Originally Posted by
HIDDY
Another realistic post about this decision.
Lets face it...the customers who make BA money aren't the ones who fly Easyjet. They are the ones who fly direct or connect on to BA long haul flights at LHR. They will not be impacted on by this decision.
I can understand the stushie this announcement has caused to members on this forum but it'll all be forgotten about in a few weeks.
Not sure I agree with you, hiddy - there are a great many people who do a lot of business travel on expensive fares with BA who, on the one or two times they travel with the family during the year, may choose a another (not necessarily budget) airline or - as in my case - due to the range of routes they travel, cannot always use BA. If such a perk is offered, it strongly encourages the FF to use BA as their "first choice", as their loyalty of choosing BA over competitors was awarded with a "perk" which had the added benefit of discouraging them seeking status with other carriers.
I just had a look at my flying patterns for the last 2 years (I have to track it for tax issues), and on a quick first cut, I reckon that around 70-80% of my flying was with BA, a smattering with OW partners, 15-20% with LH/LX and the balance AF/KLM. Of the BA flights, ALL that I can see were on routes with LH/LX/KLM as competitors or two/three leg LH routes where I could have had equally convenient LH/LX routings.
Looking objectively, given a lesser amount of flying this year (thanks to illness), I had made a conscious effort to use CE or CE paid upgrades to stay Gold mainly in order to have this benefit, including only this week using a €850 ET short haul flight at awkward times for a 2-hour meeting - I suspect the profit margin on that was at least 50%, and is the kind of flying BA likes. Given that this perk has now gone, my most sensible couse of action is to either swich allegiences to LH/LX, where at least there is the "comfort" of 2 year validity and soft landing or alternatively to "spread" my allegience between BAEC, M&M and (shudder) FB.
Given the other service erosions over the last couple of years, I really now struggle to see why I should stay loyal to BA, as I really cannot think of any ways in thich BA now beats the competition.
The only possible perk which would now keep me loyal to BA is having the ability to offer arctic vixen & the arctic cubs lounge access on the couple of occasions when we fly together each year. In which case BA will retain my loyalty for the lucrative business flights in return for a couple of cokes and sandwiches 3-4 times a year plus an extra 12-16 ET tickets which currently go to LH or the budgets. Seems a pretty small price to me!