British Airways silver - the 4 eligible flights?
 

I will have enough tier points for BAEC silver status in a few months. However, I will need to take 4 eligible BA flights in order to get silver status. I'm planning a trip to LAS with BA, with a connection in LHR, which will be 4 BA flights.

The flights are considerably cheaper booking through an on-line travel agent rather than direct with BA (this one happens to be travel trolley). However, the statement regarding the 4 eligible flights on the BA website reads "Reward flights and agency or industry discounted bookings do not qualify." Am I too assume every agency booking is not eligible towards my tier status?
i.e. I -have- to book via BA direct?

Welcome to FT and the BA board!

Booking via the likes of Expedia still counts as eligible flights, so assuming that every online travel agency booking is not eligible is not correct. However, I cannot say for sure with respect to that one, since some smaller ones may be using creative ways to offer cheaper fares.

Those flights will be fine booked through the travel agent. It refers to industry discounted fares that are not eligible.

Thanks guys and thank you for the welcome :) I think I will go ahead and book the cheaper option.

Out of interest, what exactly is 'industry discounted'?

Yes, welcome....my manners these days. There are many differing types of fare that are included under that umbrella, which someone else may be able to elaborate on far better than myself. As a general rule though fares that online travel agents have available to the public are not usually these. As an example, private group or corporate fares arranged by a travel agent that may be provided at an industry discounted special rate may not qualify. Also some staff schemes etc.

That makes sense and thank you for clarifying, much appreciated.

Is there any way I can tell which ones are eligible and which ones are not when using my corporate booking tool?

Also are there any other restrictions, avoid and TP with corporate rates?

As for specific fares, I don't have an adequate answer unfortunately. Hopefully with the vast knowledge base on hand here someone will shed more light on this as it's an interesting question.

Our corporate travel tool is Amex and every OW flight I took was eligible

In my experience this refers to industry discounted (staff tickets) and agency discounted (travel agency staff tickets). These are specifically not eligible for avios nor do they count towards the magic 4 required for status.

Tickets sold via an agent or a consolidator (third party) would be eligible however. I know this is not always the case at other airlines (DL springs to mind) however at BA relatively few fares are ineligible fortunatley.

you may find that is not necessarily the case as many third party agents do not have live pricing so the price advertised may not ultimately be available
Air Travel forum on TripAdvisor is useful for checking reviews if you put the agency name into the search (you may ultimately decide to book elsewhere)

They have changed the text on BA.COM, the line about codeshare has been removed and the first line is repeated

Eligible British Airways flights are:

• British Airways operated flights, including franchises and BA CityFlyer.
• British Airways operated flights, including franchises and BA CityFlyer.
• Flights operated by Iberia, included franchises, with an IB flight number.

https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb...ut-tier-points


Before it said

BA flights are:

• flights operated by British Airways, including franchises and BA CityFlyer
• codeshare flights on other carriers with a BA flight number
• flights operated by Iberia, including franchises* , with an IB flight number

So could be a typo where the 2nd bullets should be similar, like first and third?

But don't let that stop the panic commencing ;)...

So Rotterdam / IoM flights from LCY operated by Jota or Eastern (assuming both of those still do it) don't count anymore? Curious...

What happens if you get Titan subbed in when BA is short of planes?