[mayfam]

My wife checked in at Venice (VCE) with an online award ticket to fly to LGW and on to Tampa (TPA). The papers showed the itinerary, the amount paid in fees and taxes, and the ticket number. BA even sent her an invitation to check in online.

At VCE airport's BA check-in desk, the BA agent found her reservation out of order in the BA system. A previous reservations agent had erred with an entry concerning the VCE-LGW leg. Rather than remedy this herself, the agent sent my wife to call BA in Milan!!! My wife does not speak Italian, but had to buy a phone card, and learn to use the local phones to call BA in Milan. Milan promised to get it fixed, leaving my wife to go back to the check-in line and hope the matter had been remedied. Eventually it was.

If my wife had not scurried so successfully, BA might have been liable for an overnight stay at VCE, a canceled overnight stay at LGW, and fresh tickets for VCE-LGW-TPA. In other words, my wife saved BA a ton of money.

I cannot believe a BA check-in agent can be so ill-trained as to not have sorted this out herself on her own computer. But to expect the passenger to go on a runaround to call BA herself (luckily finding the other BA office "in") takes quite some insulting nerve.

BA does not dispute that the error was their own fault by the original reservations agent.

BUT THAT'S NOT THE END OF IT. BA'S CUSTOMER SERVICE ONLINE PRODUCED A GRUDGING OFFER OF A SMALL CREDIT OFF FUTURE PAID TRAVEL ON BA. SINCE WE LIVE IN TAMPA, FROM WHERE BA'S ONLY FLIGHT IS TO LONDON, THIS AMOUNTS TO US PAYING $1000 OR MORE FOR THE RIGHT TO TAKE A FEW DOLLARS OFF THAT TICKET PRICE. Why? The compensation cannot be used on award travel, or even on the portion of award travel that are airline-imposed fees. In other words, even the portion of an award ticket that we pay cash for (like the so-called fuel surcharge) cannot be paid from the BA offer.

That, at any rate, is BA's Mr. LaBott's offer. Clearly BA doesn't grasp the seriousness of making a passenger, who attempts to check in at a BA check-in desk with normal BA-reservation papers for a ticket already charged for, go hunting at a foreign airport for the means to make a phone call to another BA office to sort out a BA reservations error that the check-in clerk should have sorted out herself.

[The_Judge]

She doesn't speak Italian but she is in Italy??? Hmmmm

And as far as an offer of a small credit on future travel, what would you have them offer you for such a small issue? A free roundtrip to London from Tampa? Use your head, dude.

[mayfam]

A number of people visit Italy without speaking the local language. Think . . . it's one of the world's main tourist destinations. Even these people have a right to a straightforward check-in from their airline. The airline shouldn't be sending them (Italian-speaking or not) to make phone calls to the very same airline to fix the airline's errors. That becomes more difficult in a foreign language and phone system. I don't think my wife was unusual in finding this a challenge. Italian isn't one of the languages she speaks.

My wife is open to a reasonable response from BA. No, she doesn't expect a free transatlantic roundtrip.

[The_Judge]

Do you think when a person calls an agent, that that agent can speak English worse than the agent at the airport? You never mentioned how she got her point across to the person on the telephone since your wife doesn't speak Italian. Oh, my guess is that the person on the other end of the phone spoke English just as well as the one that was standing in front of her.

Again...you never mention what you 'expect' for such a very small misunderstanding.

[mayfam]

The BA check-on agent spoke good English, but chose not to (or could not) work the reservations computer to clear up the problem. She referred my wife to call BA Executive Club in Milan, who also spoke good English. But the check-in agent left my wife to her own devices to find a telephone, pay for the call by first finding and buying the right phone card, make the call, and get lucky by finding BA Exec Club open for business and responsive, and without getting a dropped connection.

Those things aren't rocket science, but they can be challenging for foreigners. I myself am a world traveler (as in 100 countries) but I find those things hard in a foreign country. My own previous attempt to use a payphone in Italy didn't result in a connection. Remember my wife was under pressure to get this sorted out in time to make a second shot at checking in in a timely way. I don't call that an insignificant problem for a passenger. It may well seem insignificant for an airline employee based in that locale, or for a hardened and embittered airline employee at any locale.

Remember my wife shouldn't have been asked to do anything other than check-in timely in the first place, which she did. No language issues would have arisen.

I'll happily negotiate with BA on this. Whatever I mention on this forum will be counter-productive, because it will look like a demand - which it is not. Once again, I am not expecting a free roundtrip ticket from Tampa to London - which you mentioned and not me.

[mayfam]

I don't know why you call this a misunderstanding (and very small). There was no misunderstanding. There was just incompetence at the check-in counter, and a bad decision to send the passenger on a run to solve BA's error.

I should have mentioned that my wife had to leave the check-in counter still with her baggage, so she had to drag this around to get the phone card, etc., etc., all this with travel papers in her other hand, etc. At her age, only a really insensitive reader would take her to task.

[jimworcs]

Isn't this all a bit making a mountain out of molehill?

I agree if BA make a mistake, the burden on them is to fix it and this should be done in the way that least inconveniences the customer. So lets review what happened.

The check in clerk was unable to process the ticket. It is perfectly possible that because this was an award ticket, issued by the Executive Club, that her systems would not allow her to change the booking. So she suggested your wife call the Executive Club office and get them to fix it.

You would think she has been asked to drag her luggage to Milan, queue for hours, strip naked and dance a jig. Your level of outrage and insistence that this burden of being asked to make a phone call, to speak to someone who spoke perfectly good english, is ridiculous. VCE is not a BA hub with large scale operations. It is perfectly possible that they do not have full staffing capable of handling back office operations based at the airport. If asking your wife to make a phone call, in a modern country like Italy, is too much of a burden for her and requires compensation, perhaps she should not be travelling alone.

Having said that, she managed it fine and it was all resolved. What remedy do you want? What would be fair? You don't say, because you can't bring yourself to put a value of her "trauma". You are a drama queen, dressed up as an experienced international traveller.

I recently had a problem of a charge which appeared on my credit card that was not made by me. The card was applied for, and issued by, my local bank with their brand plastered across the front of it. I went into my branch and raised a query regarding the charge. You will not believe what the bank clerk did. She asked me to call a number and report the matter the the credit card fraud department. Naturally, I immediately burst into tears, fainted and when I recovered, I was forced, against my will, to make the phone call. Why should I make the call? Surely the bank should have fixed it right there and then? I will be demanding they pay off my mortgage as compensation... I just don't know what the world is coming to.

[mayfam]

BA offered a few Avios as compensation. We accepted it. Done deal.

Holding an airline accountable for its errors, to the extent one can, plays a small role in preventing them for others. Much better than doing nothing.

Thanks for the input.