Originally Posted by
Fly Baby
Well, yes, they are bound to lose some business Jamier45. But as recent threads have shown, you can get status by doing quick TP runs for (relatively) small amounts of money. Compare that to someone who reaches gold by spending £15K plus on their flights. Who is more valuable to BA? Who will they worry about losing long term?
We have been round and round this one plenty of times before, and the answer is by no means as simple as you imply.
If the £15k comes from a corporate deal and the GCH has to fly BA, BA have little or no interest in that flyer's loyalty. They know that they will fly the cheapest LCC when they are paying for their own leisure flights and they have a captive customer for corporate travel.
A rich leisure traveller who attains gold via discounted flights may be more valuable and is certainly the type of customer that BA needs to woe to keep. Don't forget, what look like expensive full fare flexible tickets may actual cost no more than a heavily discounted I or R fare when corporate discounts are take into account.
Finally, who will fill the premium seats if you boot out the well-healed leisure traveller and occasional business traveller from the upper levels of your loyalty scheme and restrict it to big spending corporates? Won't those customers go to the competition that offers them a better deal?
And when your large corporates move to Y-only travel policies, you have a pretty broken business model. And you have lost what used to be loyal customers, who actually had a choice and therefore expected to be rewarded for their loyalty.
All loyalty programmes have a particular flavour and are pitched at different groups. BAEC has always been pitched at premium cabin flyers - indeed in the old days you could not even enroll without having taken a TP-earning flight, at a time when discounted economy offered no TPs.
The flavour and pitch (remember the programme's name) was the classic British old boys' club. Outdated as it maybe, the connotation being quality and class, not something as vulgar as money (revenue).
Some may feel that they deserve preferential treatment because their company spends lots on their travel. That's their opinion and they are entitled to it.
I am a leisure traveller who spends his own money to achieve gold year in year out. The current BA programme very much suits me and genuinely rewards my loyalty in a way that makes me chose BA. IMHO long may it retain the same focus and values that it has today.