vibguy

It becomes obvious that there are too many gold and silver card holders. On short haul flights ex EUR sometimes 50% of the passengers use the fast track. The Flounge at LHR is often overcrowded, BA had to reduce the quality of the food offerings in the lounges in order to cope with the large crowd and control costs. My suggestion is to increase the thresholds for gold and silver : 2500 tier points for gold and 1500 tier points for silver. In this way BA might be able te reestablish a decent service at the Flounge with edible food and BA might be able to keep its most frequent flyers in this very competitive environment where more airlines offer better service, more recent planes, cleaner cabins, better food, and now also better seats....

IThink

I think we are at the peak of the transition, the end of euro cheats and BMI comp across will start to wash out of the system over the next year reducing the number of Gold back down. It is also obvious that moving Iberia to T5 increased the Flounge congestion as well.

IAN-UK

I'm guessing here, but is 2500 TPs a level you are comfortable about achieving ?

A P Yu

A loyalty programme has to provide a large number of loyal customers to the airline and is not just a vehicle for rewarding its most frequent flyers, so with that in mind it would be madness to increase the required levels so significantly as it would wipe out thousands of loyal customers whose combined spend is massively valuable.

Traveloguy

Euro-cheating I suspect is a small percentage, however agree that pressures may somewhat ease. BMI is an interesting one as this assumes that most DC members have happily switched their allegiance to BA. A BD'er who did not move won't be in the lounge in the first place.

I'm effectively one of those people who did move across, although in reality I did previously earn OW Emerald via QF (no longer). There is no immediate risk I will drop to silver or below in the immediate future as my personal + work related flying activities are enough to get me over the line each year without too much hassle. In fact I've even managed to start spending the enormous miles stash I have had and will still make it over the line, which is something I probably could not have said in years gone by.

Moving IB was almost certainly a drop in the ocean. I doubt it had much impact to the extend I would believe that euro-cheats probably had a greater impact.

If BA wanted to make another move to clear things out, removing soft landing and following AA might be a good way forward. This would of course be very controversial.

jimmyjimmy

I got comp Silver via BMI through my company, don't know how they did it however I guess many are in the same boat.

I liked it and the following year achieved silver via my own flights. I may not have flown BA in many of those flights hence the comp Silver worked.

orbitmic

With respect, I disagree with your interpretation. I don't see anything 'obvious' here and am certainly not convinced that BA has more gold than the equivalent levels on LH or AF-KL. I also think it is giving BA far too much credit to say that the recent F lounge fiasco would be somehow justified by a supposedly excessive number of Gold members.

Let us put things into perspective: (1) on lounges - the F lounges have not tended to be overcrowded in recent year. They are busier right now but this is simply a pure artefact of many BMI Gold members being comped EC Gold. Those who fly BA a lot will retain the status and deserve it, the rest will slip down the ladder quite quickly. Moreover, the near doubling of continental European Gold thresholds will also lead to a reduction in numbers once the grace period expires. (2) on fast track, you seem to forget that fast track security is first and foremost used by premium class passengers! BA is an airline which aims at attracting a lot of premium traffic, and obviously that can only result in busy fast track. What is more, we are paradoxically paying the price of BA being thankfully mostly organised in one terminal bar the few flights from T3 and T1 and also that the UK imposes systematic security rescreening for all passengers arriving from international flights. This means that 90% of BA passengers clear security in the same terminal. Compare with AF, LH, KL, AZ, or LX who use multiple terminals and for whom every connecting passenger arriving from a Schengen flight do not reclear security (with the small exception of AF passengers arriving at 2G).

So I don't agree with you that there are too many golds, let alone that it is 'obvious', and I don't agree that qualification levels would be too low. It is not particularly easy to get status with BA, especially for foreign-based members for whom LHR is often an unnatural transit point, and the airline already has a good way of rewarding people who fly more than 1500 TP/year in the forms of GGL and CCR card. Finally, it is simply wrong to merely treat a frequent flyer programme and elite status as a cost centre. From the airline's point of view, it is first and foremost a way of ensuring that frequent passengers remain faithful to the airline rather than go to the competition. A passenger flying 6 long haul J returns a year is already worthwhile enough that you would want to keep them in rather than let them escape to ST, *A, VS or the various Gulf and Middle East area airlines. What BA should do is ensure that it invests enough in the way it treats its gold customers to ensure that it doesn't shout at them that being silver would be just as good.

London32

What a ridiculous and utterly obnoxious comment. Those of us who have achieved status that live in the UK and pay with cash shouldn't be penalised by higher tier point thresholds just to satisfy your snobbery. It's a lounge - get a grip! The people who ought to be banned are elitist snobs who barge their way around the airport, lounge and plane thinking they really are made of gold, like you! Quite hilarious all considering.

palmanfr

Well, I personally don't think this would be the appropriate solution. I was for instance a former BD*G and never flew a BA airplane in my life until January 2013. Since that date, all my TATL flights, and some EU flights have been switched from LH or AF to BA without hesitation. After 6 months, I made 910 TP, and will do my best to requalify for Gold next year - Impacting perhaps my AF Platinum and LH SEN statuses. A lot of the people seem to think the BD status match was "unfair", and responsible to the overcrowding of the T5 F lounge. But let's be honest... Only people travelling on BA have the right to access to the T5 F lounge, and nobody cheated to get there. Matched BD golds NOT travelling on BA are not overcrowding the lounges...
And you also don't mention the plenty of OW Sapphire and Emerald visiting the lounges. If you think BA EC members should get their thresholds increased then, you should also consider changing the access rules for the OW Sapphire and Emerald. But this will go against OW policy. As far as I know, AA is status matching pretty easily...

paulwuk

It is extremely easy to get Silver if you're based in Europe or the regions and fly even semi-regularly.

A return in economy from Athens to New York will get 200 tier points. once every 4 months gives you silver.

Of course paradoxically, if you're silver based on flying once every 4 months, you're not going to be clogging up the lounges.

Silver is also granted on 50 BA flights. If you're not based in London, that's just a return once every 4 weeks, even on the deepest-discounted fare you can find, this does also clog up the lounge somewhat, but I would wager that the number of people earning silver through 50 flights, who aren't making 600 tier points (so between 500 and 600), are few and far between.

palmanfr

+1 ! ^

And has anyone ever seen a BA fast track in T1. I am often landing from/departing to LYS and NEVER had access to any fast track for security or boarding...
And from my few experiences with T5 transit security, the Fast track lane has most of the time been more crowded than the regular lane...

Littlegirl

I personally think it was a good move of BA to match the BMI golds.

We see lots of exBMI passengers flying BA now and that has to be good for BA, so keeping their loyalty was a very good thing to do in my personal opinion.

Those that don't fly BA very often will lose their status fairly quickly and those that enjoy their Gold and fly with BA more are an asset for BA.

vibrex

You will never please everyone all of the time. BA has recently overhauled the BAEC structure. I believe the Tier point levels for Gold and Silver have remained the same. Surely BA have given this a lot of thought? The only difference being the Euro Cheat loophole has been removed.
Fast track can get busy, indeed I posted earlier on the subject, however this is was due to the revamp at T5 and Fast Track combined with normal today. But I don't believe it is continually overloaded at all airports all of the time.
Lounge food is ok but I have to confess to using the V bar at T5 but that's because I like it there. It is only a lounge and never going to be like eating at the Savoy!

Increasing the Tier Point thresholds may cure the Fast Track and Lounge issues you have but will have no effect on newer planes, cleaner cabins, better seats and food - Only Ticket Prices will sort that out. That said BA is introducing new frames and revamping old ones.
I do wonder if people realise how costly running an airline really is! I think BA do quite well for value.

paulwuk

It has, but most people registered in Europe lived in Europe, and were encouraged by the lower thresholds.

In a similar way, Flying Blue has a lower threshold for people living outside of France to those living in France, all part of the encouragement to take a connection.

BA has kept the same tier point levels, but it increased the earning levels a couple of years ago by about 16% on long haul. A couple of years before that it increased earning on deep discount Y fares too, and before that I don't think Y even got tier points.

Littlegirl

I like the V bar too.

Yes BA are revamping all of short haul starting soon. Most of the ex BMI aircraft will head down to LGW as the new 320s arrive.

BA are spending 5 Billion on new aircraft and investing in our products over the next few years..

I am honestly finding FT rather depressing at the moment. It seems full of the same people continually moaning all the time.

Thanks for being normal.