I am writing this complaint on behalf of my mother about the British Airways Airline. My mother went on a 2 weeks holiday to attend a relatives wedding ceremony. She left last week November 26, 2007, unfortunately her baggage did not arrive to the specific destination that it was suppose to. Until now, and it is December 5, 2007, my mother did not receive her lost luggage. She is so upset that she could not even enjoy the wedding ceremony that she especially went back home for. All she's been thinking about is where her luggage could be. She had her clothes in that luggage that she was going to wear at the wedding, and christmas gifts that we all sent for our relatives and cousins. They are all gone. My mother has been calling every single day for her luggage 's whereabouts, but no one could help. I want to know how such a big airline like BRITISH AIRWAYS could not find a luggage for 2
weeks. What is taking BRITISH AIRWAYS so long to find something? When
we send off our luggages into cargo, there are sticker tags attached to
the luggages with our names and ticket number and such information, is there
not????????????? Then how can they possibly take so long to find things. The
luggages did not all of a sudden grow legs and run away from the airport.
I am very angry about this, and I am very angry that my mother is thousands
of miles away without her luggage and clothes for 2 weeks. She is coming back on December 12,2007, which is next week. Weddings should be a happy occasion to be attending, instead my mother is stressed out trying to find someone in the BA department to find her luggage. BA losing my mother's luggage and not being able to find her luggage has RUINED her holidays and being able to enjoy herself at the wedding. And who knows where her luggage could be? I mentioned about this issue to my co-workers, and they told me that it is "COMMON" for BRITISH AIRWAYS to lose luggages. THIS IS UTTERLY UNACCEPTABLE. If British Airway knows about this ongoing problem, why are they not doing anything about it? Why are they keep letting it happen over and over and over again. I just don't understand. We pay alot of money for our tickets to fly in your airlines, it is unprofessional for BA to not take care of their customers. The luggages should be located within 24 to 48 hours, it should not take 2 weeks or more.

I booked a flight for my mother traveling from Prague to San Francisco on British Airways. She had a long layover in London (12 hours), and I intended to book a hotel for her. I changed my mind and called BA to see if she could get a shorter layover.

The customer representative told me that she could help me by "canceling the original return flight in the system." By doing this, she explained that I would NOT be charged the $200 change fee or the difference in fares. She advised me to then call back and just re-book, and reiterated that I wouldn't be charged any fees. I rebooked the ticket, and at no time did anyone ask for my credit card information, or request any payment whatsoever.

However, when my mother arrived at the airport, the BA representatives demanded more than $950 on the spot. With no other option, we paid this and have been battling to get it refunded from BA since then. A woman named Marcia Friedland from their Customer Relations department rejected the request for a refund. The whole thing is just RIDICULOUS. Had I known they were going to do this, I would have kept the original flight. This surprise fee almost DOUBLED the entire roundtrip ticket!

Shame on British Airways!

My luggage has been lost for 4 days. It went from Kuwait City, Kuwait where I checked in to Southern California---British Airways does not fly to Southern California so God knows how that happened. My luggage was supposed to go to Dulles Airport in Virginia where I live.

Check-in in Kuwait City ran late and we all almost didn't make the plane. They were horribly rude and only one check-in person.

I was seated next to a man with disgusting Body Odor and when I requested to move they ignored me. I then demanded to be moved and they placed me in a seat with no in-flight entertainment for 8 long hours!

Heathrow was a nightmare and my plane was delayed 3 hours. This was in addition to the obnoxious 7 hour layover I had. I arrived at 2AM on a Thursday morning and was due to wake up to go to work by 6:30. Needless to say I did not go to work that day.

Never ever flying through Heathrow or on BA again!

Just over three weeks ago, I flew to Stockholm for a wedding. The date of my departure unfortunately coincided with the foiled car bomb attempts in London, and of course my (meticulously packed!) bag never turned up due to additional security checks. I had to assemble an entire new outfit in two hours flat – in a strange city and six months pregnant!

All I know, to date, is that my case was trucked with approximately 20,000 others to Milan about two weeks ago. The trail has since run cold. My blood boils each time I call the CLICK number ("We are currently experiencing extremely high call volumes... please call back later"), especially since the description of my suitcase was totally wrong . Finally, additional staff were deployed for a few days last week . I have to say, the two times I managed to get through the staff were helpful, efficient and even sympathetic but sadly this has not solved my wardrobe predicament.

I understand the problems BA are experiencing at the moment but I think if there was any way the victims could make any contact whatsoever, it would make the luggage debacle that much more bearable.

I recently tried to book flights for my family from Cape Town to London return, I searched around and found BA flights where ideal timings and come out competitively priced.

I went through the website booking process happily enough, and was given a booking reference. The message was given that the booking was put on hold and must be confirmed using Pegasus within 96 hours and payment would be made offline - I was given a South African customer service number to call(though this wasn't mentioned anywhere!) in order to make payment.

I decided that I didn't really want to make an expensive foreign call, so called UK customer services to make payment. Having got through after a 25minute wait, I was then told that because this was a high risk fraud route that I couldn't make payment over the internet or phone but had to attend a BA sales desk at either Heathrow or Gatwick within the next 96 hours in order to confirm the booking and make payment. Alternatively I could try a travel agent.

I then made my way to a travel agent - who, not surprisingly couldn't use the booking reference that you'd given me. Instead they had to try and book me the tickets directly through their system - which came out considerably dearer (just under £300). At which point I called the BA customer services again, and explained the situation stating that I couldn't get to a uk airport in the next 96 hours but I want to book the tickets at the price indicated on the booking (~£2383). I was unhelpfully told that unless I went to the ticket sales desk I couldn't get that price.

I subsequently called Virgin Atlantic and South African Airlines to see if I'd have the same problem there. Both these organizations recognized that the route was a fraud risk route, and that as I wasn't one of the traveling party that additional checks would need to be undertaken. In neither case did these additional checks involve me having to go in person to an airport.

My complaints are as follows:

1. If it is understood that booking South Africa to London return is a high risk fraud route and therefore bookings cannot be made paid/confirmed unless done in person - why does BA allow potential customers to waste their time trying to book it online?

2. I sent a significant amount of time yesterday (totally up to over 1.30 hours) on hold trying to get through to someone in customer services.

3. One of my calls to BA customer service was to see what time the ticket sales desks were open in Heathrow, as that was where you'd advice me to go, there is no information on your website, and after waiting for over 30mins on their customer service line yesterday was helpfully told that who "don't give out your ticket sales desk number" - it didn't help an already frustrated potential customer.

4. As their competitors have found an acceptable method (for both parties) of verifying that I'm not a fraudsters - surely BA can work out a solution.

5. BA customer adviser appeared not to give a damn that I was wanting to spend a significant amount of money with BA, and was looking for some practical help to a genuine problem. I understand that there are business rules that they must adhere to, but as I work as a consultant to a national uk call center I am astonished at how poorly my call for help was handled - there was no empathy with my situation whatsoever.

As it stood - I was actually going to Heathrow to pick up my niece and nephews (from South Africa) this Sunday, and at a push, could have gone to the ticket sales desk (now that I know it would have been open at 5.30am, after waiting 30mins on the phone to find out). However, out of principal I have chosen to book with one of their competitors, the prices were very similar and were not the deciding factor. As BA appear not to care where I spend my money I decided I would prefer to spend it with a company that does. Both their competitors customer service was excellent - I got through to a call adviser, and they genuinely listened and understood my issues and concerns - perhaps BA should learn lessons from them.

My family make a significant number of trips between South Africa and London, and have previously been quite happy to fly with BA. However, after this incident was so frustrating we are unlikely to do so again. But as BA don't seem to worry about losing custom that shouldn't be a problem for them.