firstlight

Today travelling in ET, mrs firstlight and I were discreetly offered champagne from CE, ce snacks and coffee as we descended by the ET crew member assigned to our section. The cc member looked after us very well; so she got a golden ticket and obviously was happy to receive it as the IFM knew we'd given it to her and remarked about it as we left the plane.

alex67500

I'm nought for 3 so far on short haul this summer. GVA this morning in ET, nothing. I have a 7 more lined up until October (4 CE, 3 ET) so we'll see.

stevebintley

Received a nice one LHR-TLV on Friday. Very friendly and also subtle, apologizing for the short delay on boarding. She also mentioned it was her first ever long haul flight so must be part of the training at least!

Magnus77

F on the 195 on 26/8 nothing from IFM, but a welcome back from the crew member looking after me. 296 F last Monday night. IFM greeted myself and the other gold in the cabin. Spent 5 mins chatting to me was a charming chap.

Flyertalker001342

All of this is simply institutionalized good business practices, as you see in the hospitality industry. I have several small hotels and restaurants in France where I am a regular, and have been so in some cases for decades. The hotels frequently give me nicer rooms than I paid for if they have them available, and I'm offered free glasses of Champagne and wine and sometimes extra plates that weren't on the menu. Occasionally, a 3 Star place I go many times a year will make me a special dinner as a one-off, with dishes not on the menu. And I never ask for any of this stuff.

Greeting regular customers by name and treating them like they are special and deserving of good service is simply business 101. They should do this for more than just Gold Members, they should probably also do some of this for at least Silvers.

JSM8

It may be good business practice, but I think I and others posters are calling it out because it has not been seen on BA for a while or regularly. As things slowly get back to something approaching normal, it is good to see these minor 'random acts of kindness' happen. It would be great to see this being institutionalised across the airline, but as and when they do that, it would be great not to lose the genuine warmth of the spontaneous welcomes and offer of a drink that I have recently received.

Flyertalker001342

No doubt about it.

Large businesses with loyalty programs have to be careful, because their loyalty programs can often have exactly the opposite affect as they might intend, with customers who are constantly barraged with feel-good promotional messaging, but who personally receive virtually nothing (extra) of value from the business concerned.

In my case, I find this to be true of virtually all of the hotel loyalty programs, and most if not all of the rental car programs. Accor, Hilton, Avis, and Hertz have actually annoyed me sufficiently with their programs that I consciously seek alternative chains when booking a trip. Alaska is a good airline, however giving me upgrade certificates that I can't actually use, was one of several things that has caused me to concentrate all of my FF miles/Avios/TPs etc. to go to the BAEC program rather than splitting them to their respective airlines.

Personal greetings and unexpected drinks/glasses of Champagne are in a different category since none of this is written down in the program details and no one really has any right to expect them. On the other hand, gestures such as this can be more effective than the actual program's "benefits," precisely because they are unexpected and because they seem more personal than a simple upgrade certificate.

xenole

I believe I've had a greeting once this year on an ex-PHX flight in WT+.
(Can't remember if it was this year or last I was asked early if I wanted anything from the bar whilst in WT+)

AA have used my name a number of time this month on transatlantic and transcon flights. Zero anything on the MCE flight I took from SFO-PHL.
Fell asleep shortly after boarding on my second transcon F ex-JFK this year, so missed anything there yet again!

Last BA flights were a week or so ago to and from OTP. Pretty much the same crew on the outbound and inbound (different ones on the two sets of flights), and zero anything. No hello, "Oh we saw you yesterday" etc. Nada.

Simonp27

Got a nice greeting from the IFM both ways to ORD in F the week before last. Nothing in CE to HER last week albeit excellent service even with a good ten rows of CE.

Bluekjp

IFM to SOF this morning discreetly offered another gold and me a reservation for the only two cold breakfasts onboard if we wanted them. There are 6 rows of CE on the plane, so that's a very small number of cold breakfasts. This small but important offer is gratefully received and appreciated.

volar

Nice gesture but hopefully they had offered the CE passengers their choices first?

danmushman

glad that you got your return BP sorted. 6 rows of CE - that's a lot of TP runners - wonder how many get back on the same plane back the LHR

danmushman

They're in CE, so they prioritised those with status rather than just row 1 onwards I think

volar

Ah understood. Feeling a little slow this Sunday morning!

TPRun

Getting it more often now!
just got it from lhr-FRA 1945 BA916 in ET, really nice crew overall too. Extra water bottles & gin (just what I like!).