I think I've read the whole of the main thread on the tier point changes (there was a point yesterday when I couldn't read as fast as people were posting, which might be a metric BA want to look at when assessing customer sentiment) and what's really striking is how democratically BA have managed to screw over the full range of active Avios collectors and status chasers. It does mean the thread's a bit hard to follow with discussions about GGL and lifetime status mixed together with those of us who get a bit excited about Bronze, so I thought some more focused threads for some of the distinct groups of BA flyers might be useful to share experience, reactions and ideas for workaround (@mods please merge back if you feel a single thread is more useful).

My situation, which I think is quite common, is that I can generally cobble together enough TPs for Bronze with a few SH work flights, spending cash on leisure flights when it represents better value than Avios, Amex bonuses, and taking very occasional LH J flights for work or leisure. Sometimes this tips into Silver which is the holy grail. Gold has always been a distant dream. I mostly fly intra-European leisure, in CE when possible/affordable, which is probably about half the flights.

This is pretty valuable for just two reasons: seat selection before the T-24 scrum, and lounge access when flying in ET. This gives a fairly simple cost-benefit calculation for the value of getting to Silver, which is some function of seat selection fees for a group of 3 or 4 going on holidays together, and the cost of 2 of us upgrading to CE to benefit from lounge access. I guess a very small marginal value for CE food and alcohol comes into it too. Without thinking about it too hard, that probably means I've been willing to spend an extra few hundred pounds to tip over into Silver if the option was there.

As far as I can see the current changes mean that option will just not exist: I can't imagine a situation where anything than doing an extra £2-4k of pre-tax spend compared to my current travel patterns will get me there. So for me the only question now is how to try and get other OW Sapphire status (the RJ offer was good this year) so I can carry on redeeming Avios earned from non-flying activities and get seat selection/lounge access where appropriate. If that doesn't work, I'll use Avios where it still makes financial sense and probably become completely airline-agnostic the rest of the time.

Are other in a similar position? Has anyone worked out the best OW status approach that isn't BA now?