tomparskate

If you could put a value on silver status? How much would it be? I mainly fly domestic but do enjoy the lounges!

But am thinking about jumping to Easyjet and such like for my domestic travel

madfish

What actual routes do you tend to fly? How often?

Flights from LCY mean status has less value as no lounge (priority boarding for silvers st LCY?)

What time of day do you tend to fly? Probably more value for later flights if you like a drink or two.

Also, consider increase avios earning.

smokie36

Really depends upon the number of Y class journeys you make particularly in shorthaul per year.

If its more that a couple of dozen then likely it is worth having.

tomparskate

It's around 10/12 return trips to LHR, For my long haul I tend to go TK due to the servj

squawk

It also depends on how much of that status you'd be "getting" anyway through regular travel patterns - and the marginal cost of the TPs to get you to Silver.

I am making several trips to TLL, at 200TP each, which will get me Silver (from more or less nothing). My travel patterns in recent years meant I'm not accruing many TPs at all, e.g. 90 in my last earnings year, an economy return to the US. So mine is perhaps towards the extreme of "doing trips for status". You could therefore put a price on it of 3x ~£280 per trip (outside London) in air fare, plus accommodation and sustenance.

But, and it's a big but: these are my holidays for the year - a series of short city breaks. I'm using them to visit several countries and cities I'd always wanted to visit anyhow (Baltic states and Finland). I'm also unable to easily do it for less via a LCC - because I'd have to factor in accommodation, etc. and/or a low cost fare or indeed flight hasn't been available. The BA/Finnair business class fare is also exceedingly good value per TP, above pretty well anything else in Europe certainly, and moreover (unlike bouncing about the US or Asia) doesn't have a significant "floor" price nor require a large amount of time. Finally, an Amex voucher for £50 off £200+ helped!

In other words, for these three city breaks, I'd have probably spent almost the same amount of money doing it any other way (within say £200 across all the trips anyhow). For that, I have been able to enjoy business class flights and lounges, and will by the time I'm done have accrued sufficient TPs to have Silver for 2017-18. As I'm likely to take at least one or two flights (if not more) in Y during that time, the lounge access will be very welcome, as will the additional Avios. And perhaps I'll make an additional few trips with BA that I wouldn't otherwise - which is after all what they're aiming for By "optimising" my pattern for these holidays through the knowledge gained here, I've been able to make these trips pay dividends (to some degree) for future travel that otherwise they would not have done - and I'm very grateful to all the contributors on this forum for that!

Cymro

EDI - LHR - I'd value lounge access at £5-10 per time, more if it saves you from buying a meal or allows you to do work that you otherwise couldn't. So call that £8 × 22 = £176.

Seat selection, Fast Track, and priority boarding? £5 × 22 doesn't seem unreasonable = £110.

Extra avios earning - well you're not flying that many miles - but 22 × 250 = 5500 avios = £55.

So I'd say at least £350 over bronze for you - but if it gets you four upper deck seats on a 747 in Club, it'll be worth much more. Start flying more miles and the avios earning really adds up too.

If you're thinking of choosing EasyJet of course, you have to consider any cost savings from that - if you flew EasyJet with priority security, priority boarding and extra hand baggage, plus bought lounge access, and wrote off any mileage earning - would you be better off? That's less of an issue if you're flying long haul because EasyJet can't compare, though I suppose you could go to Norwegian.

DYKWIA

Buy a Priority Pass and EasyJet Plus, and you'll have lounge access, free seat selection, priority boarding (properly enforced) and an extra carry on.

That would cost £460.

After EasyJet 20 flights, you also get Flight Club, which allows you unlimited free changes on any EasyJet fare.

You also get to avoid LHR, which is an added bonus

foolonthehill

It's all about your travel habits. For me, I've still don't think I've ever found any real use for my silver card. I only fly CW or F for work (4-5 times a year) so no significant added value on those trips. And bonus avios is minimal.

If I fly for pleasure I'm in ET/WT and there are invariably too many of us to use the lounge. We did once manage to take both children in, when Mrs Foth was also SCH, but she's now down to Bronze again (10 TP short!), so that's it: we're back to kid's food in Giraffe.

I have friends who fly regularly with work in ET, and the lounges would certainly make an occasional TP run worthwhile.

lavar56

£499 apparently. (According to ebay right now, double that for Gold... yikes!)

Calum

If I had no status, probably £300-400 for Silver. I think I could get decent use out of the lounges to make up for it, along with the other benefits.

Purim

There are simply too many variables and only an individual can assess their worth. Flight frequency (seat selection), lay-over/airport time, luggage tendencies, OW partner flights and more go into consideration of value.

I'd also say that status for status sake makes no sense. If you achieve status through your regular flying patterns, then your 'outlay' to achieve such incidental status is close to zero....

cameramaker

Clearly you must be spend too much time in lounges if you think £8 will buy you a meal in an airport!

I'd say for me the lounge access alone saves around £20 per sector on an evening flight and removes the temptation to BoB too.
Exit seats in ET are a godsend, and save £££ versus paying for seats on other LCCs.
I don't think Fast Track security is that much of a benefit in LHR but the lack of a wait at business check in is a nice touch.
I wouldn't pay for priority boarding but reducing the time wasted in a queue is a nice bonus!
I think one TP run is worth it, but anything more than that seems to be flying for the sake of it unless you're doing lots of 5TP ET sectors when the return on 2 or 3 TP runs would be much more worth it.

missdimeaner

I don't do TP runs but a few TATL in WTP gets me silver. I value the lounges which save me spending money in the airport and (for me at least) the savings I make on seat selection fees are a fair chunk of change.
Add on the extra avios and definitely worth paying for WTP rather than WT.

HIDDY

I wouldn't spend extra just to get lounge access on a EDI-LON-EDI monthly return. I'd rather have the freedom to fly with any airline.

Blueboys999

deleted.