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As we reported yesterday, British Airways is having a bit of an IT shocker as it attempts to make ‘improvements’ to its Executive Club loyalty programme. The planned update was supposed to have been completed by “the morning of 17 November 2021 (GMT)”, but is still ongoing now – more than 48 hours later.
What is particularly confusing is that some members were able to access their accounts last night/earlier today (at least via the app or through other workarounds), but as of about 30 minutes ago (15:00 GMT), the following message is what the BA twitter team was telling people:
I’ve been unable to login to my account throughout, but those who did manage it earlier were presented with the following message:
“It’s taking us a little longer than expected to get access to all parts of the Executive Club back up and running. We’re sorry for the inconvenience and we’re working as hard as we can to make all the features of your account available soon.”
Are things getting better?
I think so. The fact that at least some members have been able to access their accounts (even without full functionality) is definitely a good sign.
My fellow InsideFlyer contributor Craig shared an interesting thought in the comments section of the previous article: “Because of BA’s shambolic approach to communicating the likely downtime, I imagine that there are thousands of BAEC members trying to log in at once, and that can’t be good for a fragile IT system either”.
That seems logical (perhaps the IT experts amongst our readers can confirm if that would be a problem?). If Craig is right, it’s possible the update is now close to being completed, and the problem is now largely a (temporary) secondary issue.
Bottom line
It seems that people have been having more luck with the apps than with the desktop site – so bear that in mind if you really do need to log in. Right now (15:30), on the desktop site, I’m still just getting this:
If you manage to log in, please share how you did it in the comments below!
The current trick making the rounds is to attempt to make a cash booking. You will be allowed to log into your account (because obviously heads would roll if people couldn’t even book flights!)
Proceed no further with your dummy booking and just proceed normally to the Executive Club page.
That said, I haven’t seen confirmation whether you can actually make an Avios booking or anything substantial once logged in.
Logged in without any problems this morning using the app and checked in again tonight.
My flight bookings are showing (I only have one at present) .
Recent reward searches showing as are account details including Avios and tier points.
I am now able to access the British Airways Executive Club shopping portal, but the Executive Club proper remains out-of-bounds for me.