British Airways Customer Promotes Bad Experience Via Sponsored Tweets

Twitter user Hasan Syed (@HVSVN) was so disgruntled with British Airways service that he took out several Promoted Tweets to attack the company.

The service was apparently so bad that Syed decided to take out paid tweets to attack the company. The company lost his dad’s luggage and then seemed disinterested in finding the luggage.

Not happy with accepting a lost baggage payment from the airline @HVSVN instead spend money to attack the airline and warn other customers.

Many bad customer service stories trend on Twitter, Reddit, or Facebook, but apparently Syed wanted to ensure that his story reached the biggest audience possible.

The Twitter user specifically targeted the New York and UK markets which are both huge hubs for British Airways.

Here is one of the promoted tweets sent out by the angry and we assume former British Airways customer:

@BritishAirways @British_Airways is the worst airline ever. Lost my luggage can’t even track it down. Absolutely pathetic #britishairways

— (@HVSVN) September 2, 2013

Thanks for ruining my EU business trip #britishairways. I shouldnt have flown @BritishAirways @British_Airways. Never flying with you again

— (@HVSVN) September 2, 2013

As his promoted tweets went public other Twitter users began to ask him about his decision to spend money to bad mouth British Airways:

This was a promoted tweet?! RT @HVSVN: British Airways sucks. Don’t ever fly with them #britishairways @britishairways @british_airways

— Rubi Godinez (@rubigodi) September 2, 2013

@mattb3012 @BritishAirways @British_Airways Its not about the money at this point. I’m going to run promoted ads until BA fixes this mess.

— (@HVSVN) September 2, 2013

Some British Airways customers disagreed with his experience but the disgruntled customer was more than happy to fight back against the naysayers:

@since73me @BritishAirways You just used BA with Ryan Air in the same sentence. Talk about low standards.

— (@HVSVN) September 3, 2013

The promoted tweets appear to be working at the hashtag #BASucks was born from the ashes:

@HVSVN Agree with you. Horrendous experience with @British_Airways customer service and support. #BAsucks

— Aravind (@aravind) September 3, 2013

British Airways finally responded by apologize and noting that as a billion dollar company they only have 9-5 social media representation:

@HVSVN Sorry for the delay in responding, our twitter feed is open 0900-1700 GMT. Please DM your baggage ref and we’ll look into this.

— British Airways (@British_Airways) September 3, 2013

Hasan Syed went to bed after hours of attacking British Airways but promised to show his ad spend and metrics numbers in the next 24 hours.