Usually BA are quite efficient but this is India!

hi all,

A pretty short post as it's late and I want to sleep as a vast quantity of work awaits me this week (yikes). Recently I booked my flights home for Christmas. Booking was fine - paying was a different matter. Here is the letter I wrote to BA. Suffice to say I was very very cross (cross at the incident and even crosser than India brings out the grumbler in me that I had well under control for many years). To be fair to BA; even in the midst of inefficency, they were very pleasant


Dear Sir/Madam

I recently went on to BA.com to book a flight from India to Europe over Christmas. I had a good on-line experience as I have had with ba.com when booking from other countries. However there was no possibility to pay online. A number was provided for me to call to make payment. I called it but it was closed only having limited office hours (starting at 9.30 am). Since I am working I was obliged to call during work hours. When I first called I was on hold for 25 minutes. When I finally talked to somebody, she was unable to accept my credit card as there was a GBP 300 limit on American express. After some debate she was going to try something. However the message came that the card has been rejected. I said I would call back later with another credit card. I asked what time of the day was less busy and I was informed that mornings were less busy, so I called back the next day at 9.30. However I got the message that the office was closed and continued to get this message until 9.35. Then I was put on hold for 20 minutes, was obliged to give all my details again and this day my American Express card was accepted.


This is not the first time I have tried to book with BA from India. On the other occasions I booked with BA via expedia.com or traveled with KLM. I was tempted also on this occasion to travel with KLM but unfortunately their price was more than 50,000 more so I decided to stay with BA.

I do not understand why you cannot accept online bookings as your peers do. Furthermore I am shocked that I spent one hour of my life trying to give your company money. As BA is a global company I expected 24 hour service not 10 hours during which time I am at work. Additionally a credit limit of GBP 300 is ridiculously low – there are few flights out of India costing less than this!!!

Only if, as in this case, the price is considerably lower will I choose to book with BA from India which is a pity as I find your in-flight service excellent.

I would be grateful if you could reply this grievance.

Kind regards

Helen (last name excluded from blog for privacy purposes)

PS – I attempted twice to submit this information via your website but failed as an “incident type” and Flight number are required fields but I was unable to complete them.