Originally Posted by
layz
If most of your travel is short haul numerous times a month you appreciate any extra convenience and little things that make your travel nicer. Having the first wing makes travel just that little bit more tolerable.
BA Silver on the other hand is pointless if you always fly business. VS status as you mention is pointless if you always fly business as that gets you the good stuff already, but VS don't fly shorthaul so are no use for me the majority of the time.
But that's the basic problem. Getting to gold through lots of lots of short haul business flying (which will likely at least partially be in economy) is now pretty much impossible. The easy path to Gold now is 'guy who buys a last minute J fare to JFK 4-5 times a year', who is much less likely to care about this. A Club Europe return a fortnight isn't going to get you Gold anymore.