Try being a mid tier status holder in the US, you don't even get into the lounge unless you're on international or a handful of selected routes in US. Same applies for top tier. Once you're in lounge you'll have to pay for premium drinks, unless it's one of the few flagship lounges the big airlines operate. Then try being mid tier on CX in Asia. You'll not be getting there with the kind of spend you can reach BA silver. I remember crediting 4 PE flights with CX to BA. Got 65 percent of way to silver in one go, with CX would have barely been 20 percent. BA don't have minimum qualifying spend like US airlines either.

People are fast to knock BA but before you worry about your champagne, ask how many mid tier flyers in other airlines enjoy those perks or how much they spent to get there. I think it's a miracle that BA silver has enjoyed such easy access to lounges for so long. With the double TPs people getting close to gold in one holiday, something that doesn't happen on any of the other airlines and may explain why Ba doesn't offer up unlimited champagne to people flying on a 40 quid ticket to Europe. At the end of the day, BA do advertise a much more premium product than they can always deliver, which is something I agree they do wrong, but the easiest way to solve that cost wise will not be investing more to improve the product but making it more exclusive and expensive to get. I would imagine next couple of years plenty of people will be wondering why it's so much harder to reach silver status than it used to be.