Just to clarify the BA lifetime question. There used to be lifetime Gold and Lifetime Premier status available, although the qualification for Gold was never published (25,000 lifetime points would be nowhere near enough - many of us do more than that a year!).

However, lifetime Gold and Lifetime Premier were abolished about 3 years ago.

You are able to identify a Lifetime BA Gold or Prem by the third and fourth digit of their membership number being 1 and 0.

Lifetime Gold used to be offered upon retirement to very loyal BA customers and lifetime Premier was offered to business figures who were unlikely to go out of fashion, as oppposed to someone who is Chairman of a bank for six months and then is never heard of again.

Nick