Vgravity

Having recently started following this forum, it's easy to see that BAEC isn't what it was like in the good old days.

As someone in their first full year of being a SCH (and on track to be a GCH), I feel like I'm a bit late to the party.

Sooo... just how good was BAEC when it was good - and when was that?

No taxes and charges on redemptions is probably something we miss - but what else?

What and when was the 'Golden Age' of BAEC?

DFB_london

it seems a bit presumptuous to say its has already 'been'.

It may well be ahead.

For real frequent flyers recent changes are a net positive. if it clears out the lounges and seat awards from 'gamers' and arbitragers then so much the better imho.

furryman

"Back in the day, when I were a lad" ... Gold was hard to get, but once you had it you could access the lounge even when not flying Oneworld.

That was nice.

greg5

I remember getting 25% BA miles and NO TP in discount economy when I was flying BA in the early 2000s. It's been worse than it is now.

srbrenna

Yep - I think I went about 6 years flying BA about 20 times a year and earning around 100 TPs p/a and sweet BA Miles. I got most of my miles through the Sainsbury's double pack bacon!

SadKingBilly

Now I'm curious, how much TPs would a segment on Concorde bring in?

Filthy Monkey

240 points. Back then a longhaul in CW to New York only earned 120!

People may think of 'the glory days', but as suggested above, Airmiles, BA Miles or Avios, whatever you wish to call them, were much harder to come by and tier points? Only for full fare economy passengers or those travelling in business class. Ah, business class... Yes, the product has been thoroughly 'enhanced', but go back not so long ago and you'll find that there was no such thing as a 'reduced' business class fare. I remember the standard cost of a business class ticket to New York was Ł3,500, with very few discounts available, and the cheapest London-Nice fare in J was around Ł500. Taking inflation into account, what would be a minimum Ł1,000+ ticket these days can now be had for a little over Ł200!

So, the glory days? I'll take the modern day BAEC, thank you very much ^

johnaalex

When Christine Nicholson was in charge and Mike Street was doing his best to promote "Passion In Excellence". Which would have been in late '90s.

SaraJH

When was the BAEC first formed? Was it as early as when I was a Junior Jet Club member back in the 1970s?

'andad

Before seat-selection for all at T-24, it seemed to me that some un-written practices existed. The SH middle seats tended to be filled by BA (no computer involved I think) from the rear, which meant that GCH's near the front often had an adjacent empty seat. And being Gold was considered quite something by one's colleagues, and occasionally by cc.

skippythelizard

Washington DC to Mauritius in First for 120,000 points was my favorite redemption...early 2000's...

(No 2-for-1 for US members back then, that was a UK only perk...so it did cost 240,000 for two of us.)

orbitmic

Most of the posts claiming that it was much worse before are somewhat anglo-centric because they miss the fact that at the very same time things were just as they described for UK based members, BAEC was, for example, a completely different and far more generous programme for US-based members! As such, the "golden age" of BA will have been different depending on which part of the world you are based in. US, continental European, and UK members for instance will look at very different periods of time with (or without) nostalgia.

HilFly

+1

EuropeanPete

In terms of my membership the golden years were just after T5 opened (and after they fixed it not working). GF was a fantastically good lounge, fast-track was fast and not that many important flights (i.e. those I flew from) went from A10.

Markie

Some of us remember before BA even had a scheme to earn miles. Then you just paid and got a silver card which let you in to their lounges. Perhaps it was all simpler then....