The good the bad and the ugly (British Airways Executive Club in general)

Member Name: andycris3107

Product:	British Airways Executive Club in general
Date:	22/09/04 (1295 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free car hire upgrade

Disadvantages: Terrible system, Poor customer service, very small ice scraper

The premise is simple: Buy a flight, wave your BA card at check-in and you're awarded free 'miles' based on your flight type. Collect enough miles and get free upgrades and free flights, plus a host of other extras at assorted approved partners.

In reality things are rarely this simple.

Somewhere along the line someone appears to have tied a knot in the piece of string that connects BA to the real world. Whatever method they use to collect and administer club information, this is evidently not working. Tales of missing miles, and mis-information are rife in the business community for whom the executive club is a perk of the job.

My own experiences mirror those of many colleagues, and many a conversation has errupted into uncontrolable laughter at the failings of what is supposed to be a professional organisation.

Having flown so much in the past few years, asside from the fact that I am now almost unable to sleep without the hum of an aircraft engine in the background, I have theoritically accumilated sufficient miles to circumnavigate the globe several times over and should be awarded my own super gold membership card. Unfortunately the failings within the system mean that I have in fact just sufficient miles to get me from the departures lounge to the aircraft.

Having returned recently from yet another trip to New Zealand I was curious to see how many miles I would be awarded and logged on to my account to again find that the flight was not allocated to my account. After several calls to BA they explained that I had never flown with them and that the flight manifest for the date and time I produced did not contain my name. Despite the more serious security aspect of these inaccuracies I was more concerned as to who had really flown to New Zealand if it were not me; I certainly recall being on the flight, and hell I even had my boarding pass and my souvenir inflight pack to prove it.

Having faxed over my boarding pass my miles mirraculously appeared as pronised and suddenly my name was found on the manifest.

Two weeks later after another flight I checked again. And again my details were not there. More importantly my previous flights were also now not there, and again I was not on the flight manifests. I think by now you're getting the picture.

Of more than 30 long haul flights in the past 24 months none appear on my statement, and after 6 months they cannot be added even if you can prove you were on them. I've given up. Despite finding BA a perfectly good airline their attituide has been less than aceptable.

I now have a wonderful free ice scraper for my car and as a consolation my BA card still gets me a free upgrade and 1000 miles whenever I rent a car with Avis. It's not much but it's better than nowt.

Summary: