I’ve now spent three days having discussions with people as well as looking at this forum and social media. I would put the reactions into four categories of people:

Premium Leisure Travellers - “Oh well. Never mind. We just want to do as much travel as we can whilst we are still able. The Gold Card was nice but we will live without it.”

Budget Leisure Travellers - “BA are so expensive. What’s a Gold Card?”

Business Travellers - “What are tier points anyway and why are the lounges always full of people who seem to have nothing to do?”

AVGeeks, TP Runners, etc - “This is the end of the world as we know it. After all my year of loyalty, who do BA think they are? I will never step foot on a BA plane again. So what if I’m not a profitable customer, I WANT A GOLD CARD,”