If that's the case, the entire customer-loyalty industry must be a figment of my imagination.

Let's get rid of the EC altogether. Give Merry back his blue card. NO, in fact remove his membership altogether. Forget special services, the Queens suite (or whatever you called it), Concorde rooms, good seat assignments. All of these are things that don't actually concern anyone enough to make any difference to their spending patterns.

And before you start back-patting your pals on the BA board for 'turning around' an airline, get them out to compete in the real world with the rest of us first.