Bollox

I know this question, wrt BA matching *A status has been asked frequently on this forum, with the answer from the masses always being "BA do not status match".

A colleague of mine, who deals intensively with another division in our organisation based in the States, informed me that one of the guys he works closely with has just had his *A Gold matched with a nice new shiny BA Gold Card.

I can't verify this, nor can my colleague but apparently the chap in question was adamant that this was the case when challenged by my colleague.

Cheers

B

clubman

Well then you would also know that while BA don't have a status match policy as such (unlike BD), they will sometimes consider a match depending on the individual circumstances.

It's not easy to get, but possible.

Raffles

BA generally only status-matches corporate customers who sign up new corporate deals.

OneWorld, however, does do status matches to any OW airline including BA. These occur in various countries, there is currently one running in Italy. If you have an Italian address and do a BA flight ex-Italy before 31/12 you can match a *A or Skyteam card to a BA card (or Finnair, AA).

http://www.oneworld.com/privilegi/

London Dude

In Italy, as per this promotion BA will only match any other alliance's status level to BA Silver though, not BA Gold. (On a related note, recently BA Italy was also promoting to Silver anyone taking a return flight in CW within a certain time frame.)

hfly

The ones that say that "BA does not status match" are also gerally the posters who also used to say:

1) that any sort of upgrade is a bad thing
2) that BA had no pension deficit.
3) that BA has had no issues with aircraft dispatchers et al for several years.
4) as recently as 1-2 months ago, berated me for saying that morale was low among cabin crew.

In short BA has always had one sort of status match program or another in place. At times it may be geraed towards corporates, but it does exits, it really depends on what sort of spend you can demonstrate, even as an individual and who/how you approach it. I have helped at least a dozen people get matched to Gold over the years....

Do keep in mind that currently if you have a pulse and fly and CW flight they'll give you Silver immediately, no "match" involved.

HIDDY

Didn't know you were in the jewellery trade hfly?

No big secret that BA dish out Gold to certain customers....in fact it's in the sticky. Being US based is a big help and flashing big bucks in the form of forward bookings also helps.
Joe Bloggs off the street has no chance.

hfly

Hiddy, you've summed it up nicely.

David-A

Are you thinking of one person in particular, because as a generalization that simply doesn't stack up.

And as a general answer, BA does not status match.

hfly

Comment 1), Jump back to before upgrades being allowed in the UK and EU Ec's and it applied to 80% of the UK based pax on this board. 2) Whenever I would bring it up until the last 18 months or so, everyone would jump down my throat about it. 3) Go do your research and see how often the stellar dispatchere and guidance systems were defended, 4) Quite recent, you are welcome to look it up yourself.

Raffles

As far as anyone who reads FT is concerned, BA does not status match. Obviously there are ways and means, especially corporate deals, but they are of no use to the average FT'er which is why we parrott the 'no match' line.

There is certainly no BMI / Continental style 'fax us your statement' method, nor is there an AA-style 'challenge', which to all intents and purposes is all that matters.