missdimeaner

Putting my eggs in one basket has got me being silver without additional TP runs.
For me it is a sweet spot - free seat selection on booking and lounge access (which saves me paying for F&B at the airport) - I can also earn on other OW airlines if I choose.
A FF program which rewards me isn't a scam as much as 'silver handcuffs' !

irishguy28

You can earn on other OW airlines - or even non-OW airlines - without holding status!!!

(this is typically the sole "Perk" of non-status levels in every programme )

orbitmic

Same here. I actually always kept top tier status on either 2/3 or all three of the main alliances for the past 15 years. I do not believe in being tied to a single provider as it necessarily makes for inefficient/suboptimal travel plans.

However, conversely, I do appreciate my status which enables me to 1) have lounge access on my numerous Y flights, and 2) get better treatment in cases of crisis such as significant IRROPS or occasionally when the airlines bend the rules a little for me whilst I know that they wouldn't if I were a 'nobody' to them.

I travel with well over 20 different airlines every year (often a lot more)but still keep a few loyalty 'anchors' of which BA remains the main but not nearly by as big a margin as it was 2 or 3 years ago.

Jimmie76

Yeah except if you primarily fly to BOS and the only airline of the three that fly from LHR that really works is BA you're stuck. Once at BOS I have a connection to a flight down to ACK. You don't want to arrive in BOS much later than 2pm because of fog or anything else that can stop flights to ACK. If they're not flying to the island you need to either rent a car or catch the coach down to the cape and get the ferry which takes time.

The DL flight times sort of work although 09:40 from LHR is a bit early in the morning for me but the DL seat doesn't suit. VS don't have flight times that suit, arriving at 19:35 will often require a night in BOS as there's only one flight to ACK after you land. Also DL & VS only have one flight a day and if that goes tech you're out of luck. So BA it is!

Thomathy

Though periodically tempted by the flexibility and better pricing offered by shopping around, I do not think I would be able to happily travel on several different airlines.

However, this is not to do with status. It is simply that with even just a few travel legs a week, the simple consistency of 'how things work', and general ease of use is more important to me than an improved service or value.

I see two main areas where consistency of airline choice is its own intrinsic benefit:

1. The big one is the much lower mental workload when travelling on a well-known airline. I know how the seat selection works, I know how T5 works, I know what to do when my app details don't match online details (and how to self-serve fix various other glitches.) Personally I find changing countries, currencies, and languages hard work to start with, and so having a consistent journey between them helps with this transition a lot. I am convinced that I am not alone in feeling this is a very good reason to choose a single airline and stick with it. If I flew on three different airlines a week, week in, week out, this would soon become exhausting.

2. The second benefit is time. I can (and do) happily show up with a couple of minutes to spare for T5 conformance, or seconds to spare at the gate at LCY. This is possible because my journeys often start from the same two familiar points and I am happily able to fall into a 'last minute' routine - impossible when switching airline allegiance. And though from time to time I do miss a flight, this is an unstressful event. I know how to rebook myself, I know what my options are, and I am navigating a familiar environment with a familiar vendor.

For me, these reasons are the reasons I choose a single airline. BA's frequent flyer programme plays on this a lot. Many (most?) of the benefits are ones that make paid journeys smoother rather than giving anything away. Oddly enough, one of the big BA factors for me is their IT, which I feel really contributes a lot to an easy journey. The entire thing falls over from time to time of course. But! My only other (current) option is LH / LX. I find it confusing and stressful having a paper boarding pass (and more so that it is always printed with the wrong departure time, for some Germanic reason). And the last time I attempted to fly with them, they claimed that I could not buy a ticket online or by phone because it was less than four hours before departure, and obliged me to travel to the airport and then wait in a queue of people at an actual desk with a person. Just awful. My previous travel patterns fitted VS, and my sole reason for originally choosing BA (who I consider to have a worse onboard service) is that VS's app at the time contained only a map of where their aircraft were located, a points balance, and a puzzle game. Not even online check-in, let alone a boarding-pass!

Not a BA apologist; I think it very interesting because I agree that BA onboard experience is often worse and I wish it were better. But that BAEC is so carefully balanced that I actively choose them on every occasion, and so far, still happily so. A very clever system. I suppose it is customers like me that enable BA to keep cutting service levels (so far…)

(missdimeaner said the whole thing much neater by calling it 'silver handcuffs')

PeacefulWaters

I'm leaving my son on 580TPs this year.

He only flies a couple of times a year, is based in the north and has a Priority Pass.

I can't see much point of getting him to Silver.

HIDDY

It's only sensible to choose which airline you fly with based on price,quality,convenience rather than status earning so I agree with you there.
It can only be called a ''scam'' if you don't receive the published benefits of your status level. As far as I know being singled out for a personal greeting isn't one of them.

T8191

Indeed, HIDDY, if you can meet those criteria and, at the same time, acquire 'status', and in parallel find ways to use Avios that suit the individual ... there's nothing wrong with the 'status' concept. At least, it works for us, and I doubt we are unique. And we're not high-roller frequent flyers

LondonAndy

The additional Avios? My son had to get one more flight to get BA Silver so I took him to Manchester on the May bank holiday and we're now each £440 better off

I can't agree with the OP - my personal flying pattern is mainly UK and Continental Europe, with a bit of flying to the US thrown in. No other airline would cover all of my needs except BA, and I almost never fly to the middle/far East so a few OW members would be of no use to me...

capin

I have gold until September but as I only have 180 TPs this year I am going to drop to silver. Since I relocated to the US I only fly domestic with work. My main long haul flight this year was a redemption in F on CX which was fabulous alongside a couple of staff travel trips back home to Europe.

The status perk I like with BAEC is the lounge access on AA domestic economy (which you don't get with AA's loyalty scheme), the extra baggage and the seat selection.

Most of my points over the next year will be on QR, I am flying (J) AMS-DOH-BKK and VCE-DOH-BKK for a total of 1120TPs and using BA to connect via LHR/LGW in economy for a few other points. Not sure if I will make it back to gold and honestly not that bothered.

CKBA

... but 'one' has a certain smugness of not only sitting down in economy with Gold status, but having gained Gold through travelling only in economy... .

T8191

May I ask Sir where he acquires his hair shirts?

CKBA

I thought they were the required dress-code in Y (particularly on the 787s)...

T8191

That resonates, from what one has read.

There are some verY brave people out there.

pablol

I don't really see how one can describe it as "scam", you know exactly what you are getting, so it's hardly full of surprises.

I fly out of LHR between 80 and 100 times a year. 75 per cent of these are short haul Club Europe flights - spread between the main business cities of Europe. It would make no sense to spread that spend. I fly to SIN 4-5 times a year in F, and yes, I do understand that the Singapore Airlines F product is superior, but how would I use SIN miles? Those trips give me another 250K Avios, over 2000 TPs, which normally gives me at least another GUF2, which I can use for our family long haul travel on BA.

If if it's a scam, I'm being very well scammed.