Originally Posted by
foolonthehill
Welcome, and I'm sure someone more important will be along to welcome you properly shortly!
As someone usually flying J (or with the family in Y), I have always had the same feeling about being Silver - there aren't really any benefits that are particularly useful that you don't already get.
But as a relatively newly-minted Gold, I've found quite a step up so far. The Flounge's are good, but not that special. The real benefit I've found is the increased Rewards Availability - both in terms of additional rewards seats, and the "double Avios" Priority Rewards. Suddenly all those Avios points become exponentially more useful, and I've booked many more short breaks this year already.
I'm glad to see someone else on the same page with the Silver benefits. That's very interesting about the reward availability, are those seats in all travel classes or just Y?
Originally Posted by
corporate-wage-slave
Welcome to Flyertalk All She Wrote, welcome to the BA forum and yes, you have definitely come to the right place. In your shoes, it seems to me that the three benefits of getting Gold would be the use of the First Wing, the First lounges in several locations and extra Avios earning rate, which may then unlock further benefits for you. But there's a big difference between 1100 and 1400 TPs, the latter could mean a £200 trip to reach Gold for the last 100 TPs, whereas the 1100 figure not only increases the cost but suggests that you won't necessarily get to benefit from Gold when you have it, you would seem to have fewer opportunities to use the First Wing and what-not.
I would anticipate that in my next year I'll make 6 long haul trips, and probably 1 or 2 short haul ones. I would probably have made Gold this year if I hadn't taken two trips across with Air Canada, kind of kicking myself for it now!