British Airways Avis 167

Probably the most unhelpful cabin crew I have ever experienced, air conditioning not working properly - "its freezing up front and boiling here" was the staff response, food (both meals) inedible, internal bickering amongst staff.
20th February, BA0042, Cape Town to Heathrow.
So disappointing and in total contrast to our outbound experience.

Stay away from them i transfered by mistale 18.000 avyos points i talked to them i wanted to transfer just 1800 for use to a flight they shot the thing in my face like cannot be returned theres always a way i asked at least for some points nothing discusting

On Sept 1st, 2024, I booked two return business class seats from Gatwick to Orlando and a rental car for travel between February 3rd and 13th, 2025, paying a total of £4499.

Our outbound flight, despite a 2 hour plus delay due to a technical fault, was fine, and both the airport and onboard staff were excellent. However, the return journey was an entirely different experience—one that was both frustrating and unacceptable.

Lack of Transparency and Poor Communication

When attempting to check in online at 18.10 on the 12th Feb for our return flight, I encountered an unexplained "error" at the step after I had advised the nos of bags. The error message gave no indication of what the problem was and advised that I would need to check in at the airport. I tried several times both online with a computer and through the app on my phone with always the same result. I was anxious to check in as I wanted to select adjacent middle seats for my wife and I. I called British Airways US number (UK customer service was closed). The US operator attempted the check in but was unsuccessful and I was simply told to check in at the airport—no reason was provided. A second call the following morning to UK Executive club number yielded the same response. Despite my insistence, I was only assured that two middle seats had been requested for us.
It is now clear that the real reason for this "error" was that BA had overbooked the flight but deliberately withheld this information. Had we been informed, we could have opted to change to another flight, including staying an extra night in Orlando or flying a day earlier on an undersold flight. Instead, British Airways failed to provide any proactive solutions, leaving us with no choice but to deal with the issue at the airport.

Unacceptable Downgrade and Disregard for Customers

Upon arrival at check-in, the problem became clear. The staff, who barely acknowledged us while remaining on the phone, finally informed us that one of us would be downgraded due to overbooking. No explanation was given, no apology was offered, and we were bluntly told to decide who would “choose” to move to a lower class.
During the flight, the situation became even more unacceptable. I voluntarily took the downgraded seat so that my wife could remain in business class. Shockingly, the passenger seated next to me informed me that he had called British Airways at approx. 8:00 PM the night before due to a mix up on his departure date and had actually been offered an upgrade to business class for an additional $4,000 on the very flight that I was actually being bumped down a class on—an offer he declined. This confirms that BA was actively trying to profit from upgrades while knowingly overbooking and failing to honour confirmed business class bookings.
A further revelation occurred when your cabin crew came to discuss the situation with me when she revealed that their records showed that the flight had in fact been overbooked for some time (ie more than 24 hours) which led me and my fellow passenger in to speculate that perhaps it was now BA policy to try sell club class seats at a premium of $4000 and if this led to overbooking the unfortunate customer who had booked sometime in advance would just get bumped down a class as happened. The passenger told me that he is a gold executive club member and is very willing to corroborate this.
As a result, my wife spent her business class flight seated next to strangers instead of with me, and I endured an uncomfortable journey in a lower class than I had paid for, unable to sleep before a long drive home. Your flight attendants were sympathetic and acknowledged the unfairness of the situation, but they could do little to fix what was clearly an appalling company policy.

I booked a flight on the British Airways website based on my convenience, ensuring all flights were well-coordinated. However, BA automatically rescheduled my flights without my request. When I called, I was told that my preferred flight was unavailable.

After the reschedule was finalized, I called again—only to be told that the same flight was actually available, but now required an additional service and change fee. It was clear that BA was hiding options to force customers into paying extra, even though the rescheduling was not our fault.

This kind of dishonest practice is extremely disappointing. Would not recommend booking with BA if you expect fairness and transparency.

First time booking a BA holiday. The hotel was really poor.. dirty, damp and dank. Found all of our clothes were always damp because of the dampness in the room. My husband has asthma and it was made much worse by the atmosphear here. The furniture was broken, the drawers didnt fit. The walls were stained with water marks and the rug was dirty too. The toliet woudlnt flush, the room wasnt clean, the bed linen was old and damp. Supposed to be a 'boutique' hotel, but it was very very rustic. The ground floor room was very dark because of the follage outside, no views, dark and very damp.
Following on from the last comments… the hotel information states that there are free drinks in the afternoons, and a beach kit available… we asked for these but they said that it wasn’t included… your information when advertising this hotel should be undated. The other thing is that although there are bikes available for guests to use, these having been left outside for years are old and rusted and the breaks don’t work, very dangerous. Reading through older reviews it seems as if this hotel used to offer many different extras like the beach umbrellas and coolers, free drinks in the afternoons, fold-down service every night… the type of touches we were expecting from BA who recommended this hotel as a flight package combo… I think it’s time you revisited this hotel because the standards and amenities have definitely slipped. It should be made very clear to customers booking room 1 (we weren’t aware there was a choice of room, only that we’d booked a room with a terrace, which in this case was unusable) that there are no views, and very damp (especially for those with health issues) and it’s right next to a noisy restaurant that starts it set-up at 6:00am and the water system is antiquated. The better rooms are numbers 8 and 9 that have daylight and sunshine that would have hugely improved the holiday. It’s sad because it was, according to previous reviews, very good… however they’ve taken their eye off the ball!

I had an excellent trip from LCY to AMS. Hand luggage was up to 23kg. On-board service was excellent for a short flight. I will travel again with them.

I have filled in a claim for a 5 hour delay. You emailed me with a Case Number. When I put that case number into your tracker (the link is in that exact same email) your system says you do not have that case.

What is going on there. First you didn't have a plane, then you didn't have crew, now you give a reference and your own system cannot find it. I am never flying BA again if I can help it. You do not give me any confidence in your abilities to fly planes, when you cannot even log a simple claim.

I enjoyed my recent BA flights so this review is not about flying with them but about their baggage handlers and customer services:

My beautiful, and only 5 months old suitcase, worth £300 was badly damaged on a recent flight - a huge dent in the top. It looks terrible.

I emailed them the requested information a fortnight ago - for a second time - through the proper channels and still await a response.

I subsequently chased twice - the most recent time saying I was about to go to Trust Pilot and...sadly here I am.

I still expect to receive compensation as I have photographs, a video and my original receipt...but at the moment I haven't a clue what is happening.

Booked flights and hotel to Cairo with BA. Would not recommend. Paid in advance but when we arrived at the Blu Raddison told payment had not been received and it was my responsibility to get in touch with BA and get it sorted. Called the UK helpline twice, got cut off and even though second time round managed to explain the situation, no one called me back. Emailed but to this day have not received a response (Case #04810787). Caused a lot of anxiety. My husband and I were celebrating our 34th wedding anniversary ,BA were of no help at all and the hotel did not provide the assistance one would expect from a so called five star establishment

As frequent business travelers, we find that our experience with British Airways has been extremely disappointing. On January 9th, we took an afternoon flight from Munich to London BA953 that was delayed, causing us to miss a super important business dinner and the only reason we had to fly to London. To make matters worse, our luggage, which contained all our business attire and warm coats, was lost. As of today, they still haven't been able to locate it!

It’s hard to understand how they could lose track of luggage traveling from Munich to London. We've tried reaching out via phone and email, but they haven’t responded. Now, my husband is on another British Airways flight to Boston, which is also delayed, and we still have no information about our luggage. It’s been a complete mess, and I’m not sure we will ever choose to fly with BA again 😔

I flew club class from Buenos Aires to London 15/12/24, returning after New Year. Though I have always used British Airways, this time I was frankly astonished at the lack of common sense regarding passenger comfort. The seat belt was in two halves, one diagonal, and clipped in very low down on one side. You had to assemble it, often in the dark, then scrabble blindly around trying to slot it into a jiggling lower piece, twisting right round to do it. Why not have the closure in front? There was no information about how anything worked; a simple card with instructions as to how to release the tray table, use the audio etc., call the steward would have been a help. As for the cabin crew, they were conspicuous by their absence: they always flew past at great speed and were hard to catch. At one point I walked back to the galley where a steward told me that if I wanted a cup of tea I should go to the forward galley and ask for it. In my day, (I am 86) on a night flight, cabin attendants would occasionally circulate through the cabin and one had a chance to make a request, if necessary. The food was good, apart from two awful cups of tea, but the third one perfect! When I boarded, both times, there was no-one in the cabin, they were all at the door or in the galley, which is not logical: sometimes one needs a little help. I also thought that the ice-cube tray configuration was a bit of a safety-hazard, as movement was very restricted. My last suggestion is that a small pillow is needed, as before.

I needed to change a flight booking for one of two passengers. The non-refundable ticket requires cancelling and rebooking. BA staff can cancel one passenger for a £30 fee, allowing me to rebook just one ticket. However, there are no spaces available on the return flights, this would mean the passengers would be separated on the return flights. In addition to this, if I were to try and cancel one of the bookings online myself, I am only given the option to cancel both passengers' bookings and not just one - so I would save the £30 fee related to the booking but then have to pay an additional fares and other service fees.

This is ridiculously expensive for a simple problem such as changing a passenger. In addition to this, I was not made aware that tickets are not transferable at any point of the booking.

Further to this, the cost of a fully flexible ticket is 4x more expensive than a standard ticket which is an absurd amount to pay if you want to be able to effectively transfer a ticket to another passenger.

Booked package holiday to turkey. Not clear that transfer from airport was not included.

After a few hours delay on the plane we arrived at 1am where we had no idea how to get the 1 and a half hours to the resort.

Customer service line provided with our booking info was closed and we had no idea what to do. Luckily I rang the hotel directly and they helped us out.

The customer services was no help, basically took them a month to respond.

Wouldnt use BA holidays again, just book directly with resorts and sort out planes myself or use a different company.

Very bad experience, flights cancelled and multiple delays, no gate info till very late. All plans and bookings for a much awaited trip were disrupted!

Flight from LHR delayed by nearly 4 hours which resulted in the connection flight being missed in New Delhi. No BA staff on ground in New Delhi arrivals to assist. The connecting flight was a code share flight and so they could not do anything to assist. So had to make my own arrangements in New Delhi as the next available flight was 24 hours later. Upon making a complaint to BA, I was given an e-voucher for £50.
What a superb customer care and service from the national carrier!
As others have said, BA is now on par with Ryanair and other low cost airlines for customer service. Customer service is not considered essential any longer.

They knew there were going to be multiple delays but have not prepared for passengers missing connecting flights. Huge queues, lack of any communication in the airport or on the plane or any caring in the response from staff. The response keeps being there are lots of people with delays, in other words you are not important. The other thing that they keep saying is to check the app or emails where there is also no information.

When you travel with hand luggage only you can no longer choose your seat 24h before departure (unless you pay, which I fundamentally object to paying for a seat, next they will make you pay for the loos and ration toilet paper).
They deliberately allocate you the worse seats at the back of the plane because of course with hand luggage-only you want to be out quickly so they force you to be last to make you pay.
BA has basically become a budget airline (or often worse than some of the budget airlines) but charging higher prices. Avoiding as much as possible.

Informed by text at 3am that our overnight flight Mauritius to Gatwick due to leave at 20.40 was delayed until the next day at 14.25. We will now arrive just after midnight and have had to change parking arrangements and have 5 hour drive home . Bland apologies from BA . 3 further emails arrived by 8.30 am offering no specific help just new flight details Enormous amount of stress and hassle. No reply to phone call to Uk or BA desk in Mauritius. Fortunately our our hotel has found us a room and rebooked airport transfer etc. completely spooked the end of a special holiday. We wonder if the flight will leave tomorrow. It was a dreadful flight here- understaffed and overcrowded . Not looking forward to this . Will avoid BA in future and probably ditch their Amex card too.

We left out of Heathrow Airport. We had to go to the customer service gate to check in our luggage. Everything from the moment we met to when we left her she was fantastic. Rosa deserves a raise! She went above and beyond and now because of her, I might become a British Airways club member

Person serving on the counter at Islamabad airport flight BA0260 on 02 October 2024 by the name of Junaid gave excellent customer service. Thank you for the pleasant experience.

Thank you