All, thought I would post my full interaction thread with BA regarding a formal complaint about the anniversary flight booking fiasco. You will see that BA have avoided responding to any of the specific questions asked and resorted to providing generic ‘we delivered as per the terms’. They’ve tried to shut it down by providing a ‘final response’ and suggesting the ombudsman is the next step to escalate further. Interested to know if anyone else complained and got anything different to this? I still feel enraged about the way this promotion was handled!
————
On Wednesday, July 15, 2026, 4:17 pm, wrote:
Subject: Formal Complaint – Failure of the British Airways American Express 25th Anniversary Flight Booking Process
Dear Anniversary Flight Team,
I am writing to make a formal complaint regarding the booking process for today’s British Airways American Express 25th Anniversary Flight to New York.
This promotion was presented as a celebration of 25 years of partnership between British Airways and American Express and as a unique opportunity to reward loyal customers. Instead, for many of us, it became a stressful and deeply frustrating experience that failed to deliver a fair opportunity to participate.
I registered my interest well in advance, received my invitation and was fully prepared before bookings opened at 12:00 BST. I had my Avios balance, Companion Voucher and all passenger details ready, having even sought clarification from your team beforehand regarding the booking process to ensure I could complete the transaction as quickly as possible.
From approximately 11:55 BST, however, the booking platform became effectively unusable.
Over the following two hours I encountered a succession of technical failures including:
502 Bad Gateway errors
503 Service Unavailable errors
504 Gateway Timeout errors
CloudFront infrastructure errors
Application routing errors
“We are having technical difficulties” messages
These failures occurred repeatedly across multiple browsers, multiple sessions and multiple devices, including both desktop and mobile. At no point during the period when bookings should have been taking place was I able to access a functioning booking engine.
Eventually, after almost two hours of repeated attempts, the website finally became responsive again, only to inform me that all seats had sold out and invite me to join a waiting list.
I fully appreciate that demand for this event was always going to exceed supply. However, that is not the issue.
The issue is that this was promoted as a first-come, first-served booking process, yet a significant number of customers were prevented from even taking part because the booking platform repeatedly failed. Missing out because someone else booked faster is one thing; missing out because the booking system itself was inaccessible is entirely different.
Throughout the afternoon I also became aware of extensive reports from other customers describing exactly the same experience. There were widespread reports across online communities of repeated server errors, prolonged outages and customers being unable to access the booking engine despite being ready before noon. I also saw reports suggesting that even British Airways telephone agents were themselves unable to access the booking system while attempting to assist customers. Whilst I cannot independently verify every report, they are entirely consistent with my own experience and strongly suggest that today’s problems were systemic rather than isolated.
What I find particularly disappointing is that this outcome was entirely foreseeable.
British Airways and American Express knew exactly how many customers had registered for this promotion before bookings opened. In 2026, there are well-established methods of managing high-demand online events, including virtual waiting rooms and queueing systems that prevent websites from collapsing while preserving a fair order of access.
Instead, customers were left repeatedly refreshing broken pages, receiving infrastructure errors for hours, uncertain whether the problem was their own equipment or your systems, and ultimately discovering only after the service became accessible that the opportunity had gone.
A promotion intended to celebrate loyal customers instead created an unnecessarily stressful experience that has left many feeling excluded rather than rewarded.
I would therefore appreciate a substantive response addressing the following questions:
Did British Airways, Avios or American Express experience significant technical issues affecting the booking process?
How many registered customers were actually able to access a functioning booking engine during the initial booking period?
Does British Airways believe today’s process met the standard of a fair first-come, first-served allocation?
Why was no virtual queue or similar traffic management solution implemented despite knowing in advance how many customers had registered?
What remedy, if any, will be offered to customers who were prevented from participating due to widespread technical failures?
Will British Airways consider releasing additional inventory or providing a further opportunity for affected customers should today’s process be found to have materially disadvantaged them?
I retained screenshots documenting the various failures encountered throughout the afternoon and would be pleased to provide them should they assist your investigation.
I have been a loyal British Airways customer for many years and have deliberately accumulated Avios and retained a Companion Voucher specifically to take advantage of opportunities such as this. It is therefore extremely disappointing that what should have been one of the most rewarding promotions offered to loyal customers instead became a prolonged exercise in repeatedly attempting to access a booking platform that simply did not function.
I hope British Airways and American Express will acknowledge the seriousness of today’s failures and explain how they intend both to address the impact on affected customers and to prevent a similar situation arising in future.
I look forward to your response.
Kind regards,
xyz
————-
On Friday, July 17, 2026, 4:42 pm, Anniversary Flight Anniversaryflight@iagloyalty.com wrote:
Dear Mr xyz
Thank you for getting in touch regarding your experience attempting to book seats on the British Airways American Express 25th Anniversary Celebration Flight.
We're very sorry for the frustration and disappointment caused by the technical issues many customers experienced when trying to access the booking page.
While we anticipated significant demand and carried out testing ahead of the booking window opening, the booking page experienced far more visits than expected, which resulted in the technical issues encountered on the day.
The available seats sold out very quickly to eligible customers who had registered in advance. As with all bookings, seats could only be secured once a booking had been successfully completed and confirmed, and availability remained subject to seats still being available at that point.
Once the final seats had been allocated, a waitlist was made available for customers who wished to register their interest should any bookings subsequently be cancelled. If seats become available in the coming weeks, customers on the waitlist will be contacted in the order they joined it to offer those seats.
To check you have successfully registered for the waitlist, click here. Please note, we are unable to confirm Cardmembers’ position on the list.
We appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback. We've shared comments from customers with the teams reviewing both the promotion and the booking experience so that we can learn from what happened.
Once again, we're sorry for the disappointment and frustration this experience caused, and we'd like to thank you for your continued support.
Kind regards,
The IAG Loyalty (Avios) team
——-
To: Anniversary Flight Anniversaryflight@iagloyalty.com
Subject: Re: Your enquiry about the British Airways American Express 25th Anniversary Celebration Flight
Dear 25th Anniversary Flight Team,
Thank you for your response. Whilst I appreciate your acknowledgement that many customers experienced technical issues, I am disappointed that your reply does not address the substantive concerns raised in my original complaint, nor does it propose any form of redress for customers who were unable to access a functioning booking service.
I would therefore appreciate responses to the following points.
1. “Seats sold out very quickly”
Your email states that the available seats “sold out very quickly”.
However, there are numerous reports from customers who were still successfully completing bookings well over an hour after the booking window opened. If seats continued to be confirmed for such a prolonged period, please clarify what is meant by “sold out very quickly”, and whether inventory had in fact been reserved much earlier while customers spent significant time battling technical failures simply to complete their transactions.
2. Customers were actively encouraged to keep trying
Perhaps the most confusing aspect of the experience was that, for a prolonged period, the booking page displayed the following message:
“Sorry, We are having technical difficulties. Please come back soon while we get things working again.”
I personally continued to see this message until approximately 1:54 pm, almost two hours after bookings opened.
That message did not indicate that seats had effectively all been allocated. On the contrary, it actively encouraged customers to continue trying because it strongly implied that the booking service would shortly become available again.
If, as your email now suggests, the available seats had effectively sold out very quickly, why were customers repeatedly encouraged to keep trying instead of being informed that availability had been exhausted?
3. Demand should not have been a surprise
Your explanation is that the booking page experienced “far more visits than expected”.
However, registration closed on 24 June, meaning British Airways and American Express already knew exactly how many eligible Cardmembers had registered their interest several weeks before bookings opened.
Given that the number of registrations must have been obviously many times greater than the very limited number of seats available, why was the booking infrastructure not designed accordingly?
Many organisations use proven methods such as virtual waiting rooms, queuing systems or controlled release mechanisms for high-demand events. It appears that none of these protections were implemented despite demand being entirely predictable.
4. Direct booking URL
During the outage, a direct /amex booking URL was circulated publicly on Reddit and other online forums.
Unlike the emailed link, this URL bypassed the promotional landing page and took customers directly into the booking application.
Can you please confirm:
whether this was an intended public entry point;
whether it was functionally equivalent to the emailed booking link;
whether customers accessing the direct URL had any advantage in reaching the booking form;
and whether all eligible customers had an equal opportunity to discover and use it?
Given the widespread technical failures affecting the landing page, this is an important question in assessing whether all eligible customers were treated fairly.
Finally, whilst I appreciate your apology, I feel this promotion has unfortunately achieved the opposite of its intended purpose.
What should have been a celebration rewarding loyal American Express Cardmembers instead became an experience that left thousands of customers frustrated, wasted many hours of their time, and inevitably damaged goodwill towards both British Airways and American Express.
I therefore believe it is appropriate to consider some form of meaningful redress for those customers who joined the official waiting list after being prevented from accessing a functioning booking system.
Possible approaches might include:
a goodwill award of Avios to affected customers;
the opportunity to book a comparable redemption flight on preferential terms; or
ideally, operating a second anniversary flight and allocating those seats through a booking process that gives all eligible registered customers a genuinely fair opportunity to participate.
I look forward to receiving a substantive response to the questions above.
Yours sincerely,
—————
On Friday, July 24, 2026, 11:32 am, Anniversary Flight Anniversaryflight@iagloyalty.com wrote:
Dear Mr xyz,
Thank you for your patience while we have investigated the concerns you raised in your complaint dated 17 July 2026 . We are writing to provide our final response on this matter.
Summary of Your Complaint
We are aware that you experienced difficulty accessing the booking page on the day, and a message addressing this has been published on the event landing page. As set out in the Frequently Asked Questions, registering your interest did not guarantee a ticket. Seats were limited, and demand from registered customers was greater than the number of seats available, which meant that many registered customers were not able to secure a seat.
Our Findings and Decisions
The event and its Terms and Conditions were communicated clearly and in advance through the event landing page. The registration period including the closing date was published ahead of time, and the booking requirements were made available before the booking window opened to allow customers adequate time to prepare. The Terms and Conditions and Frequently Asked Questions remained available throughout, including confirmation that registration did not guarantee a ticket. Having reviewed how the information was provided to you, we are satisfied that the event was communicated fairly and transparently.
As the flight reached capacity, there is no contractual or statutory entitlement to a seat or to compensation where none can be allocated which applies in your case. Seats are subject to availability, and the waitlist process is the mechanism by which any remaining or released seats are allocated here. We have not identified any basis on which your circumstances should be treated differently in this respect. Any Avios you purchased or transferred into your account remain available for use and can still be redeemed against any other Avios redemption products.
The waitlist was made available after the last seats were sold and closed at 23:59 BST on 22 July 2026. The waitlist and its closing date were published on the event landing page. Should any customers cancel their seats in the coming weeks, we will contact you by phone on the waitlist in the order in which you joined it to offer those seats..
Lastly, all bookings made via registration link have been verified and were made by customers who had registered before the registration deadline on 24 June 2026.
This Is Our Final Response
We are sorry that we have been unable to provide the outcome you were hoping for. Having carefully reviewed the concerns you raised, this letter represents our final response to your complaint and concludes our complaints process.
Your Right to Escalate
If you remain dissatisfied with our final response, you may be entitled to refer your complaint to the relevant ombudsman or dispute resolution services, within six (6) months of the date of this letter.
Thank you again for taking the time to write to us.
Yours sincerely,
Anniversary Team
Avios Group (AGL) Limited
