peckieboy Posted August 2, 2003 Report Share Posted August 2, 2003 Dear all, Not sure how useful this will be with getting to Thailand as Bangkok does not appear to be in this summer sale. I have pasted an e-mail I received from British Airways below. You can certainly get to Hong Kong for approximately £400. So if you can get a good deal from Hong Kong to Bangkok/Phuket then this might work out cheaper than the BA fare directly to Bangkok. I believe this summer deal is only on flights from Heathrow but I?m not 100% sure. Regards Peckieboy I am pleased to advise you that any threat of further industrial action at London Heathrow has been removed and am therefore delighted to announce our summer sale. This weekend will see the launch of our latest British Airways World Offers with great value fares to worldwide destinations. *** Over 100 destinations worldwide *** Paris from GBP59 Palma from GBP99 New York from GBP179 San Francisco from GBP229 Dubai from GBP239 Seychelles from GBP439 Melbourne from GBP489 *** Upgrade from GBP100 return *** Treat yourself with an upgrade. Club Europe upgrades start from GBP100 return, World Traveller Plus upgrades start from GBP200 return. Upgraded tickets earn the full tier points and BA Miles applicable to the higher cabin. To find out more visit http://ba.com/specialtime/2 Flight offers must be booked between 2 August and 5 August, for travel between 20 August and 12 December 2003. Restrictions apply. Naturally, fares are return and include all taxes, fees and surcharges. Limited seats available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lazyphil Posted August 2, 2003 Report Share Posted August 2, 2003 San Francisco is very tempting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiLeakHunt Posted August 2, 2003 Report Share Posted August 2, 2003 In the past I've flown KLM to Hong Kong, then to BKK and it was cheaper than a direct flight to BKK. Although if you add in the bird I picked up in Lang Kwai Fong who nicked my wallett and drew out 300 pounds from my account while I slept then it might not have been quite the bargain I thought. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peckieboy Posted August 2, 2003 Author Report Share Posted August 2, 2003 Hi Lazyphill, Yes it does sounds tempting, and so is Melbourne from GBP489. Wonder if BA will allow a 3 week stop over in Bangkok :: Regards Peckieboy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCgringo Posted August 3, 2003 Report Share Posted August 3, 2003 I assume this is to get back customers who got stranded in the last couple weeks by BA labour troubles,,,,,, wonder if other airlines will match them ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jp1 Posted August 3, 2003 Report Share Posted August 3, 2003 I assume this is to get back customers who got stranded in the last couple weeks by BA labour troubles,,,,,, Here is a nice article by somebody who was affected by last week's wild BA srikes. Airline clipped its own wings By RAMESH THAKUR The self-defeating myopia of British Airways employees and the mind-numbing ineptitude of BA management combined to produce a nightmare journey recently. I had flown flight BA 8 from Tokyo to London on Friday, July 18, landing at Heathrow's Terminal 4 around 5 p.m. I was due to catch another BA flight to Amman, Jordan, just after 9 p.m. Unbeknownst to us, check-in and baggage-handling staff had resorted to a wildcat strike without any advance warning at 4 p.m. in Terminal 1, which then spread to the other terminals. The employees' grievance is unlikely to attract much sympathy. The company wants to introduce swipecards to monitor the exact time that staff arrive and leave through an electronic clocking system. Staff fear that this could lead to annualized hours and split shifts. So they walked out -- without warning, without a ballot -- in an informal or unofficial strike. You would have thought that the manifold woes of all airlines over the past couple of years (9/11, severe acute respiratory syndrome, etc.) would have been imprinted on every airline industry worker's memory. BA, having lost £200 million ($324 million) in the year ended March 31, 2002, struggled back to a profit of £135 million last financial year. But by the end of June this year -- before the strikes -- BA is reported to have already lost £60 million to £70 million. In other words, BA must modernize, it must cut costs, it must regain the competitive edge to survive in a cutthroat industry. In addition, the airline must retain the loyalty of its existing customer base, attract fresh customers and build up brand loyalty -- hardly a propitious environment for launching strikes. The strikes over the weekend of July 18-20 will likely cost BA tens of millions of pounds, even before compensation claims begin to come in. This will add cost-cutting pressure on the company. Existing customers will have been antagonized and alienated by the massive disruptions to their plans, and potential customers will have been diverted to BA rivals in droves. Irresponsible employee action was compounded by management behavior that beggars belief. To begin with, one would have thought they would have introduced new technology and new work practices during a quiet period in the industry, not at the height of the busy holiday season. That aside, management was paralyzed into total inaction by the suddenness of the strike. Perhaps the ones who could cope with unexpected crises had already gone home for the weekend. We were kept in the dark until around 2 in the morning about the status of our flight. We knew something was amiss when the lounge became increasingly crowded, then congested, as the roster of flights being canceled grew longer and longer. Late in the evening someone told us that the check-in staff had walked out and that there was no further information available. Finally, around 2 a.m., BA announced that our Amman flight had been canceled. Passengers were told to look after themselves, find their own accommodations, make their own way into the city and mail in reimbursement claims to BA customer relations afterward. Talking to some others since then, I have discovered that many think that economy-class passengers were treated shabbily. Let me assure them that BA was magnificently egalitarian in the way it disowned responsibility for all passengers, regardless of their class of travel, whether they had checked in at Heathrow or were in transit from other long-haul flights, or whether they were first-time or Platinum Elite frequent flyers. I have never experienced anything like this. They should change their name to "Brutish Airways." Over that weekend, 80,000 to 100,000 BA passengers were summarily abandoned, left to their own fate. Lines for telephones and other airline service counters were long, hotels in the airport vicinity quickly filled, and there was utter confusion and bedlam. My colleague and I were extremely fortunate in finding accommodations in a downtown hotel. We returned to Heathrow on Saturday (the BA hotline having assured us the strike was over), only to be stopped from entering the terminal by the airport police: The strike was still on. Families ended up spending their whole weekend at the airport, with elderly people in some distress and young children in tears. Other airlines still flying out of London were quickly booked out for days ahead. In the meantime, we were separated from our luggage. BA had absolutely no idea of where our checked-in bags were or might be. Perhaps thousands of pieces of baggage are yet to be reunited with their rightful owners: We'll take your luggage in the air, We'll drop them down you know not where. On Sunday my colleague and I took the train across the channel to Amsterdam and took a KLM flight to Amman. When we arrived Monday morning, our bags were patiently piled up inside the terminal. Apparently our flight had made the journey from London to Amman after all -- without passengers! Why they could not have boarded the people who had already checked in will remain an eternal mystery. All in all the experience was so harrowing for so many people that large numbers have sworn never to fly BA again. I am surprised the check-in staff were not assaulted by irate travelers when they resumed work. The loss in customer loyalty could cause immense damage to the airline, forcing real job losses. The "best of British"? Try the "worst of British" instead. Thus the world's favorite airline risks being reduced to becoming the world's favorite butt of airline jokes. Never has being back safely in Tokyo felt so good. Ramesh Thakur is vice rector of United Nations University, Tokyo. These are his personal views. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacko Posted August 3, 2003 Report Share Posted August 3, 2003 Mr Ramesh expressed himself very well didn't he. All in all a despicable way to treat customers. I was in Bangkok myself when I saw the news on the BBC, my flight to London was the following night! I was lucky, we left Bangkok on time, and my domestic flight from Heathrow was only delayed just over an hour. BA staff broke the law when they went on lightening strike, apparently most of them are working mothers who are lucky to have a job that fits so well to their parenting responsibilities. They certainly have no sympathy from me. BA management must be imbeciles for not perceiving the depth of feeling that existed. I have been on the receiving end of the poor way BA treats it's customers on many occassions. Heathrow, Terminal 5, I think the whole dump should be leveled. Herded like sheep from slow moving queue to slow moving queue. BA had a poor reputation around the world before this, as a frequent passenger I hear many derisory comments from others. When they offer a shrimp dinner in biz class they do mean A shrimp. I received the summer sale email too - but my email complaints are answered perfunctarily by some lady in Delhi! BA - bloody awful!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carew66 Posted August 3, 2003 Report Share Posted August 3, 2003 I got the same spam mail as peckieboy and I agree with your sentiments in regard to our flag carrier (sic). Because I'd had a few, I fired an email back telling them that it didn't matter how 'cheap' they might become I would be much more prepared to spend more in order to have a fair chance of leaving the Hounslow/Hayes/Staines area. I'll probably get a visit from the meninblack now. BA's dirty tricks department. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilli13 Posted August 4, 2003 Report Share Posted August 4, 2003 much better deal is alitalia using http://www.fareworldtravel.com priced at gbp299, but obviously stopping over at italy... not sure how easy to get this price as I just got in in newsletter along with BA's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCgringo Posted August 5, 2003 Report Share Posted August 5, 2003 On the BBC website it says that British Air is giving a 80 UKP voucher if you got screwed over by them, lots of restrictions on it to..... But the labour trouble does not look like it is over for BA...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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