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Old Jan 6, 2018, 7:35 am
  #40  
bisonrav
 
Join Date: Dec 2016
Programs: BAEC GGL/CR; Hilton Diamond; Mucci des Puccis
Posts: 5,522
I think it'll be a hold-steady year too, for what it's worth, but from my perspective the BAEC is relatively generous and you can see that being something that will be looked at. I was actually surprised to find that as a silver I could choose seats on a HBO fare, for example, it seems incongruous. The thrust of the strategy if there is LCC and premium in the same flight should be to maximise the benefit of the higher pricing, whereas on a £55 return to Bordeaux and a tenner for a bacon roll and coffee, and an exit row seat I'll have an experience comparable or better than someone in row 2 paying £200 or more. That's not really sustainable.

In some respects, having a relatively easy qualification for status is good for BA because it does keep the turkeys onboard. That said, the cost to BA is really going to be in terms of lounge access, and we can see they're already looking at that in terms of removing direct overhead from the process (as in Toronto) so it becomes a per-passenger-visit charge to a third party provider in many cases. That means that they are positioning themselves to be able to reduce either the number of passengers or the charge per passenger or both. My money is on a more difficult process for qualifying for status, which is one of my reasons for going for GGL now. I don't think it'll be possible in a couple of years.

Last edited by bisonrav; Jan 6, 2018 at 7:40 am
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