orbitmic

Well, as many of us will remember, the Champagne offered on very long and ultra long haul flights on QR J earlier this year was Comtes de Champagne, which I'd personally rate significantly above LGPS!

That said, I actually disagree with you on food and tend to find BA F food usually better than QR J, which gets quite repetitive, except breakfasts which I find bizarrely much better on QR. There are admittedly a few exceptions, for instance the Japanese meal on QR J is much better than on BA F, though neither come anywhere near what you get on JL J let alone the exceptional food on JL F.

T8191

No disrespect to anyone here, but the micro-management of in-flight wines (we have yet to examine the provenance of the Salt/Pepper combo) never fails to amuse and confuse me in equal measure.

Many airlines offer 'decent' seating (flat-bed for the lucky ones) and generally provide some sort of edible food (for a random value of edible). I know many of you fly a LOT*, but honestly ... its only a few hours in "The Tube", isn't it?


* Not an airline, but a quantitive adjective, or something like that.

nh1980

I think ultimately for a lot of these discussions is what value do you get out of BA as a consumer, is what you are getting (per pound spent) attractive enough/differentiated enough for you to choose BA based on your needs?

For me as now a mainly leisure traveller in London, I will not pay BA's ex-UK prices for longhaul J, quite simply the product doesn't stack up for that price and there are plenty of forum posts on the reasons already. For that same ex-LON price that BA wishes to charge though, I'd happily part with the same figure for that route on EK or CX, within reason!

However as a loyalty scheme for my needs, BAEC is fantastic - the combination of (especially short-haul) routes from a Heathrow base for weekend trips, seat selection, priority boarding and check-in and lounge access to get away from the chaos (for short-haul I prefer to eat in lounge anyway, the food is awful on-board whether you get it or buy it) - that package of benefits is certainly worth Silver membership for me. Whereas I once spent over £4k to get to Silver for the first time, I could now get Gold for much less than that. That spend (facilitated no doubt with the knowledge of being a member here) and the benefits in return for me is great value - though probably very different to BA's misguided view it is providing value vs. the competition at "normal prices". People who get status via flexible personal or corporate travel - views may well differ.

HIDDY

Tight fisted Flyertalkers?

Hardly worth panic investing millions of pounds just to please them.

lhrsfo

This post is absolutely right but where I differ is in my valuation of silver status, which I will lose at the end of my TP year unless I do a TP run which I'm inclined not to.

BAEC is great for short haul redemptions, certainly. But I just don't see value in BA flights when other airlines are either cheaper or better or both. For short haul BA and FR are indistinguishable in my book, apart from status graciously allowing me to avoid a middle seat (unless I buy an ultra cheap fare). But FR will let me do that for £2 and will work out very considerably cheaper. The seat's the same, the lack even of water is the same, everything's the same. So, losing Silver stops lounge access. But for the saving on FR, I can have a slap up breakfast and still have change or pay a lounge access fee and still have change.

As to Long Haul, BA is simply not competitive in my book.

I suppose the difference is that I find BAEC to be a very weak loyalty programme.

orbitmic

Warning: controversial post that many may not like...

And I think that summarises something not often discussed here about BAEC. BAEC is a very attractive programme for those based in the UK and particularly in London. BA is the obvious choice there so people end up needing to book it anyway more often than not for cost and convenience reason, and even other OW airlines have more combined frequencies and presence in London than in any other part of the world. Short haul fares ex-UK have become generally competitive and long haul frequently has excellent sale fares by non-stop fare standards, including in J and F. There is a huge range of additional ways to earn from credit card accounts to Tesco and what not so every time a member fills their car or buy their milk they are getting closer to freebies, the avios they require for an award flight, and some companion voucher or other freebie.

For the people based outside of the UK (with the exception of the US), however, the situation is very different. BA is not typically convenient - in fact it is chronically an inconvenient choice for those based in a Schengen area country as it implies additional transfer security checks compared to other transit points and is out of the way for anything except trips towards the US (except from Ireland where the situation is symmetric). There are no perks to be had at all on credit cards or shopping, and of course, redemptions are significantly more expensive than ex-UK.

There is a lot of talk of revenue-equivalence as a basis of fairness but funnily enough, people only see that from an accrual only perspective. You could just as easily (in fact more easily) make the case that award flights could easily be priced on the basis of commercial value, which many FFPs also do, including that of BA's favourite point of comparison. From that point of view, we know that flying nonstop is a privilege that comes at a premium in commercial terms especially for long haul routes in premium cabins where airlines have enough margin to offer significantly differentiated pricing. Yet, booking a return from ARN to JFK in J will cost you 25% more in avios than LHR-JFK or MAN-JFK whilst in practice, the commercial value of the reward is in fact a lot less. As for short haul redemptions, of course, you pretty much double the price.

I keep reading here that BAEC is still a very attractive FFP which counter-balances the flaws of BA as an airline to an extent. I think it is definitely true if you are UK-based, but much less so if you are based anywhere in continental Europe where BAEC is by no standards the worst FFP, but equally in no way a stellar one any more.