What’s it like using the British Airways online chat bot?

Airlines have a myriad of ways for customers to contact them these days. From the humble telephone to Twitter, there are plenty of ways to get in touch. There is even the online chat bot, for those wanting to go that way.

Today I telephoned British Airways on the Irish number and after a wait of just over 30 minutes, I got an agent. Unfortunately, the agent was rude, unhelpful and fobbed me off, which made me quite annoyed. Luckily this is rare as the BA phone people are usually great. So, I turned to the chat bot.

British Airways Online Chat Bot

When you go into the Help and Contacts page on the British Airways website, you scroll to the bottom. Soon, a blue “Start Chat” box will appear on the bottom and right, clicking it brings up a box.

The bot has some pre-selected items to choose from but you can get past these fairly swiftly if you need an agent. When I got there, I was put into a queue at number 58, which then jumped to 61. Time progressed and the queue whittled down until an agent called Molly popped up. The total time I spent waiting was 36 minutes between 16:53 and 17:29 on a Friday afternoon.

How Was The Service?

During my wait, I wrote out my query in Notepad. It outlined what I wanted, my flight dates, flight numbers, origin and destination, as well as the booking reference. Once Molly arrived, I sent that over.

Within a short amount of time, she confirmed my details for security in the same way they do on the phone. Once done, she looked up what she needed to and advised what I wanted would be done. All in all, it took less than ten minutes and I was sorted.

Overall Thoughts

The British Airways online chat bot is actually pretty cool. It saves you waiting on the phone, and as it’s just a pop up window, you can work away doing other things while you wait.

You are not able to do anything that involves payment, which you should know before you use it. I was using a Gold frequent flyer benefit to select seats for a friend travelling with me on the same flight on a different booking. Worked a treat!

Have you used an online chat bot when contacting an airline before? If not, what is your preferred method of contact? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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Featured image via British Airways.