[pabu]

During the December 2010 big freeze, BA asked us online to cancel our flight to the US in order not to add to the chaos. We canceled and re-booked with another airline. For technical reasons, our cancellation had not gone through correctly.

4 months worth of requests to BA customer relations and complaint department (who just keep sending us back and forth) have not brought a solution any closer and weird things have happened to our bookings since.

Read the entire story on http://troublewithba.com!

[jimworcs]

Do you have small claims court in Switzerland? That might concentrate their minds. You might also try writing to "readers rants" in the travel section of the Sunday Times or to "Watchdog" at the BBC. You ay find houbara not the only one with this problem.

You should also write a detailed step by step outline of your complaint to the official agency in the UK for handling these complaints. They can at least force BA to address definitively their position, instead ofpassing you from pillar to post. You can find them here....

http://www.auc.org.uk/

[Jamesr44]

Originally Posted by pabu

During the December 2010 big freeze, BA asked us online to cancel our flight to the US in order not to add to the chaos. We canceled and re-booked with another airline. For technical reasons, our cancellation had not gone through correctly.

4 months worth of requests to BA customer relations and complaint department (who just keep sending us back and forth) have not brought a solution any closer and weird things have happened to our bookings since.

Read the entire story on http://troublewithba.com!

Switzerland is covered by the EC Regulation 261/2004 comepensation for airline passengers denied boarding, flight cancellation or long delays.
This may compensate you and the other passengers with Euro 600 each.
Have a look at euclaim.com

[pabu]

Jimworcs, Jamesr44,

Thanks for your valuable suggestions.

The most annoying thing about this case to us is repeating our case over and over again and then waiting for weeks for something to happen or not to happen. Going to any kind of court will just be more of that.

As somebody at British Airways should by now know what we are asking for, and as I don't think we are asking for anything unreasonable, my strategy is to show BA we are unwilling to give up by putting pressure on them in an area I like to work in and which allows, with some perseverance and imagination, Mr. Nobody to be some kind of a match to a giant like BA: the Internet.

I published our page last Friday, the following Monday we got an email promising that our case is being passed on to refunds - maybe this strategy is actually working!

If not, the Air Transport Users Council will certainly be worth a shot.

Even though the compensation might amount to a similar sum, I'd rather not go this way, simply because our demands are clear and I don't want to distract from them.

I am however thrilled by the quick and warm response to our case by the Internet community so far.

[jimworcs]

There is a letter published today in the Sunday Times (Money Section, p2) in which someone had the exact same problem as you, for a booking on 22nd December from LHR to LAX. BA initially refused their request for the refund, on the grounds they had no record of it. Because the customer had a computer history which proved they had cancelled, BA refunded it as a "gesture of goodwill". This is more than a coincidence and there may be many others in the same boat. I hope you will publicise your case, as BA may be trying to deceive their customers here. It is outrageous. If they know their website had a problem, it is bordering on fraud to deny customer refunds...

[pabu]

This is indeed interesting! After having written our email to the CEO, we are now also getting a full goodwill refund, accompanied by exemplary customer service communication.

According to BA, it is likely that we have forgotten the last step in our cancellation process. As we are on a house exchange without access to the computer on which we made the cancellation, this is currently hard for us to find out.

So, considering we finally got what we asked for, I see no sense in further publicizing my case, I would simply like to point out to others in a similar situation that you sometimes need to give customer services a little motivational push before they give you the attention you deserve :-)

[jeffm91]

A cautionary tale and note of assistance to all those who have suffered the misfortune of travelling with British Airways and experiencing their unique brand of so-called Customer Service:

BA are an unmitigated disgrace when it comes to customer service and they totally ruined our wedding and honeymoon travel.

My wife and I suffered an appalling trip at the hands of this company and Mr Keith Williams, CEO, and his management could not be more disinterested.

We suffered rubbish on the floor, rude and ignorant BA staff and no food in the Lounge at Gatwick. We had no working entertainment screens, broken seat tables, faulty seat controls, rude and ignorant cabin crew, burned food, an hour wait for dinner and another hour delay being served at breakfast; not to mention the insects, yes, insects, in the seat arm compartment. All this in First Class.

I suggest writing to the following in the hope you have better success than we did. We found emailing them daily was the fastest way to elicit a response. Start with an email to Mr Williams, copied to all. That should provide some response. Good luck.

keith.x.williams@ba.com
americas.communications@ba.com
amy.clasper@ba.com
andy.lord@ba.com
ben.marshall@ba.com
company.secretary@ba.com
Glenda.Midson@ba.com
gsrreplies@contact.britishairways.com
helen.blenkinsop@ba.com
Helena.Flynn@ba.com
international.media@ba.com
investor.relations@iairgroup.com
james.hillier@ba.com
Lynn.McClelland@ba.com
Mary.George@BA.com
media.relations@ba.com
media.relations@iairgroup.com
michele.kropf@ba.com
michelle.parker@ba.com
prensaintl@iberia.es
press@oneworld.com
radhika.raikhy@ba.com
Sanja.Simeunovic@ba.com
sarah.marzari@ba.com
shareholder.services@iairgroup.com
silla.maizey@ba.com
steve.sheterline@ba.com
tehreem.ashraf@ba.com
tobias.klitsch@ba.com
willie.walsh@iairgroup.com