Originally Posted by
csycsycsy
What will your travel patterns be, are you moving to Europe?
What's CX customer service without CX status, assuming you'll be flying with them.
Is Sapphire sustainable? CX offers CX lounge access even to silvers, as well as the new OW AMS. CDG will be reopened one day. That's LHR AMS CDG just for Europe alone
Unless you live in Spain and can take advantage of Spain specific (or even Madrid specific) IB perks, BAEC is probably better.
Originally Posted by
LupineChemist
Yes, I agree with the above. Check for TPs on BA. They have the same premium economy sweet spot and the benefits tend to be more global.
Honestly aside from lounge access, my favorite benefit is parking at Madrid airport, not very useful to you.
The travel pattern is always HKG-OPO, which I have been doing mostly with CX to MAD and onwards to OPO with IB. Last year August used QR, but connection to Portugal is always with IB or BA.
Understand CX provides lounge access to silver (Ruby) but only on CX flights. When I land at Madrid, and have to wait 4 hours for connection flight to OPO, I am
not admitted into the IB lounge with CX Silver. Regarding CDG or AMS, there’s no OW connection from these places to Portugal.
Why IB+ Oro:
- OW Sapphire
- Access to OW business lounges
- Priority boarding
Why IB+:
- less number of flights to reach sapphire level
- EP points from partner airlines are not massively devalued compared to CX
- accepts Avios transfers from BAEC (I have credit cards that transfer points to BA avios)
I think overall seems a better alternative to keep some status (Sapphire) at a much lower cost (less flights) and less cost per flight (Finnair vs BA vs CX). Hopefully, IB+ will value my “Classic Eco” L/K as Full economy so that long haul is worth 350 EPs on the HKG-HEL leg.