This is actually a really good point. Some people on this thread have said something along the lines of "Oh, but this is FT and we are such a small subset of BA's overall market, what we think/do doesn't really matter".

But actually I think that the general BA flying public have become A LOT cleverer and more astute in recent years (partly thanks to forums like this and newsletters like HfP) and MANY people, even if not AVGeeks or FT'ers, look for ways to cheaply obtain and retain status: "loopholes" or TP runs aren't the preserve of this forum!

Not only was there that Telegraph article that sat as the #1 Apple News most read for months and proudly told everyone how to secure Gold status for £3k but, even in general conversation with colleagues and friends who I never thought would have known/cared about status, it has become more of a "thing" (people saying things like "Oh we are doing one more trip this year so we can try to keep our Silver membership and carry on using the lounges, we found out we can get XX TPs for only £XX by going from X to Y").

This and the double TPs BAH promotion has no doubt resulted in membership numbers soaring and BA are now looking at how to cut back. It was fine when it was limited to a few YouTubers and AVGeeks but, now the whole world knows how to play the system, a reset is required.