IMO it will be more and more difficult to qualify for top tier status on deeply discounted coach class tickets. In other words, we do not have any guarantee that other FFP join BA’s EC way in honouring paid fare classes and not only the paid class of services.

Let me also add to GoldCircle’s elaborated posts that we only earn 500 status M&M miles on T class domestic fares and who knows what the future will bring…

Last year I compared the value of miles on *A FFPs & calculated how many paid trips I need to qualify for *G on a given route; unfortunately, these figures are already outdated, but it may give you an indication about the huge difference of these FFPs especially if you look at different fares.

The reason why I would choose the FFP of the airline I flying most is this: availability of awards, earning additional miles on promotions & redemption of upgrade awards.