This continues to be a somehow intriguing mystery to me. I’ve also witnessed significantly better treatment on the ground for certain other GGLs that I know personally. They are not GGLs for life, so I suspect it indeed relates to CIV.

In the past there were observations that this extra care by the airline might be triggered by spend, or the somehow blurry concept of “key decision maker”.

For the sake of debunking myths: I estimate my own spend YTD on BA to be around £180k, all first or business class and often full F/J fare. I am a C-level officer of a US public company, I control the majority of the corporate T&E spend, of which about £1.5-2M goes to BA (which I am sure is not much for them; the majority of our travelling teams are US or Asia based, so they tend to prefer their home carriers and I don’t force a choice on them). I have always been, and still am, a “run of the mill” GGL with CIV 97. I never get any attention on the ground (I used to be always taken care of at LAX, but that’s no longer the case). I would like to think that I drive decent business for the airline, but clearly this is not enough to deserve anything out of the ordinary. Fair enough, although this is in stark contrast with multiple other airlines (which chase corporate deals and take GREAT care of key travellers; see EK or AF). As I spend a disproportionate amount of time on planes, I do care about perks, but have lost any hope of getting special care from BA.

It is worth noting that the two people I know who often get escorted (and driven) on the ground work in UK-based companies holding corporate deals with BA (albeit both of them are in less senior roles than mine, and certainly don’t drive spend). On the other hand, we don’t have a corporate deal with BA. This because when we approached the airline a few years ago, they seemed very uninterested in having a serious conversation (I recall being put in touch with an intern). Moreover, we were uncomfortable being fully monitored through Prism (which at the time was a non negotiable requirement for any sort of deal), mostly due to data safety concerns.

Bottom line: for anyone out there wondering why they are not being treated better, I wouldn’t stress or bother trying to figure out the mysterious ways in which this airline segments their customers. My own conclusion is that either BA is terrible at tracking spend (and those who drive spend), or the additional perks are exclusively tied to travellers who fall under larger corporate travel deals. Or both.