Out of the way

They cancelled my flight. Since they have an advertising campaign based around how you can take control of their staff costs by using the Web to do what they used to give people jobs doing, I thought I would try to rebook it. Only it seems they saved money on the website too. It doesn't actually work.

So I gritted my teeth and rang. Their speed record for answering in the past has been 40 minutes (ringing in the US on a roaming mobile - the phone picks up straight away so you can pay to listen to their stupid advertising, but it doesn't count until you speak to a human or a machine that can actually solve your problem).

So I was not so surprised that their automated system, after following a couple of prompts, said "we're very busy. Call back later" and hung up on me.

Still, I had a bit of time available, so I decided to ring back. This time I lied, and said I was going to buy a ticket. Ta-da, only 12 minutes waiting. And they can put me on another flight in only 24 hours time. In the meantime, if I would like to keep any receipts for expenses, and post them to a post box, they will consider them on a case by case basis. So it is not clear if there is any chance they will do anything about it, but they would like me to waste my time preparing a case for them to consider.

The nicest touch was while I was waiting on hold. Their clever advertising, apart from telling me I could use the website that had failed, which was why I was on hold in the first place, had a lovely tag-line. "There are two ways to get there. British Airways, and the other way". It seems that only one works.