[nickyu]

My husband and I started flying regularly with BA about 5 years ago and since then we have been regular First Class travellers, mainly to Washington DC, where we visit family approximately every 6 weeks, but also longer haul to LA and Hawaii and, most recently, to Aspen.

We are both Gold Executive members.

This last trip has seriously made me look into alternative airlines for travel in the future. Not only had this trip been a disaster with BA's incompetence and lack of care resulting in a 27 hour journey to Aspen, with lost luggage on both the outbound and return flights, hours spent on the phone with no real redress for BA's errors, and a complete disregard for our loyalty as customers.

Since I became a gold member in September 2014, we have spent tens of thousands of pounds on flights with BA and its partner airlines. As a result, I booked this flight for myself using Avios points. The Avios reward is supposed to be that - a gift from BA for using the airline so frequently in order to clock up enough points. From start to finish I was made to feel like some second class citizen for taking advantage of a rewards flight. The rules and regulations are onerous, your call centre - or that of your agent, Avios - gives incomplete and misleading information, and there is no sense of fairness involved in the system.

During our 27 hour journey to Aspen, we were shown very little help by BA. We flew with British Airways from London Heathrow to Dallas and were going to catch a further flight from there to Aspen. On boarding the Dallas flight everything was ok, until we were delayed by an hour, resulting in us missing our connecting flight to Aspen. My PA called BA to find out what the situation would be if we missed our flight and was informed we would need to go to a BA check-in desk where BA would help re-book us on arriving in Dallas. The crew on-board the flight also knew that we weren't going to make our flight on time and had notification that flights leaving before 5pm (our connecting flight) would need re-booking and this was when we were several hours from landing. Despite this, we had no assistance at all from BA, no ground staff and no one to handle re-booking us. On landing, we found a very helpful porter who helped us get to the BA desk in Dallas where our booking was made a complete mess of. Had BA tried to rebook us, there was a 5.45pm flight with your partner American Airlines which would have got us onto the last connection flight from Denver to Aspen with United Airlines. However, the BA ticket desk seemed unable to figure out the connection. Had BA worked on this more, we would have made the 5.45pm flight.

As it was, the BA team abandoned us and American Airlines took over. They wouldn’t recognise the BA ticketing and so we were not allowed on the 5.45pm flight. By this time, we went from the terminal we arrived, took a taxi from there to terminal C (5 minutes away by car because BA couldn’t issue a boarding card in the terminal so we could go through security in the terminal to make their flight.)

When we got to Terminal C, as mentioned, American Airlines would not recognise the BA paperwork and had to go back to the main American airlines check in to get a boarding card, but we were so late at this stage and at 5.30pm, the AA lady wouldn’t issue us with the boarding card to get the 5.45pm flight.

We were then rebooked onto a 9.15pm flight to Denver as there was no other flight. Neil, my husband got the last first class seat and myself in economy. From Denver we had to make our own way to Aspen, so our hotel is sent a car – this took 4 hours.

Despite all of this, the 3.5hr wait for the next flight to start boarding, we were not even offered a voucher to get food – the lounge only offered snacks of cheese, olives and crackers, we had to pay for sandwiches and there was no other proper food. We weren’t even offered accommodation in Dallas or Denver – we were abandoned to figure it out for ourselves.

We then had to pay $1000 for an SUV to get us to Aspen, and until this morning and hours of phone calls with American Airlines, knowing where our luggage was and whether we were going to receive it. Fortunately, we tracked down our baggage numbers and managed to get their luggage to Aspen by 2pm, 4 March. If it wasn’t for these endless phone calls and being placed on hold, I don’t know where our luggage would have ended up having been promised by the lady from BA that we would be on the 5.45pm flight. I don’t know why they allowed it to go without us being on the flight.

To add to this complaint, there was a complete fiasco in calling BA global baggage services in London. The first person we spoke to didn’t know what he was talking about and barely spoke English. The AA baggage representative said that he was incompetent and didn’t know how to locate our baggage tag numbers on the system. By mistake, in the rush we had given our paperwork to the BA people in Dallas and had not picked it up again, so we had no record of our baggage numbers. We wasted 45 minutes at the airport trying to find out from BA how to get help on this. Finally in desperation, I called back BA baggage and asked to speak to someone else. His name was Nithan and was very helpful and we eventually got our baggage numbers.

We did eventually get to Aspen and had a thoroughly enjoyable trip, no thanks to BA or American Airlines, but to top off the trip, my husband’s luggage was lost again on the return flight home and I had further issues with BA. Sadly, my husband’s Uncle had passed away during our trip and I had enquired, prior to departing that if something was to happen whilst we were away, what could I do. I was given incomplete and inaccurate information. The agent said I could change and get a refund of Avios points, 24 hours before the flight. They failed to say it’s the 24 hours before the first outbound flight!! The call centre said I would lose points as I had pain in points for a first class flight and there was only premium economy available. They said as a concession that they would refund points only if I could produce a death certificate. I explained it’s an uncle not immediate relative and it would be impossible to ask for a death certificate. I suggested that I send the funeral notice. They would not accept this. Quite unbelievable that they would be so rude and not understand how bad that would be to ask a grieving cousin for a death certificate.


My PA spent many hours on the phone to both BA and American Airlines, clocking up quite substantial phone bills and being told that BA would cover costs of up to £200 each for anything we required, we were also offered some air miles – never received.

We lost quite a substantial amount of money on this trip and are separately going through our insurance to claim for this, as BA were unwilling to help. Completely incompetent.

In general, over the year, the standard on BA has been falling. This trip the toilets were not kept clean, food was awful, wines were average, they even ran out of chocolates after the meal, the steward "Welcomed back" a number of Gold members, including Neil, but forgot me. He later realised and came back to welcome me back. Why are Gold members not welcomed back when we travel in other classes? It was a poor performance all round.