MOST FRUSTRATING AIRLINE RULES CEDRIC STATHERBY

POST What is the most frustrating or petty rule you have encountered in your air travel? I will start the discussion with BA’s rules on use of lounges on a codeshare f light. I have a gold BA Exec Club card and if I f ly on a BA-operated f light, or a Oneworld airline’s flight, I can take a guest into the BA lounge with me, but if I fly on a BA codeshare flight on a non-Oneworld airline, I cannot take a guest into the lounge with me even if we both have BA tickets bought on ba.com and BA flight numbers. This is the very definition of petty and pointless. If BA sells me the ticket it should honour the standard terms of its FF programme, which is that gold card members can use their lounges and invite a guest to join them. One does wonder who dreamed this restriction up!

➜ FRUSTRATEDFLYER

In the US if you turn up at the airport early for a domestic flight an American airline will be happy to try and get you on an earlier flight at no cost. In Europe/ UK if you are on a British/European airline they will charge you a fortune even if the earlier flight is empty (unless on a flexible ticket)!

➜ TIREDOLDHACK2

Having to take out the contents of the amenity kits, when you’re in transit, and then having to put them in transparent plastic bags. Even if the amenity kit bag is still sealed. For God’s sake.

➜ SANRAN

The worst rule I came across with airlines was with Swiss/Lufthansa: I needed to cancel the final leg of a four- leg trip and asked my travel agent to cancel it with the airline (I thought the airline would like this, as they could sell it to someone else). Well, they asked me for SFr200 (US$212) for that: obviously I kept it and didn’t pay anything and the airline kept the seat empty. I still cannot figure out the logic behind this.

➜ MIDDLECLASSTRAVELLER

For me, the most frustrating airline rule would be not allowing passengers to change (read “correct”) the booking name at all. I haven’t encountered this myself, but I’ve heard a few cases where passengers weren’t allowed on board because they (or the booker) misspelt one letter of their name, or by mistake chose the wrong gender.