Tier point collection year end ,no flexibility?? 😠
 

I always struggle to obtain my silver card on tier points as my company always have me travelling on discounted tickets. However I reached 46 flights before my collection year ended with my bronze card .I had a reservation booked for a week later to make me reach my 50 flights target to obtain silver status however when I called the executive club they said they are only able to extend my collection year end if I was near my tier point trigger not the number of flights . I even emailed the executive club and got a standard reply that didn't answer my question . Has anyone ever had there collection year extended by 2 weeks to obtain their status on the number of flights they have travelled on ? I am trying my best to gain lounge access before I need to pay for my sandwich and drink onboard 😡 X

What they have told you is correct.

I have never seen on FT that someone has been extended to obtain the number of flights (50) required to hit Silver.

Unfortunately, you have not flown enough for the privileges of Silver.

Perhaps a bit harsh? :)

Welcome to FT, Ebiff - it certainly seems like you fly quite a bit (more than me), and sounds like all those discounted fares are too blame for not being close to the 600 TPs required. A TP Run may be in order early in your next membership year to reap the benefits of Silver for all those other flights.

For the additional benefits of silver versus bronze flying so many sectors I think I would have found 4 reasonably priced extra flights and flown them.

Entirely truthful.

As I missed it, welcome to FT Ebiff ^

If you don't meet the criteria for a status level within 12 months, you still won't be able to maintain it, so what is the point? If status is important to you - fly more. May sound harsh, but it is the reality. We can't sugar coat everything all the time...

It's a bit harsh that they are happy to give you an extra 2 weeks to get the tier points but not the extra flights.
Within the rules definitely but still harsh.

bit harsh
The Op is flying way more sectors than many on this board who have mych higher status

How can a straightforwardly accurate comment be harsh?

I sympathise with OP but his gripe should be directed at his employer not at BA. If someone's job requires lots of flying but the employer will only cough up for the cheapest economy tickets that give the airline little or no profit, it's not obvious why that airline should say "Oh by all means eat and drink to your heart's content in our lounges whenever you fly even though you haven't achieved the requisite status". BA is not a charity.

Welcome indeed to Flyertalk, Ebiff!

Indeed, you were unfortunately correctly informed. For what it's worth, most FFPs which have status qualification by pure segment number as an option always seem to consider it a "plan B" route that is not subject to further flexibility ("inferior" to the main route if you will). You have the same phenomenon with FB which allows rollover status miles but not status segments for instance.

Brutal crowd here.
OP - I hope your company will allow you to claim your overpriced sandwich and drink as a business expense. Better luck next time.

The OP travels more frequently than I do so I do think it's a little tough that they don't get some flexibility - I guess that the additional cost to BA however for 46 lounge accesses per year is relatively high vs the profitability of the OP's discounted tickets, vs the few times per year that I access a lounge with my card rather than by class of service.

I guess the line has to be drawn somewhere, but I can understand why the OP thought there may be some leeway in the same way that there is for TPs..

Sure, but it's still a fact the OP doesn't fly enough. There are clear, published, rules. In accordance with those rules, you can either fly a ton of short haul flights on BA metal or you can do one roundtrip* to Hawaii and get gold.

Where would we be if companies would start bending the rules here and there? It is 1500TP or 50 flights, not 1495 TPs or 49 flights.

*) Well, I guess you can't do 1500TP in one trip any longer, but this is just for illustrative purposes.

I'm surprised by all those comments on the answers being tough - I don't think anyone on this thread has passed any judgement on whether the OP should or should not have been given flexibility (I know that the BA forum have more than occasional threads where people endlessly - and in my view not very usefully, debate who should or should not deserve what status. However, this is - thankfully - not one of them). I think people have just tried to provide the OP with a statement of facts as to what BA's current policy is, regardless of their individual opinion (if they even have one) regarding whether the flexibility allowed for TPs collection should be extended to segment collection or not.

I can see it from both sides.

OP gives BA regular business, however flying a lot on cheap fares doesn't always make a high value traveller. That's why the thresholds are as they are.

OP, when does your collection year finish and where are you based? You could do a quick run to anywhere on the domestic / ROI / short-haul Europe network and get up to 50 segments if you still have time?

My understanding is that BA codeshares with Aer Lingus / Aer Lingus Regional, or Iberia, and possibly BA codeshares with Loganair/FlyBE for Scottish islands, all count towards the minimum flights. My new TP year started recently and my first segments happened to be on Aer Lingus Regional and I was surprised to see they counted as my first 2 "BA segments" of the year (as for Gold you need 4 BA metal segments in addition to the TPs)

For example, if you did London-Glasgow-islands return, that would potentially be 4 segments, though you should check the rules in detail before booking as I'm not 100% certain.

Hope it works out for you - almost 50 segments a year is a lot of flying!!

This doesn't help OP I think as the extension seems to be confirmed as for TPs, not eligible flights. But OP could clarify how many TP short they are - presumably less than 370!

from the opening post I read it that when year ended (I assume 8th October) they were 4 flights short...they took the 4 flights the following week and now have been told the 2 week extension applies to TPs and not to qualifying by virtue of number of flights

I was wondering about whether it would be worth it to do this, but for the sake of £100-200 and a day or two of unnecessary travel I agree it probably would be worth it for someone who flies so much over the year, for lounge access alone. Still time?

I think you nailed it though. If you fly 46 times and don't hit 600 TPs then that's a lot of benefit for 46 very low profit fares. Can understand the OP feels a little aggrieved but it makes sense from the airlines point of view I guess.

On someone else's money, on heavily discounted tickets. So I don't think they can really complain too loudly.

Being "factual," is often the defense we use when we're too embarrassed to admit that our words were willfully blunt. I'm as guilty as the next person, I guess, so I won't single out anyone.

Not really...

But he does have the right to take his business elsewhere. Right now given inflight catering is going, the nominal cost of that little piece of plastic and pre flight sandwich/cocktail might be the only thing keeping him with BA.

People seem to like to piss all over 'heavily discounted' flyers in back but high margin or not BA will make no money just selling 10-20 CE and flex tickets if there aren't 100 people in back to offset the costs of flying the plane.

Either way you cut it that's 50 tickets a year going to a competitor, potentially more, it could be 500 tickets if the OP works in a SME of 10-12 people with the same flying pattern and they take all the business elsewhere.

I don't really understand what the problem is here. At some point BA have obviously decided a customer flying 50 sectors is of similar value/importance to them as someone earning 600 TPs, otherwise they wouldn't have the 50 flight rule anyway. So what's the difference in providing an extension for both routes? People on the 50 flight route may be on low margin tickets, but if they believe that 50 sectors is not equivalent to 600 TPs surely they should either increase the number or scrap that route to Silver?

They do bend the rules, if you are short on TPs they'll give a 2 week extension

If I was flying that much I'd fit in a 4 flight in a day itinerary before the year end off my own back for sure.

50 visits to the lounge will save you plenty during the year!

Well, do feel free to single out, but no, I literally meant to be factual, both in my reference to BA's policy and that of other airlines. So if, as you seem to suggest, you feel that my words were too blunt (and willfully, certainly not), you'll need to add as extra fault of mine that I am clearly blatantly unaware of that too.

I guess OP would have done that too if he'd known, but it sounds like he either didn't think about it in time, or believed the 2-week TP extension appiled to sector qualification too, so thought it could wait.

Either way it sounds like he's out of luck, unfortunately.

If start of OPS BAEC year, a 600TP run with 4 BA flights would give BA Silver with lounge access for vrtually 2 full years.

Well worth an effort if OP expects another 30+ flightsb this next year, and comfortably doable

What would a less "brutal" crowd have done? Advise the OP to keep pestering BAEC for an exception? Crowdsource someone to hack BAEC to award the OP silver status?

How about by not addressing a brand new FT member in such a charmless, unfriendly tone ? @:-)

^

Interesting, I was told the other week when I booked my recent itinerary (CGK-HKG-LHR-HKG-CGK) on BA marketed flights (to meet the 4 flight minimum), where I already had acquired 650 TP acquired via CX (some in premium), that even though the fourth flight in the BA itinerary would be a day after my tier point year would end that I could call the Executive Club to flag it and they would renew my Silver Card automatically. I wonder reading this, whether I was misinformed....

t BA does have a 14 day 'grace' period in which if you ask the TPs from flights can count to your old year in order to earn or retain status level but it is not the same as changing your membership year end date which remains fixed as the 8th of the month.

Thanks for the fast and reassuring answer!

I asked for my year end to be extended for this reason once and they did. That was about 10 years ago mind you. Back in more flexible and kinder days. Hope you get there.

I believe the OPs problem as discussed in this thread was not whether some or all of the required four eligible BA flights could be taken during the routinely granted two extension period but rather whether someone who, for example, has flown 46 eligible flights could fly four additional flights in the extension period and qualify for silver status. Apparently BAEC does not allow these sector qualifiers (who don't qualify based upon their tier point totals) to accumulate any necessary additional flights in the two week extension period.

As noted by others, BAEC has routinely allowed the two week extension period to be used by tier point qualifiers and, based upon the reports on FT, has traditionally allowed some or all of the necessary four eligible flights to be accumulated during the extension period.

Thanks and yes, I appreciate they're quite different 'animals' especially if the 46 flights were on discount fares. I was told that they routinely allow a month for additional TP / eligible flight accrual, hence the 1 month gap between end of TP year and end of membership year. BUT it's not automatic (hence I guess a certain amount of discretion). Given that only the 4th flight will fall the day after the TP year ends (the third and first leg of the return is on the day itself), and that I already have over 720 TPs I suppose it should be OK. I will update as soon as I know.

Just a bit of clarification, BAEC will only allow a two week extension period following the 8th of the month in which your tier point earning year ends. You are correct that your old status will not expire until the end of the following month.

They did what they said they'd do...
 

So as advised I called BAEC so that they could manually review my eligibility for renewal. I was already at 720 TP and my 4th eligible flight was the day after my TP collection year ended. The guy reviewed the account and within seconds confirmed what I'd been advised: "Leave it with me"... and they add the tierpoints and flight count to the previous year while deducting it from the new year. Easy. Thanks for all contributions.