Similar gesture for me as well. I booked a redemption ticket to Milan for the holidays with my family, unfortunately I was forced to buy redeem tickets flying into MXP as LIN was not available anymore.
My mum fell seriously ill on 12 Dec evening, rang BA to check whether we could bring our flight forward by 10 days and not only they did so for the three of us but they also had us land in LIN which was a major plus in the situation. I only paid the 35 EUR booking change fee.
The same paid flight would have costed 600 EUR + and would have voided the return leg.
I often criticise BA, but I must say the way the BAEC programme works and the overall quality of service staff is amazing. When I was flying CX the hard and soft product on board was undoubtedly better than BA, but good luck trying to talk to one of their service staff. A 1975 robot would be smarter.