Originally Posted by surryson

Happy NY to all

I have taken my time over the past few days and read from Page 1, right up until now.

My immediate reaction when the news came through was one of anger and this still remains, even a couple of days later.

I firstly want to commend all posters for the well thought out, calm and mostly rational contributions.

I have been Gold for around 10 years. Probably Silver for 3-5 year prior. I pushed for Gold because it was something I could just about aspire to attain and I felt that the extra benefits were worthwhile. It was a club I wanted to be part of.

I am a leisure traveller and fully self funded. I normally hit around 1700TP per year, occasionally have reached enough for GUF2.

I am someone who would ‘splash out’ on AUPs or POUGs, particularly on SH for the extra space, tier points etc.

My feeling of anger is fuelled by 1) the lack of notice, 2) the disingenuous reasoning and explanation given by BA in their limited comms so far, 3) the ongoing fragility of their operations, coupled with their inferior product and service 4) the actual newly announced tier thresholds.

A lot of things don’t quite add up with this ‘Project’. Sean, Colm etc are clever guys. I can’t make up my mind if they have taken a punt or some of the many new generation of senior managers, just don’t ’get it’ and have put together a gimmicky PowerPoint deck extolling the ‘clever’ cost savings, whilst showing some kind of evidence of nil/limited loyalty/revenue leakage and have managed to convince them that these changes are a ‘no brainer’.

There is clear belief in the BA Holidays side of the business. This has grown substantially over the past 10 years. I suspect that one of the goals will be to try to ‘take on’ the big hotel loyalty programmes of Hilton and IHG etc… perhaps even to try to bring them under the Avios banner. Time will tell.

This might be a long post, perhaps few will read it. But I will feel better for getting my thoughts down in writing.

As posted in the OWE thread, I will be immediately moving the crediting of my flights to another OW airline. I would prefer to follow the philosophy of CWS when he urges the ‘take your time and wait’ approach, but I have too many upcoming paid bookings in J. I have enough points to retain BA Gold for now. I may just about be able to scrape BA Silver in the future but I want to explore giving myself every opportunity of keeping OWE elsewhere. Either way, I could attain OWS elsewhere.

The things I enjoy most about my status are benefits such as CX The Pier, QF F Lounge, The First Wing, additional baggage allowance, fast track security. None of these are unique to BA Gold.

I will continue to fly BA where the schedule or possibly price makes sense, but my drifting loyalty over the years which I have intentionally fought against due to a long standing loyalty to the brand, has now been accelerated by these tone deaf changes.

I have put up with the dreadful operational performance. Woefully unreliable IT. Massively inferior or inconsistent product. Avios earning devaluation.

Simple basics like wifi - why do some of the 789 still not have it(?) - these aircraft are 10 years old; before RR Engine issues are given as a reason.

I read the IAG Investor deck. Slide after slide on operational improvements all containing nothing saying how they will actually improve on-time performance, resilience when NATS drop the flow rate by 5per hour or the fundamental minimum for them to load checked bags onto SH aircraft at their home hub.

The trumpeting of the new F seat for the 380, which, by the time it’s fully rolled out, will likely be superseded by others.

BA are right about one thing. My needs have evolved. Just not in the way they seem to think or claim that they can support me.

Keep the inputs coming and no matter which loyalty route you choose to go down in the future, I wish you good luck and happy travelling.