riku2

For those of us who don't live in the UK then there should be some incentive to choose BA and suffer transfer at LHR. From finland Lufthansa offer much smoother and easier transfers in Munich and even Frankfurt. 30 minute minimum connection time in Munich and no busses between terminals.

The FAQ is not that convincing in its explanation either
How was it harder for them to earn TP? european members would fly to london and then take another flight from there. So two flights when most members based in the UK would take only one flight.

Globalist

Interesting, i am in my 6th month of my membership year, got 1200 points and last week it said i had retained gold for another year. Will that change now? Do i need 1500 points to-re qualify?

Where can i find more updates?
Globalist

LHR-HUB

Longhaul Tier point increases? Anyone know any more?
After 2 years at over 2,000 TPs, will I finally succeed with a GUF2?

Also a bit confused as in one FAQ it states "Long haul originating and terminating in UK" and then "originating and terminating in Europe"

vla

This marks a definite shift away from actively trying to court the continental European marketplace. Not everyone was Eurocheating of course!

I have two (legitimate) residences -- one in GB and one in Continental Europe. I'm just off to pop over to Tesco's and to call American Express...

I did notice this little nugget on the Dutch site -- interesting:

alexduport

Well this seems to be true.... I just hope that the current management have mesured the effect of such changes for europe customers. I can only talk about the Geneva area. This station has always been a very high yield but things have changed drasticly in recent yeard.... the subcontracting of BA handling to DNATA and the total lack of premium service for transfering through LHR made it almost impossible to those high yield passengers to keep flying BA....

So increasing the requirement to retain gold status without any improvement in the offering, let aside the fact that BA status has absolutly no advantage at all.... will just weakend the BA presence in europe.... Great Management !!

flying_pig

Thinking of why members based in continental Europe should choose BA, my view is that the fares are a good-enough incentive.

I believe it would be good to discuss (well, speculate) on how requalification will be handled for members whose membership year ends after March 2012 (I started the discussion in this post on the thread about bronze tier, but as the mods suggested it is now appropriate to continue it here).

Essentially the question is: if our membership year ends after March 2012, are we allowed to requalify based on the old thresholds as long as we do it before March?

irishguy28

Tier point level changing doesn't happen until March. Given that you have already retained Gold for another year, this won't change.

gordon0808

BA Gold is much more than free champagne.
I don't even like champagne, so the champagne label is irrelevant to me.

It's not like BA offers a superior inflight product, so I think there needs to be an intencive to choose BA over the competitors.

Hoch

Good call! If that's the case, and the devil is in the detail, then I think it makes it less harsh.

H

irishguy28

Unless they're going to almost double the amount of Tier Points earned, then it's still going to take almost twice as much flying as previously to maintain Gold!

brunos

IMO, this is stupid. it seems from threads here that there were a lot of Euro cheats, but there were also a lot of true Euros. When you live in Europe and have no special reasons to fly to London, the reduced level to reach gold or silver was a STRONG incentive to fly LH in CW on BA. Used to be that CW biz seat was unique and prices were cheap. But now BA prices are not cheap compared to alternatives and most airlines have (or are in the process of) installed flat beds. So having to transit thru LHR is not attractive anymore.

One side question. Assuming that you are based in Europe, assuming that you are Gold, with expiry in May. Assuming that you reach 800 TPs by March when the new structure applies, will you requalify? (sorry that last quesiton was already asked, but it is crucial to me).

Raffles

Although its not clear that increasing the long haul TPs will make much difference to Euro members. At present, you need 1 long-haul ex EU (320 TPs) and 1 UK-EU return in CE to hit Silver. Under the current TP system, with a 600 point threshold, you would need 2 long-haul returns to hit Silver. That is unlikely to change - you would need to raise the CW tier points to 220 (from 120) to still enable you to get Silver with 1 l/h and 1 s/h, and that isn't going to happen.

gordon0808

Qatar and Emirates are cheaper to Asia and Oceania than BA from where I am based. KL is also usually cheaper to both Asia and North America.

irishguy28

I would certainly hope so!

My membership year ends in April. I have enough travel booked to requalify as Gold by late March. But depending on when exactly in March the TP requalification change is implemented, I could instead find myself drastically off the required requalification level. I'm not particularly happy at that prospect! I need not have booked those trips with BA if it now turns out I'm not going to requalify as Gold.

timol

Now on the Swiss BA site: