There is no debate that British Airways Avios are awesome:
- Flights cost as little as 4,500 Avios in coach (or 7,500 within North America);
- Flights can often be booked on BA.com;
- No close in booking fee;
- Cancelling or changing a flight will cost as little as $5.60 and up to $55 only, but you will get all your Avios back.
[SEE: Use Avios to your advantage for a family trip ]
I love using Avios for Alaska flights along the West Coast and to Hawaii from the Bay Area.  Unfortunately, flights with British Airways partners, such as Alaska and Aer Lingus, are not displayed online and I have to call in to book the award seats. I have read plenty stories about how frustrating it is to call the British Airways phone number in the U.S., but I never experienced it until this past summer.
Earn your Avios points with the British Airways Visa Signature Card. Learn more about this card and compare other airline cards here.
US British Airways phone number – an hour on hold to fix a simple problem
My daughter and I are going to Osaka in February 2017 with my best friend and her son. I booked her tickets back in March 2016 on Japan Airlines through BA website. During the summer, Japan Airline changed its schedule between Haneda Tokyo and San Francisco, totally screwed up my connecting flight between Haneda and Osaka. Since there is no way to fix it online, I had to contact the British Airways phone number in the US call center. I didn’t want to wait after work because there were only four seats in the new connecting flight that I wanted. The music played, and played, and played. Finally after 50 minutes someone answered! I fed the agent the new flight info and within 10 minutes everything was done. A simple change yet it took a whole hour to fix!
Another disaster trying to contact the US British Airways phone number
Soon after that, I had to book my Alaska flights to Maui for next summer. I would need to call in to book the award seats. (TIP: add your credit card info and names of your travel companions to your Executive Club profile before you call. It will save you time later!)  I decided to look up another British Airways contact number because I don’t have time nor patience to wait an hour on the phone. Looking through the list of BA Executive Club call centers, I settled on the Hong Kong office, and was I glad that I did! It is now my go-to center every time I need to call the British Airways phone number to book award flights or other matters. My calls are usually answered within 5 to 10 minutes. Agents all speak very good English (though I personally have a little hard time understanding the British accent), very courteous and always willing to help. Most importantly, I am usually done within 20 minutes.
The only caveat, Hong Kong is 16 hours ahead of California (or 15 hours during daylight savings time). So if you need to call the British Airways phone number urgently during the day, you are stuck with calling the U.S. center. Also, I typically use Skype when I call and the connection sometimes is iffy. But agents usually ask for my phone number so that they would call me back in case we get disconnected. The Hong Kong office opens at 9am local time, which is the beginning hours of evening here in the U.S.
So next time you need to call the British Airways phone number from the U.S., give the Hong Kong office a call. Below are the phone numbers and hours of North and South America call center plus Hong Kong office.
| Phone Number | Location | Operating Hours |
|---|---|---|
| 011-852-3002-1208 | Hong Kong | Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm |
| 1-800-452-1201 | North America and Caribbean | Daily, 7:30am to 8pm Eastern Standard Time |
| 1-408-352-9323 | Most South America Countries | Monday to Friday, 9am to 7pm local time |
Have you had good luck calling the British Airways phone number in other countries? Â Leave your suggestions in the comments
This site is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as thepointsguy.com. This may impact how and where links appear on this site. Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers and that compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own, and have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by my advertising partners and I do not include all card companies, or all available card offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers and other offers and benefits listed on this page. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more. Other links on this page may also pay me a commission - as always, thanks for your support if you use them
User Generated Content Disclosure: Points With a Crew encourages constructive discussions, comments, and questions. Responses are not provided by or commissioned by any bank advertisers. These responses have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the responsibility of the bank advertiser to respond to comments.
Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
There is no such thing as 15 or 16 hours ahead or behind. 12 is the max …
Well I guess it depends on how you look at it. I agree with what you’re saying, but sometimes it can be easier to think of something being 16 hours ahead than 8 hours behind but on a different day
Not true, thanks to the international date line. New Zealand is 21 hours ahead of the US west coast, for instance.
I guess it just depends on how you look at it
There are no more US based call centers, as BA closed the last one in Dec 2013. All calls are now routed to the UK or India. So, user friendly processes and standard US type customer services is now gone. Yes, I am one of the 330 call center employees whose job was sent to India in that cost cutting measure.
i HAVE BEEN ON HOLD AND ROUTED TO INDIA FOR THE PAST 4 DAYS AND GOTTEN NOWHERE WITH MY PROBLEM.
There was a BEDBUG problem with a BA flight 2 weeks ago on a BA flight from Vancouver to London- a woman and her daughter and fiance were bitten , got welts, and infected. The woman had to boil their clothes to get rid of the bugs ON VACATION. BA only response is we apologize .
I wanted to know how they fumigated the plane and how to wrap my luggage when I check in at MIAMI to PISA- ALL on BA. The BA agents at the call centers SAY they know NOTHING about this. it is all over google,twitter etc. WHO CAN I CALL an what number as ALL 800 numbers get routed to INDIA. The one Indian agent looked it up on GOOGLE and was appalled.
He asked his supervisor about it and the only answer he got was ” problem was taken care of”.. I wanted to know how they fumigated the bugs as they are killed ONLY with HIGH HEAT- pesticides no longer work…and want to know how I can wrap my luggage to keep the bugs out.
I’ve been on hold with British Airways for 20 minutes now. All I want to do is tell them that a passenger on our ticket is not traveling. This is ridiculous.
I have called INDIA for 4 separate days and gotten nowhere..all phone number that they give me including the UK do NOT work..And this was on hold for over 4 HRS!!
Good luck..this airline totally sucks and I am flying BUSINESS CLASS!!
Please please I don’t want o miss my avios with afflicted American airline which I applied last month because it will qualify me as silver I need a few miles to qualify so please add the American Airline ticket #00123976523922 and00123976523955
I just needed the postal address of British Airways so that I can post a mail to them. I simply cannot locate on the web at all. Any help will be appreciated.
I am not near a computer.
They only answer emails.
The CEO is Alex Cruz.
His email is listed but he turns it over to someone else to answer. There is no USA # at all no matter what they tell you online or in India.
ALL OTHER PEOPLE listed with email addresses don’t work.
So sorry.
As so many others waiting online for a service that is appalling. More Willie Walsh doing Willie Wanker. After every flight you get a survey, but the FU factor when bookings / records got lost. I can just imagine the beautiful BA accents that sound as bored from the call center as much as on board telling me “we think you are a twat, and therefore we’ll keep you waiting, meanwhile listen to some guitar and talk about promotions while you get more and more frustrated, but we’ll continue to take you money – thank you for calling British Airways”
British Airline is worst and useless.
Its system did not support to extension avios point before my points expired 15 days later, no way to buy avios and no way to use my point to book the ticket, online is only show one page, no next page available.
When I called customer service, outsource is know nothing, then called again to talk to UK, verified the same problem.
Then email BA, the answer is only mention that my avios point will be expired, no any help for how to make its system work to buy or book the ticket.
BA is fully ignore the customer/member problem!
BA is fully no care about its system/online working or not!
Called the UK BA number (am in EST time zone) about two months ago, to redeem 45K Avios on a flight in cattle class to Narita on AA metal. Were calling about 12 pm EDT, so it was ~5 pm UK time. Spoke to a lady in Manchester, who was very helpful, and who was able to book the flight when fed the AA flight numbers and dates/times.
(If you wonder why 45K Avios, due to availability, I had to book YUL – LGD – ORD – NRT, because YUL – ORD direct segment was not available as SAAver, and I *really* did not want to fly YUL – LHR – NRT on BA metal, so it was 45K Avios + 56 CAD on AA instead of 37.5K Avios and 600 CAD on BA).
I’ve flown BA for 15 years but in 2017 made a reservation for June 2018. BA canceled two segments without notification than charged me $50 USD to reinstate. Call to customer service center is worthless as others have stated. The India call center, even at the supervisor level, cannot make changes, refund or answer questions. You go in circles. I’ve been on the phone for 1.5 hours and haven’t received any satisfaction to my problems, and this is my 5th call. I will never use BA again.
British Airways customer service is basically non-existent. There seems to be no combination of wait times or phone numbers to call to crack the code to get to customer service. ….and i thought American Airlines was bad
I tried to call that 011 number for HKG call center in Skype but it wants to add a country code before it (US)… can’t seem to get it to dial. What’s the trick?
I have had the worst luck being routed to the India call center, however those calls are usually after 5pm Central in the US. Not that the call isn’t answered quickly and the people are not nice they just don’t ever seem to have any info for me that is helpful. The rep puts me on hold to go ask my question and then after about 10 minutes returns with nothing helpful. I have had the best luck calling the “US” number early in the morning (before 10:00 am) and get routed to the UK call center. My calls have been picked up quickly and the reps have been super super helpful and have better facility with the flight booking options.
I booked a flight from the UK call center three weeks ago and it took 98 minutes to make the booking. Huge wait time to even get an agent, and then over 40 minutes to make the booking with the agent. 40 MIN to book a one way standard reward on AA metal. Tons of back and forth nonsense, misinformation, political discussions. Completely ridiculous.
Booked a return flight today. After finding this post and calling the HK #, I got redirected to the Indian call center. My agent spoke perfect English, was extremely professional, and the entire call from dialing to ticketed was 13 minutes. I don’t think it could have gone any faster.
Glad to hear it still works 😉
All of the above comments plus 2.5 hours just to make a round trip flight from USA to UK. The “new” website is awful and the connection failed at the last page as the transaction was going through. Took another 45 minutes talking to a human being to get it sorted out. What the hell has happened to airline travel? I watched a 96 year old lady (in a wheelchair) being frisked by TSA on TV yesterday and today I have to waste just over 3 hours to book a ticket? Someone at the top of the airlines needs to wake up and start earning their fantastic salaries.
Cannot figure out how to search for multi-city avios points reward ticket. any suggestions?
Avios price out per leg, so just search for each leg separately
British Airways doesn’t care. Their ticket agent at the gate was rude and required me to go through another security check after I had just been through a very intense 20 minute one with the Heathrow Airport Security, which was over the top. They’re check was a joke and lost them a customer forever. I’m a 74-year-old white male who has customs priority clearance with U S Customs. They simply don’t care. They lost a good customer when they didn’t have to. PS, their food was good.
The worst airline ever. They cancelled my ticket on me and I would have never known unless I called the day after I booked my flight to change my dates. And suddenly I get this surprise that your ticket is invalid even though I have a confirmed eticket in my email!!!
Now they won’t even honor the same price I got. Complete assholes at this airline. They don’t do anything for customers. What a mess I spent hours on the phone with them! Avoid them at all costs.
I called “Hong Kong” and was routed to India. (or BA has Indians manning their HK call center). The CSR insisted on a $25 per person phone booking fee even when I told him that the BA website kept giving me an error when trying to book PHX-DEN on AA. (True).
I gave up and called “Tokyo”. I think I was routed to India. This time the rep was very helpful but the call took 45 MINUTES from start to finish. Early on she told me she would “see what she could do” about the phone booking fee. Somewhere around the 35 minute mark she said the fee would be waived, so the 3 award tickets were 22,500 Avios and $16.80. Worth the wait to save miles and avoid AA’s 3x $75 close-in booking fee.
BA has incorrectly submitted my age below 18. I can’t by just 3000 avios to complete my flight travel because I am under 18 according to BA. their message says “if you are not under 18 please call us” which is a joke. BA has nothing but contempt for patrons and the public. I hope they go bankrupt soon.
Just called the NA number and was routed to India. The personnel was very helpful and was able to assist on what I needed because for this trip we are bringing a bike so they actually wanted to know the size of the luggage for the bike and the total weight. Of course I didn’t have the information so I was told to call back but it was already noted on the reservation that they are waiting for the information.
It is virtually IMPOSSIBLE to get in touch with BA. Phone numbers in US and UK (calling from US) are not answered. Trying to chat on Chat Bot. It said Hello David. You are up next. Connecting. This message was displayed for almost an hour! Up Next? An hour and still not?
I wrote to BA in London. Three times last October and again this April and again in May. No reply even though I gave my email, my phone and my street address. Nothing.
This post will be a complete waste of time. I have no idea how anyone books a flight with BA. I have flown BA more than 50 times US to UK I Loved them for more than 50 years. Would Always fly BA whenever possible. My favorite airline for 50 + years. Not so sure now!!!