Sorry it’s been quiet.. I’ve not updated my blog in a week or so now as I was in Cape Town on business. It’s beautiful out there (I am mostly speaking from my last trip out there) but this time, the weather was exactly like that of the UK, it was raining constantly with dark clouds.

Anyway, the start of my journey was from the newly built Terminal 5…  it was my first journey from there so I was keen to see what the place looked like. The word that comes to mind is huge and it reminds me of the new Hong Kong airport.

To cut a long story short as I can go on for quite a bit.. when I went to check in, they had told me that they had oversold the Business Class tickets and that they would have to put me in the class below which was Club Traveller Plus (BA have four classes for their flights now, First Class, Business Class, Club Traveller Plus and Club Traveller (aka Economy class)). They would refund the cost of the tickets of course (to the company I work for of course as they paid for them) and would give me something by way of compensation.

To be honest, I wasn’t too annoyed about the downgrade itself but what annoys me here is the reason why British Airways can get into this situation. Their policy is to always oversell the high end tickets as they expect a few not to turn up..  however, if you consider the price of a Business Class ticket is about £3000 and it make me shudder to think what a First Class ticket would cost.. would you really miss it? However, for someone to afford a First Class ticket, they must have so much money not to really care so perhaps that’s the logic behind it.

For sure, those downgraded get very irate (I was not best pleased either despite my rather philosophical view) but the word that comes to mind is GREED!! Yep, that ugly word! I mean, the seats are booked and paid for already so if someone doesn’t turn up for it, they have already made their money on it..  BA just want to be able to capitalise on the situation and make a few extra bucks at the expense of customer service. Admitedly they do give you the best seats of the class below your intended but it’s still GREED and it’s been lodged at the back of my mind that they put profits before their customers.

At the departure gate, they give you your personal compensation which is a prepaid credit card holding £200. They were very keen for me to sign this and in doing so, it indemnifys any legal loss or damage… Hmm, I wonder what would happen if I refused to sign it, would they give me more?

Anyway, when I got back to the UK, I went to the cash machine to see if I could take out the money in full and yep, I did, a nice £200 in crisp notes! Anyway, here are some pictures of the prepaid credit card: