madfish

I emailed BA on 3/5 to request this, including a copy of the birth certificate. I had already soft landed to silver as flew a lot less in the year leading up to and following the birth, which was in the middle of my TP year. I did ask about the level being reinstated but not heard anything back.

phoneticduck

I emailed the birth cert (7 months old) 3 days before my collection year ended on 8th May. Never got an emailed response however I notice on my BAEC account I'm now Silver thru June 2018. Perhaps the email is to follow.

Result!

alexwuk

Is this a status "freeze" (ie. you have no access to your status benefits during the time off) or a free status extension and you can use the status benefits whilst you are on leave?

madfish

Extension. It should recognise your status and associated benefits.

Dubh

I see Alaskan have followed suit and implemented the same scheme.

lavajava

BA used both terms in their response, but yes, in theory it's an extension with full access to benefits.

lavajava

Thanks for posting this. Good move. I think this post serves as a good reminder to choose your timing carefully when applying (note to self)

Now, who has managed to get them to agree to this, with a child older than 7 months.

izzik

I wonder how this benefit works if you use it during a year that you qualified for a higher status. For example, my benefit year ends June 8th and I just reached Gold status.
If I applied for the paternity benefit tomorrow with no flights planned in the future, would I have Gold for another year (extension), followed by the usual "earned" year of Gold status? Or would I drop to Silver after the extension ends?

madfish

Still waiting for response to email sent on 3/5/17 and followed up on 13/5/17.

phoneticduck

Ask that question in the email you send when applying and make your application contingent upon the outcome you prefer more. I think it will be the former not the latter of the two outcomes you suggested.

I got a very personal response, it wasn't boiler plate or automated, tailored to my circumstances.

madfish

Any recent experiences of getting a response from BA? I am still awaiting and even sent a tweet and DM on Sunday 21st May. The reply from the twitter team was that they would send it on, but still not heard anything.

highlander100

It took 3 weeks to get a No for me. They wouldn't extend my silver card even by a small amount. Ah well, whilst I love this board, i'll not be coming back from KLM then(Gold in 6 months of travel that would have barely got me bronze with BA)

madfish

Do you mind me asking what were your circumstances? Did you send the required birth certificate or similar?

I eventually heard back but only after tweeting BA and sending two DM. Status was changed back to Gold having already soft landed to silver. However I already had 210TPs banked this year with another 13 flights booked with a further 600TPs so easily going to retain silver. Don't know if they looed at this in making the decision.

TheIcon

I requested on 4 May to extend my Gold status, expiring in August 2017 by a year. Had less than 500 TP, and given my circumstances, would not realistically have been able to fit in enough trips to hit 1500 by July 8. I have been Gold or Silver since 2001, and Gold for the past 3-4 years.

My daughter was born in Sep 2014, and now stays with me most of the week which does restrict my travel to short 2-3 day trips. I enclosed her birth certificate and mentioned that she took her first flight this April and joined the EC.

Today I received an e-mail that my Gold status has been extended until August 2018, although I cannot see the extension in my online profile yet. Also my daughter was given 1000 Avios. Very nice feature in the programme. I did not have further communications with BA on this since my first e-mail.

madfish

Give it at least a day for the profile to change. Seems like they are being very generous given you daughter is nearly 3. And I thought I got lucky to be returned to gold but my daughter was born August 16.