British Airways can now kick you out of the Executive Club if you criticise it online

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British Airways made an interesting change to the terms and conditions of British Airways Executive Club on Friday.

You can see the full T&Cs here.

The changes are around the definition of ‘misconduct’. This is what the rules now say:

British Airways Executive Club status cards

“Misconduct”

includes:

failure to comply with these Terms and Conditions or the terms and conditions of a Service or Airline Partner; or
attempting to obtain Tier Points or Avios points by Fraud; or
misusing the Services; or
misconduct on board a British Airways or Airline Partner’s flight or in a Lounge or while checking-in; or
any misconduct including but not limited to the use of false, threatening, abusive or derogatory language or behaving in a threatening, abusive or derogatory manner in dealing with or directed at British Airways’ staff or the staff of any Service Partner; or
any conduct, including but not limited to making misleading statements, which causes, is intended to cause or is likely to cause a detrimental effect or reflects unfavourably on the reputation of British Airways or any aspect of its business, brands, products or services; or
failure to comply with the applicable conditions of carriage and any other applicable rules and regulations.

British Airways Executive Club misconduct

What has changed here?

The two paragraphs in bold are the ones which were added last Friday.

The first one is self explanatory and I would hope that no-one would have an issue with it. Anyone who mistreats British Airways staff or contractors is likely to be banned from travelling with the airline, and having their Executive Club account closed is likely to be the least of their problems.

The second one is more interesting:

“any conduct, including but not limited to making misleading statements, which causes, is intended to cause or is likely to cause a detrimental effect or reflects unfavourably on the reputation of British Airways or any aspect of its business, brands, products or services”

Whilst the exact wording has been left suitably vague, this appears to be a catch-all phrase to protect British Airways against customers who make derogatory claims about the airline on social media.

To be fair to BA, the word ‘misleading’ is used. However, this is ‘including but not limited to’ misleading statements. In theory, BA can expel you from the Executive Club even if your claim is true if it makes the airline look bad.

Realistically, I would hope that this won’t happen. I very much doubt that BA is planning to come after people who post critical comments about the airline online if those comments are true.

It does, however, give the airline some power against people who post a one-sided story online without mentioning any mitigating factors or attempts by the airline to provide recompense. It clearly gives them some power if the story is untrue.

To be fair to British Airways …..

This change may have been triggered by the recent cabin crew dispute.

BA received some criticism online for removing staff travel privileges from an ex-employee during the dispute.

The story put around was that this person had been posting criticism of the airline online.

I saw some of these posts. They were, frankly, obnoxious, and included posts comparing BA management to Nazi war criminals. The person involved got off lightly if their only punishment was the removal of staff travel privileges.

I also know myself, from looking into occasional cases on behalf of readers who claim to be have been wronged by the airline, that there is often some key fact that the reader has ‘forgotten’ to share. Experience teaches you that, unfortunately, you should always treat online criticism with a pinch of salt.

No Executive Club member should be concerned that British Airways is trying to stifle genuine criticism. I doubt my account would survive a month if that were true!

You should, however, think twice about posting anything online which would not stand up to scrutiny – although I hope that would always be the case anyway.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

memesweeper says:

29 Sep29 September 08:49

any conduct […] which causes […] a detrimental effect […] on the reputation of British Airways

… taken literally that could extend to calling up the BA call centre and complaining about something that actually happened, if the member of BA staff you spoke to might be left with a less glowing picture of BA than when the phone call started. Surely that’s never going to survive a challenge to an ‘unfair term’ in court.

Truthful statements made in good faith need to be excluded from retaliation by BA against its EC members.
Julian says:

29 Sep29 September 08:55

I would suggest that “threatening, abusive or derogatory language or behaving in a threatening, abusive or derogatory manner in dealing with or directed at British Airways’ staff” is in fact also capable of being misinterpreted and unfairly misused by certain types of particularly unhelpful BA telephone advisers and/or particularly unhelpful agents at check in or a certain type of BA flight attendant as revenge for any form of verbal criticism of their lack of knowledge or helpfulness.

Of course no one would support genuinely physically threatening behaviour or truly racist or demeaning language but the reality is that these things are always a matter of interpretation and certain BA staff members (especially those in remote overseas call centres with limited English language speaking skills) can all too easily cause momentary losses of patience by customers.

And the key concern has to be that if The Ultimate Sanction is invoked that BA will then maintain that any right to compensation for lost Avios points will be at some tiny fractions of a penny per Avios.

My view is that the existence of fierce terms and conditions such as these will only allow the less helpful specimens amongst BA’s telephone customer service, ground staff or flight attendants to make even less effort to be helpful to customers than they did previously.

Of course not all BA staff are like this and many do like their passengers and do go the extra mile but it does not seem to be compulsory to be like this in order to hold down a job at BA and certain members of BA staff seem to rather actively enjoy doing the minimum……
- Jen says:
  
  29 Sep29 September 09:10
  
  Imagine being threatened, sworn at, racially abused and told I hope you lose your job, because they can’t check in online.
  
  Then you have to remain calm, positive and polite and no action is taken.
- Callum says:
  
  29 Sep29 September 11:30
  
  Is “momentary loss of patience, particularly against foreign staff” a codeword for “abuse”?
  
  You seem pleasant enough so I’m assuming it’s not, but if that’s not the case then what’s the problem?
J says:

29 Sep29 September 09:06

I’ve actually worked for British Airways in the contact centre and the level of abuse received by some passengers is disgusting.
Whether it’s a member of the general public or a celebrity, you get verbally and racially abused quite often and sometimes daily.
It’s about time some action is taken.
- Kip says:
  
  29 Sep29 September 09:31
  
  I find the idea that staff are racially abused on a daily basis in BA call centres unbelievable. If it were the case then the whole business model BA are using for that part of the business is clearly failing and management should be changing how they approach customer contact.
  On the other hand, the idea that the ‘level of abuse received by some passengers is disgusting’ could possibly be true but I don’t think you meant that.
  - Callum says:
    
    29 Sep29 September 11:34
    
    Then you clearly live under a rock. I used to work in a much, much smaller call center (5 agents) and would hear racist abuse at least once, often several times, a week. I don’t doubt for a second that it happens on a daily basis in a company like BA.
    
    And ABSOLUTELY NOT, the answer to racist scum is not to appease them and get rid of any foreigners/immigrants.
    - Paul Pogba says:
      
      30 Sep30 September 14:14
      
      You seem as intolerant of people that have a different view to you as racists are of people of a different background. Is exchanging one form of intolerance with another form really progress? Are you really any better than them?
- Bazza says:
  
  29 Sep29 September 10:21
  
  I believe it – happens to us in the NHS everyday and we are only trying to care for peoples health.
  
  And nothing is every done about it.
  
  So, good on BA for looking after their staff.
Steve says:

29 Sep29 September 09:20

Hilarious. The BA section of Flyertalk wouldn’t last a week if this was to be implemented to the letter of the law.
dezbez says:

29 Sep29 September 09:21

One can only assume/hope they are not going to target reviewers on TripAdvisor…
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Airline_Review-d8729039-Reviews-British-Airways
- Willie Walsh says:
  
  29 Sep29 September 09:32
  
  Definitely don’t use your real name or any handle that they can trace you back on then!!
- Mark says:
  
  29 Sep29 September 14:52
  
  It would be legitimate for them to target people who post inaccurate review making false claims about their experience.
  
  A review that is accurate should be ok, as would expressing an opinion.
Andrew says:

29 Sep29 September 09:49

Ooh

So if you really hate your ex-boss, you could post all sorts of complaints about BA (with just enough detail to identify them) and then have their account closed.

Such fun!
Julian says:

29 Sep29 September 10:00

Clearly the problem with these extreme new Terms and Conditions is that they allow BA to do whatever it wants with absolutely no specified right of appeal on your part as the BA Exec Club card account holder, even if you have several million points. Or if BA are bound by some form of ombudsman or regulator in relation to the Executive Club points scheme then I am aware of who or what that system is?

I think as a minimum if an Executive Club account is closed in these circumstances that customers should be fully refunded a realistic value of their accumulated Avios points at 1p per point. Otherwise BA may target customers with especially large points balances as a way of targeting these overhanging points balance liabilities on their balance sheet.
BJ says:

29 Sep29 September 10:08

If you thought a were bad…
https://www.bangkokpost.com/travel/1992079/koh-chang-resort-sues-expat-over-bad-review
- BJ says:
  
  29 Sep29 September 10:09
  
  *BA were bad
- Michael C says:
  
  29 Sep29 September 11:01
  
  Haha, saw that one, BJ! Have to feel it’s a “there’s two sides to that story”!!
- AJA says:
  
  29 Sep29 September 11:58
  
  Now that’s silly. And all because of a refusal to pay a 500 Baht corkage fee to open a bottle of liquor not bought at the hotel. Fair play to the resort especially as they even waived the corkage fee as a gesture of goodwill.