headingwest

I don't think BA management would be that stupid. Even Lufthansa (as tight as they are) allows lounge access on their cheap Eurowing/Germanwings tickets for their own elites, so I'd be VERY surprised if BA decided to scrap that benefit on HBO fares. Would they be that daft?

HIDDY

I wonder if those with CCR cards will be barred from using it if they are travelling on a HBO fare? The black mug might become a dust collector.

stewaran

Which is not too much bother flying once a year.

But doing 50 flights a year the small differences make life a bit more comfortable.

vibguy

Official figures are no reference, official figures will tell you that there is no inflation, that if the UK leaves the EU disaster will strike and that the aliens did not land in Roswell. Better listen to the people working in the field and better use common sense than put trust in official figures .

HIDDY

I don't think BA will however there are many major carriers out there who don't offer lounge access to their own status passengers travelling on certain tickets. The US carriers are the obvious ones and I think AF is another one maybe?

Sydneyberlin

From what I can see, this will almost certainly make me worse off than before: I never ever book those Ryanair-copy tickets as I want my pre-selected seat and hardly ever manage to get everything stuffed into a piece of hand luggage only. And I also haven't made a last minute flight change in over ten years because I plan ahead properly (and travel only long haul for business so all the travel within Europe is for pleasure).

So- given the above, I will pay more than before. Which, of course, will be what BA is after- to my knowledge all this airline really ever cares about is money (as, admittedly, does pretty much every operational business). The only question now is, how much more and I dearly hope that some of the more negative views on this here in the forum won't come true!

Kgmm77

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 9_2_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/601.1.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/9.0 Mobile/13D15 Safari/601.1)

Well, since you've said you'll pay more, you're exactly the type of customer they are targeting by making these changes.

headingwest

America is indeed another ball game! But that said, the lounges there are nothing to write home about anyway!

I suppose my point was that Miles&Less is not exactly known for being the most generous FFP, but they extend benefits to 4U/EW ticket holders even though they're not even Star Alliance airlines. I certainly don't think Lufthansa would refuse entry to passengers with their own LH Group tickets (LH,OS,LX,SN,LO). Has anybody ever heard of that happening?

It seems to me that BAEC is regarded as more generous than M&M and I really can't see why they would want to strip the lounge benefit, which would be nothing short of a big slap in the face.

Sydneyberlin

Yea, I'll also be exactly the kind of loyal Gold customer who will get even more pissed about the airline I am forced to use

scottishpoet

On what routes?

Any SH flight I am on is typically rammed and the Queue of frequent flyers is longer than the general boarding Q

In fact, BA is increasing frequencies on the routes I use. If what you are saying is true they would be decreasing.

Kgmm77

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 9_2_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/601.1.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/9.0 Mobile/13D15 Safari/601.1)

Are you on a monopoly route or a corporate preferred supplier deal? Unfortunate if so.

HIDDY

The problem BA and others has is that leisure fares thanks to the low cost carriers have had to remain low in order for BA to compete. So I can imagine there could come a time when it's not feasible to offer all benefits to status members flying on those fares.

flatlander

I also check luggage because of what is in it, not because I have more than I can carry on board the aircraft.

The need to check baggage is forced onto me because the difference between what can be carried in public and onto an aircraft is large and growing - before 2001, this was not a significant problem. So hold baggage charges increasingly penalise people based on what they want to carry not on how much, which grates on me.

If BA make the fare with hand baggage far more than the one without, it will be to me as if their fare for me has gone up a lot, and I will react accordingly (as will my company buying me business tickets, I'm afraid).

flatlander

If you're going to try to claim that IAG is lying in its company financial reports, that is an extraordinary claim and will require extraordinary proof.

To put it more bluntly: rubbish.

itsmeitisss

When I flew to DUB last year, and the ticket was HBO without expedia informing me, check in wouldn't allow me to simply add a bag. I had to upgrade the ticket. I had to chase Expedia for the price difference.