Most notably, MINE!
Apparently, British Airways has to decided to further enhance their customer service by making a bunch of people’s Avios go missing. Since I’m not on Twitter at work, I just discovered this randomly myself half an hour ago. Here is pretty much what happened:
10:20 AM – I need to search some Cathay Pacific award space for a client, so I go to log into britishairways.com
10:21 AM – The website tells me my username and password are not recognized
10:24 AM – After multiple log in attempts, I start getting concerned I’ve been hacked and click on the forgot/reset password link.
10:25 AM – I reset my password, log in, and see this beauty:
10:26 AM – FREAK OUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!
10:27 AM – FREAK OUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!
10:28 AM – Place a call into British Airways – press the numbers for Executive Club, get busy signal three times
10:28 – 10:45 AM – Do some real work so as not to get fired
10:50 AM – Send out desperate tweet via phone while on hold with British Airways
10:55 AM – After being told I would be transferred to the Executive line, I get hung up on (always quality service with these guys)
10:58 AM – Trevor tweets me a relevant Flyertalk thread – I start to realize this is a widespread issue and start calming down.
11:00 AM – I call again, but after twenty minutes on hold (after speaking to an agent) I’m told to call back later
11:25 AM – I start writing a blog post about all this
Anyway, apparently, British Airways is/was concerned about some kind of data breach and has been putting a lot of accounts under audit. What that basically means is they “protect” your miles (read: zero out your balance) so no potential hackers can use them.
Seems like some huge IT SNAFU over at British Airways. I guess the best course of action is to sit tight right now. I was freaking out when I thought I got hacked, but now I know it’s widespread I’m (mostly) confident everything will come back.
I’m a little concerned because all the members of my household account are zeroed out as well, but what’re you gonna do.
FWIW, the wiki at the top of the FT thread says to unlock your account you need to call in – that might be true if you need to use your miles immediately (though it also says you can still phone in to redeem if necessary), but other than that I think it’ll just work out. I hope. Please.
In terms of advice – I think sitting tight is probably the best course of action, and then if it doesn’t work out in a few days call in if you must.
Thank you for the heads up. I would not have realized for a few days and would have freaked out had I not read this first. Turns out I am also in the zero miles club at the moment.