When I was promoted to Silver, BAEC reward availability was no different to what it had been before.

But getting to Gold, a whole lot of 'V' bucket inventory popped up as available a rewards.
Even this has downsides as quite a lot of flights do not have V availability (even months out), and its not that much use on WT as the taxes and fuel surcharge take away the value.
V is handy for RFS in ET, and certain domestic flights, and getting a WT foothold on a one-way from some far flung long-haul destination when you have the CW/F seats in the bag in the other direction.