layz

I was referring to the post that said BA did give out lifetime gold on an invitation basis many years ago and then pulled it.

I can understand BA not honouring bmi lifetime gold as they don't have any moral or legal obligation to do so as I've said earlier in this thread.

But I was surprised when ajamieson said BA had let down their own lifetime golds in the past - on the face of it I'd say that's just generating bad will.

What's the full story behind that anyway?

WilcoRoger

You haven't lost your BD DC lifetime gold status. Actually everybody who is DC Gold now has lifetime Gold status. Of course "lifetime" means "lifetime of member or FFP, whichever ends earlier"

ajamieson

I seem to recall it was an unadvertised, honorific perk offered to some CIPs, former BA board members, employees with distinguished service etc, long-time Executive Club golds etc. BA withdrew the promise of lifetime elite status (it may have been silver, rather than gold, I can't remember) a couple of years ago, saying that the offer was financially unsustainable. Some of these people hadn't put any real money in the till for years. I think it was around the same time that the Executive Club treatment of super-elites (Premier?) was streamlined, so part of a wider effort to be more commercially-minded. I understand where BA is coming from tbh...

Swanhunter

It was lifetime Silver and was pulled about 8-10 years ago. Times are tough, not commercially viable etc.

The culling of Prems was separate and initiated after Willie joined. Some excellent stories about how it happened and the reactions.

irishguy28

You make it sound like they're still part of *A!

caz312

xcalx was quoting the OPs post from April

OP never had lifetime gold by the sounds of it...not sure what they are trying to achieve

layz

What I would have done in this circumstance was just redefine silver - make silver more like the BD offering (so you'd get lounge access only when flying your own airline and limited to lounges operated by the airline), then rename the current silver as gold and gold as platinum. This would mean that their lifetime silvers could only get benefits when flying BA and only have access to BA operated lounges.

Oxon Flyer

FWIW, I understand that the current number of DC lifetime golds is in the low hundreds.

GoldCircle

And a small, but significant percentage of that number participate right here.

A_Lee

I haven't really been following much of the DC forum for about a month, then come across this thread. Can someone please point out where the big announcement was that DC has already closed? Last I heard DC did not announce any closing date, and was basically guaranteeing that it would be around until at least Autumn, based on the announcements when they left *A. Now, without any new thread, or even a post in the "Official Information" thread, I see well-respected members of this forum claiming it has already closed down. I really don't have time to read through the 800+ posts in the main sticky. So can someone please point out where the crux of this announcement was made? Or did I wake up this morning and suddenly everyone who speaks English has decided that English words mean something different today? I was really hoping to be able to sign up for BA and transfer a still huge chunk of miles there, but from the sounds of it, I missed something and now all is lost.

Now if I haven't missed anything, nor missed the memo that the world was changing the meaning of some basic words in the English language, thus meaning DC did not close, then maybe people really need to be more careful in what they post, and the moderators can delete the total misinformation in these posts. Nothing like giving me a shock and telling me I just lost a million miles.

GoldCircle

Moderators don't delete mis-information. They simply enforce the ToS.

BA is in Skyteam.

See.

DC is still running; there is no closing date (but I'll wager there will be a date available next Tuesday); however, the services offered by DC are being eroded very quickly right now, and I can tell you the staff at Donington Hall is being let go at a rate of knots, so getting anything irregular done is becoming increasingly difficult.

ADZ1616

I would expect DC to close towards the end of October when the Ventura contract is up for renewal. So next Tuesday would sound about right to give sufficient notice

irishguy28

True, but the point I commented on was written in June, long after the *A exit!

NWIFlyer

Which I think I'd settle for - my nominal year-end is 27th October. Okay, so I'm now gold-for-life thanks to the no-downgrade policy, but I can take out a BAEC membership on 9th October, apply for the match, and get the maximum time with status that I could ever have hoped for.

Not that I really intend flying BA that much and so will slip down the ladder pretty quickly, but Gold will be very handy for my MEL-SYD internal leg in Y with QF in the middle of my last DC redemption in January

tosc

Isn't the sold bmi regional entity expected to takeover flybmi.com and also the Diamond Club? So, maybe you'll still be a Lifetime Gold member of Diamond Club - it just doesn't get you as much as it used to.