sunrisegirl

And in that article, states the following:

I see nothing wrong with that - BA is a business after all. Sorry.

hfly

Everyone is in agreement that they should bin the benefit at LGW or at all UK regional airports for that matter (T5 is not an issue), much as they did at GVA some time ago. Otherwise the !world reference is complete and utter tripe as it was something that has existed since the beginning of 1world, and something that all alliances offer, then again if BA decides to compare itself to Ryanair on their own webpages, then there is little that we can do is there.

stimpy

Yes BA is a business. One that spends millions on marketing to encourage people to purchase their product. Our argument is that this is a decision that will have negative impact on their market perception among the best customers BA has. Our argument is that this decision wasn't well thought out and could have been handled better, and still could be tweaked to have a positive spin.

ColdWalker

certainly worth remembering. I suppose the flip is that by removing a gold benefit they are of course reducing (some would argue 'removing') the differential from silver and therefore reducing the incentive to be loyal to attain gold. That may prove counter productive in a business sence, but we will see. For me it made sense to restrict the benefit where it was being highly 'abused' (punctuation used advisedly) but to cut it entirely may prove a too courageous step. And the reduced tier level differential may IMHO force an enhancement of silver benefits

Hopefully a less confrontational way of making the point.

nolonger1K

I don't have the time to go through all of these posts, so apologies if this has already been raised, but I was wondering whether anyone has suggested a compromise along the following lines ...

BA provides Golds with some small number of annual passes (for cardholder use only) that allow lounge access when not flying BA or OW. That might satisfy a lot of folk who took advantage of OpenDoors infrequently, but valued it highly for those occasions. It seems to address what is presumably BA's issue of frequent use by some customers or in some lounges.

Then again, as a NY based flyer who likes to use the BA lounge at JFK when I fly UA, I am also very clearly talking my own book ...

FrancisA

Suggested by others and me twice (and now three times) in this thread. My version would allow a voucher to be used by the card holder when flying non-OW or to take in additional guests, thereby killing two board concerns in one fell swoop As number of vouchers would be limited, it at least restricts BA's costs and addresses any "abuse" issues.

sunrisegirl

I appreciate this has upset a lot of GCH's on here and that is disappointing. Howeverr, at work I've received just one comment and most of us have not heard any moans from customers at all.

When BA "enhanced" benefits for silver ISTR some GCH's (not you, and not all) appeared to enjoy our unhappiness too.

I'm not enjoying the unhappiness of GCH's on FT about this but in all honesty when, as you say, 70% admit they never use the benefit I really can't see what the big problem is, sorry.

irishguy28

"Penny wise, pound foolish"

irishguy28

It has been suggested! But largely deemed to be unworkable.

The thing is, probably very few flyers made use of open doors as it is. For those members who are based in London and fly regularly through LHR, then they either already have access to the lounge, or if they're not flying BA, they don't (I realise LGW is the factor here). Not every airport where BA maintains a lounge is accessible to all, anyway. So even though some GCHs may have had flight patterns where they were able to access a BA lounge when not flying 1World quite a lot, there can't really have been all that many of them.

If BA were now to turn around and issue a certain number of lounge passes per year, per GCH, then these people might feel more obliged to use them. Granted that it technically hasn't changed the situation from when they had access with their Gold Card - but having a separately issued lounge pass (whether as a paper voucher, or an e voucher), they would probably feel far more incentivised to choose an itinerary where they could then use such vouchers (because, after all, it would be a shame to have such a voucher and let it expire/go to waste).

Globaliser

This argument would have been very cogent before the days of alliances.

But today, if any Gold member really made a lot of use of Open Doors and thought that it was such a key benefit that without it they would allow themselves to drop back down to Silver, that member's TP earning to get from Silver to Gold may represent very little revenue to BA, let alone "loyalty".

One solution might be for BA to reinstate Open Doors on the basis of BA flying alone, so it would not be enough simply to be Gold. But that's pretty complex and costly.

WhitePlains

As I see it, Golds have already been loyal to BA by already having provided revenue for BA to the extent that they have achieved that status. Open doors was an enhanced benefit for that loyalty, not a benefit given on the specific ticket purchased in that instance.

It is BA's business model to take a call on whether to keep that benefit, and it is the Gold Card customer's call whether to continue to patronize BA.

But to say that if 70% of a predefined group have no problem, opposing views of 30% of the same group do is not a big problem, that is not on any management or marketing handbook in the world.

HIDDY

It's human nature to make a fuss when something is taken away.....even when it wasn't used by many.

IIRC the T5 arrivals lounge used to be only for arriving CW and F passengers. Now it is also for Golds having flown WT+ and WT cabins. That was a positive change yet went by relatively unnoticed.

hfly

Sorry but the argument that "70% of people don't use it, so it is no big deal" is ridiculous!

At T5 there is no issue, and the vast majority of BA passengers use T5, or for that matter the vast majority are UK based. Not all benefits are valued by all equally. The difference and this is the big one which is perhaps unique to the BA board on FT and perhaps the British psyche..............if BA tomorrow ended their TESCO relationship, I would not come on here and say........"well I don't live in the UK, so it was worthless to me so good riddance", or, "why should people benefit from shopping at supermarkets on BA, BA is an airline and a business" or whatever. I would either not comment, or I would commiserate with my FT BA 'friends' about another in a long line of benefits being slashed across the board that even if it did not effect me, I could appreciate was part of an overall destruction of the programs benefits.

economyman

True but it's also human nature to be loyal to those who are loyal to them. The removal of this benefit seems to imply less loyalty on BA's side to its most loyal customers. I used this benefit very rarely. I admit I will continue flying BA because of competitive pricing and other benefits but if I had to make an effort to make Gold (which I don't) I would probably not.

Golds have always had access to arrivals lounges after international travel irrespective of class of travel so unless there were some special rules at T5 this is incorrect.

irishguy28

hfly - your Tesco analogy was spot-on.

The lounges were apparently full of Gold Card Holders using open doors to crowd out the "real" BA flyers. But I'll bet that there are far more people taking up space on BA planes purely on Tesco miles!

Perhaps some of them don't even pay for BA flights at all - ever!!!