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Did the BA IT glitch Pimp my fare bucket?
Yesterday I flew back from Europe on BA in Club Europe/World. I’d booked the tickets to originate in Stockholm, route through Heathrow, and ultimately arrive in LA ( Stockholm has replaced Dublin for cheaper business fares this year) on a discount business class fare booked into “I’ on the longhaul, LHR-LAX. However, a few days before I was scheduled the fly…BA had a MAJOR IT meltdown. I believe, because of the IT glitch, at least my outbound flights were all bumped up to fullfare biz – “J” ( I don’t fly the return for quite some time so I don’t know if the entire ticket has been bumped up – using FinnAir still shows I). This is a really big deal because I’m crediting these BA flights to Alaska…the difference between I and J? 50% bonus vs 150% bonus – BYAH! So did the BA IT glitch pimp my fare bucket…I think YES!
Here is the original booking…
As you can see the original Longhaul routing was booked into “I”
Here’s my boarding pass showing the upgraded fare bucket
The difference in class of service earnings? Check it out. Massive!
So what happened?
We’ll see in a week or so if I was actually bumped to J or not…My feeling is the mayhem of the IT glitch resulted in all/some tickets being rebooked into full fare/full earning fare buckets. Perhaps the system broke down and they couldn’t discern between fare buckets and anyone flying on the surrounding dates of the glitch were just given the best fare bucket for their class. Time will tell and I’ll report back when my MileagePlan account shows the flight credit.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
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Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
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Main Cast:
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Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
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