I think I've gone through the five stages of grief. I accept that BA are no longer as useful to me as they used to be. I accept that I can't change them, I can only change myself, etc etc. If they suffer for this, I don't care as I'm not a shareholder. But they may not suffer - and that's OK too. It's not a public service, it's a business.

I'm a shareholder of some competing airlines so I'm happy that they're doing well. My closest 3 airports are not served by BA, and as I've got older I've found Heathrow harder and therefore more expensive to get to.

All good things come to an end. I used to do courier flights (you'd see ads in newspapers) and they're no longer a thing in the UK. I used to "bid for travel" and stay in amazing hotels and get opaque flights for peanuts, but those sites don't offer the same kind of bargains any more. We were very early adopters of the internet and could use airline systems to find bargain flights. It's harder to find bargains now that we're not the only ones using the internet! I used to fly standby, turning up at airports to see what was available. That's not a thing in the UK now, as far as I know. I used to buy standby-only unlimited flight passes and explore tiny towns with tiny airports in other countries. They may still exist, but we can no longer fly as flexibly. There used to be fewer companies selling flights so I could spot bargain Concorde flights (for example) much more easily. Now there are so many blogs/podcasts etc talking about such things I'd be unlikely to be quick enough to bag a bargain. It's an internet jungle out there and I'm not the hunter I used to be.

I don't know what's next but I feel I've lived through good times and have travelled the world, in style, very cheaply (when not for business). Most of that happened because of the internet. But tech has got smarter and has allowed companies like BA to see that I'm not their ideal customer. I can at least look back at the good memories and the fun I had with tier point runs etc, and appreciate the golden age before companies could see that I was just a bargain hunter.

From now on, when I do fly BA I may find it harder to contact them as I drop down through the tiers. I may play around with status matches to see if that enhances my travel experience. I will experiment with other airlines. But that's OK. Times change. Maybe BA have made a mistake and maybe they'll backtrack a little, but they've already shown that I'm not an important part of their business model and that's OK. If/when I do have a lot of money to spend (I'm always mentally spending my lottery win) I won't feel any loyalty to them. I think it was a bit silly of me to feel that in the past. They're a business, not a friend.