A rant about BA's Complicated Award Booking Processes!

[Bell21]

OMG British Airways WHY! I'm curious whether other people have had my experience with BA or not in booking a reward seat. I'm not a 'noob' and have been booking points on various airlines over the years, and there are of course complexities, but I've not experienced anything as CLUNKY as BA's process...

I had points in Qatar, so I thought easy, I'll just move points to BA, but then I realised, I hadn't used my BA account for quite a while and it wouldn't let me log-in - I eventually had it send reset password requests and even that failed. In the end, I gave up and set-up a new BA account, but in my frustration, I must've mistyped a personal detail wrongly (one I couldn't find!), b/c then Qatar wouldn't let me link to BA, so I setup another new BA account and managed to link it to Qatar (I'm too embarassed to admit how long it took to get to this point). Finallly, I thought 'heaven', it's time to book the flight.

I then realised that the Avios in BA takes a while to update after transferring, even if Avios are already in the account (!), and went ahead to book, only to realise that BA doesn't let you book for anyone other than the Exec Club member - I have come across this on KF, but BA of course wants to take it another level and make you set-up a Household Account - of course, the person I was organising the reward ticket for didn't have a BA account... (lol).

After quite a few breaths, I continued my journey. It was all looking good until I got to the payment page, but it wouldn't send me SMS verification codes, so I thought fine, I'll pay in Paypal - of course, it then said I had too many browsers open and sent me back to the beginning (the other browser was BA opening Paypal, but whatever) - I somehow finally got it to accept payment...

The whole process was just SO clunky... (of course, it could just be 'me', but somehow, I think it might not be...)

 

[DC3]

The whole process was just SO clunky... (of course, it could just be 'me', but somehow, I think it might not be...

 

[Bell21]

my post was cathartic

 

[madrooster]

only to realise that BA doesn't let you book for anyone other than the Exec Club member

It's done for fraud reasons... blue members have this restriction. If you hold status, this restriction doesn't exist.

 

[p--and--t]

Is anyone surprised. They have been below par for years

https://loyaltylobby.com/2025/02/27/british-airways-plummets-to-the-bottom-of-which-long-haul-flights-survey-a-dismal-reflection-of-its-service-decline/

 

[Mwenenzi]

Does Qatar QRPC allow you to book an award flight for others?
From what I have read on FT with BAEC-QRPC you do not need to move avios, but can see and use the avios in the account. (true? others will know).

Having 1 old BAEC account and 2 new BAEC accounts would not have helped.

 

[Bell21]

Does Qatar QRPC allow you to book an award flight for others?
From what I have read on FT with BAEC-QRPC you do not need to move avios, but can see and use the avios in the account. (true? others will know).

Having 1 old BAEC account and 2 new BAEC accounts would not have helped.

You can use Qatar to book awards flights for others - I've done that recently

Yes you can see the avios in the family account if I understood that correctly?

the 2 new baec accounts only became necessary when the old account appeared to be unrecoverable and I couldn't really call Ba to sort

 

[clifford]

I had problems trying to transfer Avios from IB to BA. I gave up in the end because of the diferent Spanish to English name conventions. Buyer beware, and if you're going to try to do this, do your (indepth) research prior.

 

[Bell21]

I had problems trying to transfer Avios from IB to BA. I gave up in the end because of the diferent Spanish to English name conventions. Buyer beware, and if you're going to try to do this, do your (indepth) research prior.

I had a sense that transfer looked tricky but makes sense what you're saying after my issues

 

[DJTravels]

I've found that only Chrome works for me logging into BAEC. Safari has always given me the "incorrect password" error even though I have reset and reset my passwords many times.

 

[Bell21]

I've found that only Chrome works for me logging into BAEC. Safari has always given me the "incorrect password" error even though I have reset and reset my passwords many times.

Interesting thanks I was using chrome and edge from memory

 

[QF_Flyer]

...only to realise that BA doesn't let you book for anyone other than the Exec Club member - I have come across this on KF, but BA of course wants to take it another level and make you set-up a Household Account...

Resurrecting an old thread, but something's up here, as BAEC do indeed let you book for others - in fact it's only if you're in a HHA that you can only book for people on your household list, outside of that you can book for anyone. Even HHAs have F&F and Travel Companion lists (makes it a bit more restrictive, but still allows booking for others).

This article on HfP also confirms the above.

Can you spend your Avios points on flights for someone else?

Can you use Avios points to book a flight for another person? Yes you can, and in this article we explain how to do it, which can be confusing at times.

www.headforpoints.com

Post automatically merged: Today at 10:57 AM

It's done for fraud reasons... blue members have this restriction. If you hold status, this restriction doesn't exist.

This isn't the case either, unless the restriction lifts permanently if you've ever held status (I used to have BAEC status, but haven't for many years, and can still book for anyone).

 

[BriarFlyer]

This caught my attention too, as just this month -- after BA became a transfer member with Amex -- I transferred MRs to BA and booked an award flight for my husband. I have no status with BA.

 

[Ansett Nostalgic]

I still can't get my BA/QR/IB accounts to link to Finnair. It's a joke.

 

[Bell21]

Resurrecting an old thread, but something's up here, as BAEC do indeed let you book for others - in fact it's only if you're in a HHA that you can only book for people on your household list, outside of that you can book for anyone. Even HHAs have F&F and Travel Companion lists (makes it a bit more restrictive, but still allows booking for others).

This article on HfP also confirms the above.

Can you spend your Avios points on flights for someone else?

Can you use Avios points to book a flight for another person? Yes you can, and in this article we explain how to do it, which can be confusing at times.

www.headforpoints.com

Post automatically merged: Today at 10:57 AM

This isn't the case either, unless the restriction lifts permanently if you've ever held status (I used to have BAEC status, but haven't for many years, and can still book for anyone).

Wasn't sure what you meant by something up here?

I just reread my post (and felt the pain again) - its possible I misunderstood something when trying to book my sons flight but it was the whole end to end that was just clunky (not my first rodeo either but was with ba)

Post automatically merged: Today at 3:08 PM

This caught my attention too, as just this month -- after BA became a transfer member with Amex -- I transferred MRs to BA and booked an award flight for my husband. I have no status with BA.

Direct transfer to ba makes it simpler

Post automatically merged: Today at 3:09 PM

I still can't get my BA/QR/IB accounts to link to Finnair. It's a joke.

Sigh - I did think of transferring from ba to vueling and after reading of how challenging that is, thought I'd give it a miss

 

[QF_Flyer]

Wasn't sure what you meant by something up here?

I just reread my post (and felt the pain again) - its possible I misunderstood something when trying to book my sons flight but it was the whole end to end that was just clunky (not my first rodeo either but was with ba)

Sorry I meant as in something's amiss with BA's system if it's not letting you book for someone else - if you were in a HHA, then the person you're booking for has to be on a list, if you're not in a HHA then you /should/ be able to book for anyone.

I feel the pain re BA's systems, going back as far as the pre-Avios days. I haven't had any issues with linking accounts, but it's clunky the way you have to route points through multiple programs in some cases, and I lost 50k transferring from BA to QR once (they just vanished - transfer completed at BA's end and never credited to QR, so naturally they blamed each other - I got them back after a couple of months of moaning with zero apology).

 

[Bell21]

Sorry I meant as in something's amiss with BA's system if it's not letting you book for someone else - if you were in a HHA, then the person you're booking for has to be on a list, if you're not in a HHA then you /should/ be able to book for anyone.

I feel the pain re BA's systems, going back as far as the pre-Avios days. I haven't had any issues with linking accounts, but it's clunky the way you have to route points through multiple programs in some cases, and I lost 50k transferring from BA to QR once (they just vanished - transfer completed at BA's end and never credited to QR, so naturally they blamed each other - I got them back after a couple of months of moaning with zero apology).

thanks for clarifying --- wow, that sounds v painful re getting the points back!!