@jdiver thanks! Happy to have descended down from being a lurker and hopefully will be here for a long time to come, absolutely love FT!

I've checked out the Elite Status Challenge and honestly have decided to stick with BAEC, only because I've only got a few flights booked for the next 3 months and highly doubt that, with my BA LH to LHR likely to only offer 0.5EQM, i'll reach 12,500. 7000 is definitely possible but the benefits seem to be minimal, although given I'm Sapphire with BAEC, I'm tempted to ring them up and see if they'll offer me gold temporarily while trying to get to Platinum. Then again, I might do this flight tomorrow to see how the bags work and then make a decision (although I will lose out on like ~600 EQM). It's a tough call!

@djokison thanks, I figured as much re lounge access. BAEC has finally updated to show me as silver but AA still show me as Ruby so no doubt will need to go through some hoops at the lounge but let's see what happens!

Thanks for your help all