Mr. Paul Strivings – British Airways Review

We booked 2 tickets from British Airways to Turkey Sept. 9th for a January 16 flight. In October, Turkey began a series of changes in Visa requirements for US citizens wanting to travel to Turkey. I’ll skip all those details now since I’m reviewing British Airways but at each step of not being able to get into Turkey, we called British Airways to find our options (refund, voucher, etc.). Each time BA assured us that we’d get our visas and and to wait. They would only refund taxes and fees, about $990 (customer service wouldn’t say a monetary figure) out of $3500. We waited and tried monthly. Finally, after getting approved for an appointment for an in person visa interview with Turkey, the only available interview was in January, the day before our flight. Then there’s a two week approval window. So no visa and when we called about refund options, the refund offered now was $187. I believe since BA is government subsidized, there was a conscious delay process to permit the government to continue to collect time released taxes. I’d enjoyed multiple Economy Comfort step up seats and comfort and thought I’d found a comfortable way to travel. I’ll now take my business to another airline. I forgot to say, but when I calmly said to the BA customer service agent when offered $187, that I might as well hold onto my seat so BA could not resell the seat, she hung up on me. Fly US and suffer with the tight seating.
Review by Pdstri on British Airways.