atlasfever

Hello,

Can anyone share their experience?

I will be at 1,460 tier points by Jan 8th, 2011, my end period date. So, BA will say that I didn't reach the 1,500 threshold. I know they will give 2 weeks more, but that's not going to be useful for me.

After purposely only using BA this year for work/pleasure just to be able to reach Gold, I'm rather annoyed, especially as I have put up with a number of issues this year (i.e. downgraded from a bus ticket to economy!).

The operator said I can write in to the executive club, but that they don't make exceptions.

Is this true? Any experience?

Thanks All.

Genius1

I would book a quick tier point run one way in CE, return in ET to get you over the 1,500 threshold. Should be doable for under £200 if you POU one ET leg to CE, probably ex-LGW to AMS or JER.

It is possible that BA could upgrade you to Gold being only 40 TPs short, but I wouldn't risk it.

You could write into the Executive Club and see if they'll waive the 40 TPs if you explain about being downgraded from business to economy. Having said that, you should've received the business TPs anyway if you paid for business with cash.

Globaliser

In general, the collected experience suggests that the extent of any exception is to give you a couple of weeks to do some extra flying to get the missing TPs.

I second what Genius1 has said: Did you get business class TPs for the flight on which you were downgraded from business to economy (assuming that it was an involuntary downgrade by BA)? If not, that alone might account for 20 or 30 of the extra TPs you need.

stewaran

my father missed silver by 30TP's after being silver for a few years.

he wrote in but got nothing, not even 2 weeks grace!

better get flying

atlasfever

Thanks for feedback --

Genius 1, I think I understood from you that I should book a business ticket one way, and economy back. Your use of acronyms is a bit challenging for me

I'm short 60points.

I used the tier point calculator which suggests 40 points for a business ticket from London to Amsterdam. I assume this is one way? So, return is double, which is perfect and not expensive at the moment.

However, is there a way of seeing how many tier points you get when booking? Just in case the silly class fares/codes etc don't screw up my plan.

Appreciate the help, d

ukgooner

I thought in an invol downgrade you get the points and miles for the class you booked?

I generally don't have sympathy with people who are just short. The levels are set for a reason. But in this case, you've been denied a significant points contribution. Did you raise this at the time?

Royce

If you're short 60 points, then two legs in business, LON-AMS-LON / LGW-JER-LGW will give you 80 TPs, getting you the gold card. If there's deeply discounted business buckets still open, that probably works out cheaper than doing the run that would get you exactly 60 TPs, which would be business on one leg, and full fare economy on the other leg (40+20).

I'm not sure if someone has knocked together a new chart on TP earning yet following the increased TPs on longhaul, but basically for Europe except on the very long Euro routes, it's Euro Traveller = 10TPs, full fare Euro Traveller = 20 TPs, Club Europe = 40 TPs.

Globaliser

Not when booking. The calculator - http://www.britishairways.com/travel...r/public/en_gb - is the best place to get this, coupled with the list of which booking classes earn "full" and which earn "discount": http://www.britishairways.com/travel...s/public/en_gb.

The other thing to know is that during the booking process, if you click on the flight number of any flight being offered to you (which should all appear as links), there should be a popup window. If you're booking a simple ticket, this should tell you which booking class you're being quoted for. At worst, you can check the booking classes when you have a firm quote for your itinerary, before you're committed to paying for it.

You can then cross-check that with the information from the above pages.

One question: Are you short by 40 TPs or 60 TPs? Your original post said that you will have 1460 TPs by 8 January, which means that you'd only be 40 TPs short. That could make a real difference in how much you have to spend to reach 1500.

cornishsimon

If the op only needs 40 I would book ex LGW to say JER or AMS as two one ways, upgrade one way to club Europe via MMB

cs

potakas

Maybe you want to upgrade an upcoming flight? Could be cheaper, will give you some extra comfort and you don't have to fy around without reason.

catandmouse

Well, I'm doing a TP run this weekend. I'm just 20 TPs short of my Gold renewal threshold and had until 8 Dec. Am doing a cheapest Y to get 10 TPs each way to get there. Anyone do better than that?

muscat

Just had my Gold level renewed having accumulated just over 1000 TP ^
Anyone do better than that ?

Fruitcake

And after you had tried so hard to join we proud silvers!!

You'll just have to try even harder next year.

Genius1

Yes, you basically book a return Euro Traveller (economy) flight, and then Proactively Upgrade (POU) to Club Europe (business) one way after booking, tin MMB (Manage My Booking). These POU prices are usually available for about £60 from Gatwick (LGW).

If you need 40 TPs, a one way Club Europe will give you that. Go a bit further afield to HEL (Helsinki), for example, and one way Club Europe will give you 60 TPs.

Hope I've explained all the acronyms there

Globaliser

As this has been mentioned several times in this thread, it's worth saying this: The offer of a pro-active online upgrade on a particular flight is never guaranteed.

It would be a shame if the OP, who is under time pressure to pick up these extra TPs, booked an economy round-trip ticket expecting to get a POUG on one sector, and then found that there was no POUG offer and it was going to cost several hundred pounds (which might be an unaffordable cost) to cash upgrade one sector to CE.

That situation might demonstrate that, aggravating though it would be to end the year on 1460 TPs, it would be even more aggravating to end the year on 1480 TPs after unnecessarily and pointlessly spending £150 or more on those 20 useless TPs.