That's long been the case, and is also mentioned in the OLCI thread, namely that ticketing is queued and at any one time the passenger closest to travelling will be the next to be ticketed, with a few queue jumps for those in First or GGL. Plus Golds often end up in Newcastle or Manchester where some ticketing can be pushed through locally, if the circumstances require it. So if you aren't travelling until February you could indeed be waiting a while. If there is a bad weather day that queue, and your place within it, will get pushed back. So the advice I've given here is wait until 2 or 3 days before travelling, since there is a separate problem where workflow items fall out of the queue, or are put down the wrong one, and that has to be fixed. Leaving it until just before departure sounds a bit scary but actually it's not a problem so long as you are on a BA operated service, since you won't lose your ticket or seat (etc). You may not like this approach, but if you think about it, if everyone started to prioritise their own case, when months away from travelling, then the system will get worse not better. Consequently agents cannot call the back office about this unless there is some other factor such as a non BA operated service.

The problem, though, is that if you are not ticketed within a few days of purchase, and you don't put some diary reminder, is that it get forgotten until late, when Lady Coincidence wakes up and make BA uncontactable at the relevant time.