Since the demise of the Customer Service Exec at T4 I've turned to SS for things like pre-allocating seats (the ones that are usually blocked). I've generally noticed a huge difference in attitude between the old CSE's and SS. CSE's would be very willing to pre-allocate seats, put requests in their diaries for return flights and generally left you with a feeling of being very well looked after, which added to my loyalty to BA (been Gold since 1998).

Howver, SS always seems very reluctant to help out, often say they haven't got access to the flights (when I believe from experience that they do) and never offer to deal with return flights in the same way that CSE used to. Usually, SS claim to be unable to access flight not originating in LHR (even though on other occassions they have been able to and CSEs always were able).

Is SS just aimed at Premiere card holders and VIPs and therefore don't like to assist regular loyal customer like Gold card holders or is it just a customer service ethic problem at BA?