This is a really silly statement. What BA have done adversely affects the large segment of mid spenders with gold cards who previously obediently booked BA for work and took POUG offers to maintain status. Moreover it was done with contempt. BAEC was a very low cost way of binding these people in without effort.

The gamble on income via co branding has to pay off, and given the main engine is an estore that doesn’t track well and a credit card at loggerheads with the parent brand, I’m not at all sure it will.

Meanwhile they didn’t do the sums. You can’t. There is a spreadsheet somewhere with various frig factors adjusted so the business plan makes sense. If you could predict consumer behaviour accurately through spreadsheets we’d all be rich.

The TP runners are doing other things now. Most of the ones I know accelerated lifetime status or are getting status elsewhere or both. The impact is on the suits with their gold tagged bags.