Phil_or_Kill

BA randomly locked my account 3 weeks ago and now I still can’t log in. Called CSR and he asked me some questions to verify my info. I answered them all and he said “still not working, nothing more I can do, tough luck”. I call back again and the phone line just says “we’re too busy call again later, click”. So I fill out the contact form online for general CS. They can’t help so they send my case to “Executive Club Service Centre”. This was three weeks ago. I have still not heard a single word from them. I have emailed CS every few days and they say “sorry we will email them again to look into it”. Every few days I get an automated email that says “We will be in touch, we didn’t forget about you”. Again, this has been 3 weeks for a simple issue.

Is their customer service always this slow and incompetent or is this a fluke? It makes we want to never give BA my business again.

My case ref is [redacted] if any employees are lurking.

GumshoeW12

Why was your account locked in the first place?

If it’s being investigated for some reason it won’t be a quick process and you’ll be given little or no information regarding progress.

Phil_or_Kill

They won’t tell me, I have absolutely no idea. I’ve never flown BA before in my life. Have only used BA account one time to transfer points from AmEx>BA>QR.

TTmex

That for me may answer your question..no flight history and passing points through to other accounts. No idea how many points this may be, but BA's system has likely flagged this as suspicious behaviour and want to understand the reason for the points coming through the account. Your logic is probably sound for doing this, but this is also the kind of transfer that people may do when looking to sell their points for others to book tickets.ñ, which is against the TCs. While that may of course not be what you're doing, they have a good idea of what those transactions often look like and will lock down accounts they feel may be engaged in such practice.

Unfortunately they won't share much with you, and for obvious reasons, so you'll have to just sit tight. I've seen this happen with big hotel chains and other airlines as well. Quite often the account gets released back with no problems., but it can take time.

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onlynik

This strikes me as a bit peculiar. You're indicating that you won't be giving them any more business, yet you also mention you've never used their services before. It raises some questions for me.

London21

Just to give a first hand account of this -

it happened to me earlier in the year.

i called repeatedly until i got someone who seemed to be more helpful - she explained it was because of unusual household activity.

she then sent a request to a team to review - post that it took 5 days to get unlocked - an email just appeared saying reset password.

however all in it took me about 4 weeks

my advice would be keep calling and having them put requests in

corporate-wage-slave

Yes, the bit that may not be obvious to someone not used to BA is that webforms isn't an efficient way for BAEC to handle this. There is a huge customer relations backlog and that's largely composed of unread webforms.

The only thing that is going to work here is making telephone calls every 2 or 3 days. At some point you will get an agent determined to fix the problem. Phone calls also can be difficult to make, but keep an eye on this board, there are times when you can predict there will be a lot of calls, such as a day when there are lots of cancellations or bad weather at LHR.

Phil_or_Kill

Very good points. It was a lot of points, over 200K to book Qsuites. Since QA is their partner I’d think it would be easy to verify I used the Avios to book a ticket in my name using a QR account with my name.

Sorry, was just poor phrasing- should be “makes me not want to give them any future business” which I was considering. Imagine if something goes wrong and I actually need to get in touch with CSR over something important.

Thank you very much, I’ll keep calling!

I did see the note about the backlog on the site. Always makes me chuckle when major companies ask for patience and take weeks to respond instead of simply hiring more cheap labor. I’ll keep trying to call!

TTmex

Ah, ok, yes, I think that may well be the reason. I wouldn't assume BA and QR communicate all that much on these things. It's an unfortunate situation, as it sounds like everything is in line. Following the advice here to persist is the best I can suggest. Fingers crossed you can get this unlocked asap. As much as these things are frustrating, I do appreciate there are some safeguards in place. BA did lock my account down briefly after some transactions through Iberia that were odd and this meant not losing Avios that could have easily been drained out of my account, so sometimes it's the mechanisms that look to protect us that sometimes have the reverse effect when they lock down. But I'm glad they do exist as it reduces the chances of losing everything - unfortunately, something that has happened to a few posters here.

OGG flyer

I set an alarm on my phone to call precisely at 07:59:30s (by the time you go through the Options it will be after 8am). you will find yourself the first or one of the first people in the queue.

But keep this trick between me and you please

Phil_or_Kill

UPDATE: I called BA Executive Club line (USA) and got a helpful CSR. I explained my story and gave him the case reference and membership number. He said he couldn't find anything at all in the system about my case. None of my multiple prior emails or case reference number or anything. He put in a request to the "Audit Department" to investigate and said he would get back to me. What is going on over there??

GumshoeW12

If your account is being audited for suspicious activity, customer services will know little and tell you nothing.

Phil_or_Kill

Understood. I guess I'll just continue to wait it out then!

chriswiles

I had something similar a few weeks ago when BA appeared to implement a new login system (two-factor authentication). I got locked out. However, they simply sent me a verification to my mobile phone on file and I entered that code and it was unlocked.

Always make sure your mobile phone (and international dial code) is always on the system as large companies will often use this as backup verification for your account. ie. don't put your home or office landline as your primary number on your account.

AJNEDC

I have no love for BA and would only fly them if there was absolutely no choice or if it happened to be a code share flight on the BA metal.
But recently, I had occasion to correspond with the company on two separate occasions. On both occasions, I received prompt and clear responses within a 48-hour window. Initially, I reached out to express dissatisfaction regarding the unavailability of my preferred meal choice. Subsequently, I stumbled upon a BA frequent flyer card of which I was unaware. Out of curiosity, I sought to ascertain the status of the associated account. Unfortunately, it was inactive, but BA promptly notified me of this development within 48 hours of my attempt to reset the password.
Perhaps your situation is more complicated than mines but my experience is that they have promptly addressed my concerns.