Agents feel alienated by
British Airways’ Avios
policy for upgrades,
saying it is discriminatory.
According to ba.com
conditions of use, bulk
inclusive tickets (BT) and
inclusive tour (IT) tickets are
not eligible for upgrades using
Avios. A spokesperson told
TNW this policy had been in
place for six or seven years
and refers to private agency
and operator fares in our
market.
“At this time the
functionality to offer upgrades,
if the ticket contains other
oneworld carriers and is
issued by a travel agent, is
also not enabled,” said the
spokesperson.
Randburg based ITC, Rene
Toner, told TNW that she
booked a BA published threecontinent
business-class
fare for a client on BA paper.
When she tried to upgrade
the ticket using his Avios
miles, the call centre told
her that this was not allowed
because tickets containing
segments booked with other
oneworld carriers were not
eligible if issued by a travel
agent.
“The client was furious. He
is a lifetime gold BA Executive
Club member and he wants
to know why he is being
penalised for booking through
a travel agent,” she said.
Frustrated, the client has
now elected to travel with
Virgin Atlantic for his most
recent trip.
“The client is also unable
to book a complicated fare
like this online,” she says,
adding that agents account
for approximately 80% of
airline revenue in South
Africa and that by enforcing
discriminatory agent policies,
the airline is penalising its
own clients.
A Western Cape-based
ITC agreed, saying that BA’s
agent upgrade restrictions,
combined with its new policy
disallowing the use of all
credit cards for private fares,
was making BA products
unattractive to both agents
and corporate clients. She
added that she had noticed
an enormous dip in BA sales
as a result.
A Johannesburg-based
corporate consortium that
wished to remain anonymous
advised that they, too, had
only recently discovered that
upgrades on their BA private
fares were not permitted and
commented that this policy
was very serious for travel
agents
