster, you can place them into your IGNORE list and then you will never see any post from them when you log on under your regular name! If someone quotes them, you will then see a reference and the quote, of course.

AO

Not in this instance :-) This is W, a very pleasant way to travel on hols I reckon and excellent vfm if booked earlier.

£4K for 4 x return transatlantic flts on 24/31 December is a good deal.

F3G you are so unlucky with BA, in the thousands of flights I have booked with them over the years the only problems I have had have been caused by industrial action!

The main reason I have just booked my next 4 USA trips and my next months Australia trip with other carriers is purely based on I dont know when this industrial action mess will be solved.

I am currently in Rome, I was on one of the BA charters this morning, t5 was a joy, not empty, but not packed, the flight was just about on time, and they even moved it to counter the baggage handlers in Rome being onstrike.

I think that the airline and the good people that work there cant go out of their way enough to help. The only problem is the few trying to spoil it, and to be honest, you seem to always get bitten by one of the few.

I would hate to visit a casino with you!

I'd suggest if anyone tried that to me I would be pressing charges for fraud.......you can blame incompetance or the 'computer' only so many times.....and is often used to hide behind.

More seriously though, they're out to get you and the pax list probably has an asterix next to your name to ensure bodily fluids are added to your inflight........make sure you change/swap seats with some other pax once onboard......now there's some sound advice!

Then again, if they are that incompetant, they'll probably sabotage the wrong passenger inflight and, knowing your luck, you'll probably swap seats with the unlucky pax!
:*

I hope he doesn't mind me mentioning this but by chance, I bumped in F3G at my local airport. Not only was he a very nice, if frighteningly intelligent gent but I have to say, he was also completely fair in his viewpoints.

I hate to admit it, but certain areas of our ground service leave a lot to be desired, as I'm sure many can testify. Just ask 13Alpha! I've come up against it more than once, whilst trying to assist various people. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of people working on the ground that do their all for customers but there are also enough of the other kind to make it a problem.

My wish for the future? We get all this Union rubbish out the way, Mr Walsh moves on to his next problem airline and we get someone in that is willing to go right back to the basics. Will it happen? Who knows but I can always hope!

You know, I don't think so. In a strange wya, it would be reassuring if it was.

JSL

Hi - hope things are well with you.

If BA had people like you and Glamgirl running the back office, I'me sure this would not happen.

Once again, my beef is not with the airline, but with the BA business, if that is not an oxymoron.

Don't get me started ;)

I am currently on a one-man mission to drink BA's executive club lounges dry and eat all their shortbread before my silver card runs out in May...

13Alpha

Lets get this right:

By his own admission, the man gets a call from BA "have we charged you for the tickets" he says he checked with his credit card company then went back to BA and said "no you haven't"
Receives credit card bill and finds that he had been charged.

BA contacted the man as they realised they may have screwed up, when he said he hadn't been charged, of course they took the money.

The main charge of incompetence rests either with the card company or the client.

Bongodog

I don't know what part of my post you had troubling understanding, but it is customary for companies to charge only once for providing a service.

Not three times.

How was I to blame, for being helpful and confirming the situation.

How was the credit card company to blame, for accepting three billings from a reputable merchant?

The blame on this lies entirely with BA for incompetence, there is no excuse.

Furthermore, as the company realised that they had overcharged and posted a credit (for only one overcharge), common courtesy would tend to suggest an email informing the client, as the credit could take a few days to go through and it might impact the client's credit limit (in fact it did and it didn't.)

Despite BA havng my email address, they didn't bother to let me know.

Just more bad practice from a company that needs to service it's clients very well in the present market.

So when they contacted you to ask if they had charged you, why did you give them the wrong answer ?

I didn't. They called before making first charge.