Have you got away yet Nige?
Nope, due to go at 20:50 tomorrow (wednesday), so leave home at 15:30, LHR - Hongkong, 1:20 on the ground - HK to Melbourne. Get in 24 hours later than originally planned having not had any time off, to pick up hire car and drive 3 hours to brother in laws. Just hope I'm not too knackered...
Still don't know where our bags are, after over 3 hours on the phone, I now have a lost baggage reference number, computer says "we are searching for your bags" ... so telling them they were in Singapore, and the lady who had Chris's has phoned again to say that she had delivered it to Changi AND explained that we would not be going through there at all, was a total waste of time apparently.
I accept that the folk who work for BA are probably nice, conscientious, hard working folks doing their best, but the system stinks, nah .. worse than that .. it's crap, everything done "on the cheap" and to suit the company not the customer .. why else only have an automated message system that will NOT allow contact to a human operator ??
When I "forced" them to put me through by a different route I got a "new" recorded message for a while which actually said "if you have a missing baggage reference number, log on to ba.com/baggage and enter the number. If you don't have one please hold for an agent. Please have your missing baggage reference number available for the agent" .... now .. I know I'm thick .. but where is the sense in that
and guess what the first question from the agent (eventually) was .....
Not happy, and it's NOT "knocking BA" .. its describing what has actually happened to me over the last 48 hours...
1) flight cancelled at 30 minutes notice (they must have known well before that point)
2) Message: "Contact Airline" .. so queues at information desk
3) Instruction: "leave the terminal by gate 24" .. to go where ?? to do what ??
3 hours later - 21:304) Information from BA girl, You must contact by phone we are not rebooking, leave the terminal - phone number given has a message "office hours at 9:30 to 5:00pm"
5) I ask her what I'm supposed to do when I "leave the terminal" - "go home and phone in tomorrow" - how do I get home - 80 miles and no car ? - "Oh.". thinks .. "go to section f in departures" - First piece of actual info in 3 hours.
6) leave terminal , but have to go via immigration, alog with thousands of others, 1 1/2 hours, to leave .. no sign of bags in baggage claim, no information, and no staff to ask.
7) Get to "section" F ... the idea of "help to arrange accommodation was to be given a leaflet if 6 languages that said .. make your own arrangements, we will only pay you the following amounts ...
8 ) Ask about bags .. "they are in secure storage and will be put on your rebooked flight"
9) Eventually get to hotel at gone midnight, no food and no beer...
10) Flight rebooked for late wednesday, hotel bill will be paid if we stay there, and eat on £25 a day, (breakfast £18, cheapest burger at the bar for lunch £13, so what about dinner ??) but if we go home the transport is not covered. So it seems we are expected to spend 5 days in the same clothes and hardly eat.
Add to that the message on the paperwork, and web site .. "we will keep you informed by email and SMS text" ... and just guess how many emails and texts I've had ?? Thats right .. NONE .. and yes, they DO have all my details, and I've checked them several times.
I also had a wife in tears who could see her plans for visiting family places in Singapore going out the window, (and she was right), and possibly not seeing her brother and the rest of her family as planned.
I won't start to try and list todays stupidity, but we still don't know if we will have clothes in Australia
If that is "knocking" BA .. well so be it .. your opinion will differ from mine ... I obviously have a different interpretation of what "Customer Service" means than you do.