Interesting. The huge risk with this kind of thing is that you start with a group of passengers who were quite 'sticky' and would usually opt for the BA fare unless it was egregious. The message that was sent to those passengers was that BA wasn't especially interested in their custom. It would happily service them but unless they planned to spend a lot more they'd need to get used to not having some of the perks they'd become accustomed to. What they never seemed to realise was that those passengers could react in a very similar way and have a much more casual relationship with BA.

It is certainly true that there are some people getting status under the new system who didn't under the old one but far less clear how that actually helps BA. If you are travelling last-minute full fare J or F and your employer is paying, a gold card doesn't particularly change your experience. In contrast the passenger who would have paid £500 for a CE return but decides to take EZY for £250 is straightforward revenue out of the door. I don't think anyone at BA realised how many status passengers also have (or would be happy to buy) EZY plus. For me if my options are EZY or ET, ET must now be materially cheaper since EZY will give me row 1 and reserved overhead space.

The other big point lots of us noticed from the outset and which several people above mention too is the lack of meaningful integration with partners - there's been no real effort to create a 'world of BA' style infrastructure around BAC. Regardless of our likes and dislikes around the programme the real surprise to me has been how bad the commercial implementation has been.