First Premier Interaction
On the flight back from Mumbai yesterday, I briefly interacted with the BA black card holder (Premier). I recognised him immediately, he is the CEO of a very well-known corporate here in the UK. There was a bit of a wait for boarding so we struck up a conversation - he was very friendly - we spoke about the football (great ice-breaker!) and how we dealt with the humid weather in Mumbai. He had some nice luggage tags (much smaller in size than the standard tags, but it had the BA crest and was black and just generally looked to be of high quality), so I figured he was a Premier card holder (and he was, as confirmed by his boarding pass). I know these cards are quite rare (from what I read on FT!), so I briefly asked him about it.
He said that for him, the benefit of the card was all about zipping through Heathrow, New York and a few other major stations in the Far East, as fast as he possibly can. He told me that on a recent flight to HK with bags, he checked in 30mins before departure. Can you believe it? His company book him Club through corporate policy, and he said he was upgraded maybe 30-40% of the time to F. On this particular flight, the inflight customer manager came to see him a couple of times, but he didn't get any extraordinary attention, and no-one was at either gate to bid him a pleasant journey or to welcome him to the UK. Maybe another benefit is the treatment during flight cancellations.