OWBA

Hello fellow travelers,

Chances are that this year, I'll be collecting substantially more Tier Points than I need to maintain my Silver, but will still end up about 500 TP short of Gold. While First Class lounges would be a nice perk, I can do without them pretty easily, it's mostly the lounge access per se that I'm after. That leaves me with priority over Silver on wait lists (I tend to book way in advance, so not something I normally would need), and additional rewards availability.

Now, I usually book with cash and upgrade with Avios, which can be a hassle when looking for available reward seats. As I read the perks of Gold, it unlocks additional reward seats at a higher Avios cost (correct me if I'm wrong). This is the aspect that I would find most interesting, but I'd like to have some input from those with experience using this perk on what it's like and whether you think it is worth it.

So, what do you think? Should I stay at Silver or go for the Gold in this situation?

littlefish

Care needed before you make your decision.

the extra award availability is from 'V' bucket, a ET and WT economy fare bucket. If V is still available you can, as a gold, use avios rather than cash to book.
Separately, as a Gold you can pony up double avios (at least 30 days out), to force an avios redemption.

So ... golds can not force CW upgrade space for WT+ tickets. Either regular reward space is available, or it isn't.

corporate-wage-slave

Well there's two parts to it. Golds get additional availability in Domestic and Economy classes. If you're based in the Regions and / or enjoy (as I certainly do) the benefits of Reward Flight Savers in Europe, then Gold makes quite a difference. However, that is partially nullified by membership of Avios.com, which also has improved access in these areas.

The other part is the Gold Priority Awards, paying twice the Avios to get redemptions where none are otherwise offered. You need a month's notice, but it appears that they can be changed/cancelled for free unlike other reservation. If you're travelling middle distance and have an Avios mountain it may still be a good use of them.

I have to say that once you've got used to Flounge, going upstairs again may not be as easy as you think!

carrotjuice

You can open an Avios account using (someone's) UK address and with just one transaction (eg. transfer Avios from BAEC qualifies) you may "unlock" the additional RFS redemptions. Though I think the Avios availability isn't as extensive as BAEC Gold availability for RFS.

courtster

Certainly not as extensive, but have still found seats on avios.com when there is no Gold availability.

I didn't think a transfer counted? I tried it last year without success so purchased 1000 avios for £31 on avios.com and that did it.

fripperies

Reward seats have become much harder to get. In theory, therefore, the ability of Gold to force redemptions for 2x avios seems a major benefit.

However, to offset the cost of earning the extra 500 TPs needed for Gold you would need to have an extremely very large stash of avios, and be happy to burn them that way. If you only force a couple of GPAs in long-haul J it would be cheaper to forget about Gold and simply to buy tickets when you need them.

stifle

Avios.com can book into G class which, like S, can sometimes be available even though notionally "higher" classes such as V are zeroed.

Falcs

V Class availability can be useful eg...

1. LHR-MUC £129 available for £17.50 + 4500 avios
2. Summer prices LHR-YVR £1200 return available for £630 + 15000 avios

LondonElite

Apart from better RFS availability, it's not worth it, IMO. GPA, at double the number of Avios is poor value unless you have a silly balance. Long haul Y redemptions are also not great use of Avios, so you may be better off saving your money.

themapelligroup

I found myself in your situation in the past two years: around 1000 TPs and undecided whether to go for Gold or not. My decision was merely based on economic calculation: would the extra money spent to get Gold give me some return in the following year? The answer was no. Flounge is nice of course, but it's still a waiting room before you catch your flight, giving that LHR is the only OW airport I fly quite frequently with a first class lounge I could benefit I concluded it wasn't worth to spend all that money to gain the additional TPs.
Additional reward seat was more challenging, but since I'm a leisure flyer and my dates are quite flexible I wouldn't really make use of it. It might come in hand but again not to justify that spend.

This year the situation is different: I'm already at 1020 TPs with 10 months to go in my membership year, so I will definitely make Gold simply taking the flights to the destinations I need to go without any TPs run.

layz

First time I aimed for gold it was to get a soft landing to silver so I can spend the whole of my membership year redeeming on Avios the mountain of miles I built up on BA and bmi.

Turned out for me the flounge and the (now scrapped) free changes of Avios redemptions were good enough benefits for me.

So in order to keep gold I decided to pay for all my long haul flights (for the tier points) and just use Avios for the short haul when available.

The loss of the free changes has made gold less valuable for me but as I can make over 1500TP without doing any runs I'm not going to be looking elsewhere any time soon.

Raffles

Layz makes a key point - getting Gold means no stress next year over requalifying. This gives you potential flexibility to try to get Star status, try Virgin Atlantic, do all your personal flights as redemptions etc.

iwillflytheworld

Given the new fad of no-notice changes in FFPs, I for one wouldn't count on a soft-landing two years from now.

FIFAFLYER

Falcs, I can't see how to do a reward booking for LHR-YVR return for less than 50,000 Avios (Plus $713 CDN) Was "15000 avios" a typing error, or am I missing something?

Falcs

If you select your flights and go to step 3 - price (Itinerary and Quote), there should be cash plus avios options with the avios range from 15k to 50k