British Airways

My husband and I flew back from London to Nashville to end our honeymoon in Europe. We were seated comfortably in the back at row 40 and we would have been fine in economy since the aircraft is so clean and well kept and the attendants are very sweet. One asked us about our visit and we said we and on our way back from our honeymoon and he offered to upgrade us to seats 11 K and 11 J in economy plus and that was so wonderful! He said “it’s a bit easier seating on a honeymoon in those seats, don’t you think” . We were given champagne and food was great, I enjoyed this airline so much. Quite a lot different from our American Airlines we flew to London from the start. The plane smelled, I couldn’t eat the food it was pretty poor, and the microwaved hot pocket made my stomach turn. But the people were nice on American too, I would just avoid the airline because of its poor accommodations and the shape the airplane is in makes for an uncomfortable 8 hours of flying... I don’t know why people review this airline as anything but great, friendly and warm service, clean plane, great selection for food and entertainment. If you’re sweet and polite and reasonable, and honest you’ll find you get better interactions from people no matter what airline. Love British airlines!

1. Could do with a way to book award flights using Avios. 2. Desperately needs an option to add the Executive Club card to Passbook. BA employees at lounges usually can’t scan the barcode off the small card that displays in the app because either a) the barcode doesn’t show or b) when it does show, it’s grainy. 3. The “retain (insert BAEC tier here)” never matches the website. Apparently to retain silver, I need 230 more tier points and 0 of 4 flights have been completed. The “or” says 3 of 50 eligible flights have been completed. The website correctly states I need 230 more tier points and 1 more flight (it shows 3 of 4 flights have been completed). 4. Progress to the next tier could be a nice addition to the app along with what I need to retain the BAEC tier I’m in. 5. Getting to the seat selection page is a ballache. You click select seats and it takes you to the manage booking page, click select seats there and it’ll take you back to the same page. You have to select the flight within manage my booking to find select seats in the drop down under a particular flight (even though you already did that in the app under a particular flight before it sent you to the browser), and then choose them there. All the while, the top of the screen above the mini browser says “select seats”... I could be adding my passport number or selecting a meal in that and it’ll still say “select seats” up the top...

It’s sometime hard to separate the corporations from the computing presence they project with their apps. I’ve lived and worked in Silicon Valley CA for over 30 years and there we have a consensus among our friends that it’s possible to forecast a company’s future by the quality of its Internet presence. This does not bode well for BA as this iOS app projects a backward stagnation. Unfortunately I find it frustrating to write these reviews as the people who read the feedback cannot present it to those in charge since their culture is usually the cause of the technology gap and they just can’t bridge it. Update: As I continue to use this app over many years and get hit with layer after layer of bugs and mishaps that inconvenience BA customers and club members, I wonder when will the responsible executive be dragged through the streets of London with tar and feathers - I guess never... it’s equivalent to BA’s running of T5 in month one, but just in a permanent state.

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We booked 2 tickets from British Airways to Turkey Sept. 9th for a January 16 flight. In October, Turkey began a series of changes in Visa requirements for US citizens wanting to travel to Turkey. I’ll skip all those details now since I’m reviewing British Airways but at each step of not being able to get into Turkey, we called British Airways to find our options (refund, voucher, etc.). Each time BA assured us that we’d get our visas and and to wait. They would only refund taxes and fees, about $990 (customer service wouldn’t say a monetary figure) out of $3500. We waited and tried monthly. Finally, after getting approved for an appointment for an in person visa interview with Turkey, the only available interview was in January, the day before our flight. Then there’s a two week approval window. So no visa and when we called about refund options, the refund offered now was $187. I believe since BA is government subsidized, there was a conscious delay process to permit the government to continue to collect time released taxes. I’d enjoyed multiple Economy Comfort step up seats and comfort and thought I’d found a comfortable way to travel. I’ll now take my business to another airline. I forgot to say, but when I calmly said to the BA customer service agent when offered $187, that I might as well hold onto my seat so BA could not resell the seat, she hung up on me. Fly US and suffer with the tight seating.

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The app as a whole doesn’t function well from a technical perspective. The user interface, in theory, is pretty well thought out, but I can’t enjoy any of it because of the technical difficulties I’ve been having with the app. This is coming from what you would consider a power user - I’m not your grandma and using a smartphone for the first time. When it’s difficult for someone who thoroughly understands the inner workings of mobile applications (+3 of her tech-savvy friends), you have a problem. An example of a use case is earlier when I attempted to check in for my flight, got to the final step, and the app crashed. I then decided to check in via the web and the process showed several discrepancies. I also couldn’t get my mobile boarding pass unless I went back to the app and finished my check in process, which I couldn’t actually complete because of aforementioned difficulties. There really needs to be some significant technical adjustments to the app. For an airline that is highly sought after, your app is severely lacking. I’m happy to provide more detailed feedback if needed.