BA Club Europe - AWFUL

Old Jan 26, 2018, 6:13 am
  #121  
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Originally Posted by subject2load


I guess one might add ....

and because we can happily get away with offering an economy size, non-premium seat for a premium fare”
I guess one might also add ....

"and because the fares for travelling in such a cabin would be so much more expensive that people would not want to pay for it"
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Old Jan 26, 2018, 6:29 am
  #122  
 
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Originally Posted by Tobias-UK
I guess one might also add ....

"and because the fares for travelling in such a cabin would be so much more expensive that people would not want to pay for it"
Not so convinced myself.

Some current CE fare levels are such that I’m often amazed to see people sitting there (as I gladly make my way to the same size seat in Y).

Who can say for sure that there wouldn’t still be lots of takers, at even much higher price points ?? There are people (and some corporates) who will pay pretty much anything (“yes, always fly in business, you know ......”)


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Old Jan 26, 2018, 7:07 am
  #123  
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AVML and VGML are predictable. Our dietary requirements are not a choice - they are a must have. We had emergency "rations" so to speak that allowed her to have something but it is just that - emergency when you cannot get what you should eat. Often we cannot find good and safe choices in the airport given the condition we are working to deal with especially one that is abroad even if it is LHR. The point is here that they made the decision to cancel our connection while we were in the air on BA294. They knew 10+ hours ahead of time, so why not load the special meals? I order the same so that if my daughter gets super hungry she can eat more of what works. Makes sense if you think about it. I have flown extensively on QR, QF and AA. I have not done a real BA long haul or ultra long haul in business in a long while and I wanted to see if it was comparable. Quite frankly it was not. Even information provided on BA294 by cabin crew about security and intra terminal 5 connections was wrong.
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Old Jan 26, 2018, 7:11 am
  #124  
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I don't buy that as being any more relevant than needs in the US dictate plane size and timing. That quite frankly is a crock. I buy business for more legroom, better seat, better and more attentive service. On domestic I accept I will be sitting next to someone. I do not care about that. I think Europeans would be happier to have better seat, legroom and service over a coach seat with the tray stuck in a locked position. Craziest thing I have seen and no justification so far that I have heard. Usually as one of the posters stated I try to fly US direct to destination e.g. ORD/CDG or PHL/FCO to avoid the connection in Europe but this time it was not possible for ATH given fare, dates of travel and availability.
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Old Jan 26, 2018, 7:20 am
  #125  
 
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Originally Posted by subject2load

Some current CE fare levels are such that I’m often amazed to see people sitting there (as I gladly make my way to the same size seat in Y).
Out of curiosity, how would you know what those people paid? You may have seen an exorbitant CE fare when you made your booking, however those you pass in CE may well have:
  • Booked a sale fare
  • Made an Avois/RFS redemption
  • Booked a lower fare with an advanced purchase requirement further out than you
  • Booked a corporate rate
  • Booked as a short-haul connection with a different fare from point-to-point
  • Been automatically booked in to CE as part of a long-haul itinerary
  • POUG'd
  • AUP'd
  • App-up'd
  • Op-up'd
Or, indeed, paid for the exorbitant fare you saw when booking. Who knows?

FWIW I agree with some of your sentiment here as I've not (to date) paid a full CE fare, although I have flown CE on RFS flights or if offered an attractive upgrade price after booking ET. As I'm only Bronze, depending on connection times at LHR, a POUG may be attractive in order to secure lounge access.

But I'm not sure it's as simple as walking by a CE cabin and thinking "fools" for spending so much on a CE fare, as there are a myriad of ways in to that cabin,

For the wider point on short-haul J in Europe...well, it may be a tautology, but it is what it is. None of the major European carriers seem to be in any rush to roll out a truly differentiated regional J product, and for the time being I don't see BA being a leader in this area. Maybe if KL, LH and AF all rolled out a US/Asia-style regional J product, BA would need to respond with something. But that doesn't seem to be an imminent risk.

For me, CE offers some additional value with free F&B, empty middle, lounge access and Avios/TP, for which I'm willing to pay a small premium (if available) or part with some miles. If not, I'm perfectly happy in the back of the bus.
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Old Jan 26, 2018, 7:41 am
  #126  
 
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Originally Posted by subject2load


Not so convinced myself.

Some current CE fare levels are such that I’m often amazed to see people sitting there (as I gladly make my way to the same size seat larger exit row seat in Y).

Who can say for sure that there wouldn’t still be lots of takers, at even much higher price points ?? There are people (and some corporates) who will pay pretty much anything (“yes, always fly in business, you know ......”)


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Old Jan 26, 2018, 8:12 am
  #127  
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Originally Posted by subject2load
Some current CE fare levels are such that I’m often amazed to see people sitting there (as I gladly make my way to the same size seat in Y).

That argument can be inversed. With the cheapest CE ticket currently Ł134 for a return to Bordeaux, I'm sometimes amazed people pay Ł207 to fly EuroTraveller (out 27 January, back 3 February). And they don't get row 1 with that either. Mind you, HBO ET comes in at a more affordable Ł180 for those who prefer BoB. Either way I'm more or less OK with CE in its current form, presumably to the relief of BA's revenue team.

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Old Jan 26, 2018, 12:06 pm
  #128  
 
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Originally Posted by corporate-wage-slave

That argument can be inversed. With the cheapest CE ticket currently Ł134 for a return to Bordeaux, I'm sometimes amazed people pay Ł207 to fly EuroTraveller (out 27 January, back 3 February).
It can, but how often is CE cheaper than ET? And when it is, how often do people accidentally/stupidly book ET instead?

How often is CE 2x-10x cost of ET? If anyone is aware of those stats on this forum I'm sure it's you.
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Old Jan 26, 2018, 12:30 pm
  #129  
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Originally Posted by switch007
It can, but how often is CE cheaper than ET? And when it is, how often do people accidentally/stupidly book ET instead?

How often is CE 2x-10x cost of ET? If anyone is aware of those stats on this forum I'm sure it's you.
It's not often cheaper than ET, but I can promise you that there will be people making bookings into ET in this scenario. Firstly the scrape OTA sites which may not pick up these nuances and only show the ET fares, and also those travelling on company travel policies which prohibit CE.

But there is a particular story to this example: you will note that this is a flight which is not far off, time wise. ET fares will rocket on the basis that anyone booking at this time really has to travel, therefore market forces shoves up that fare. Avios availability will probably be around despite the high fares. The CE fare here is a Saturday Night rule CE fare, which are among the lowest CE fares around, but they work of a different marketing process so if the allocation for this fare is still available, it may be open for purchase very close to departure. The intended purchasers are leisure travellers rather than business travellers. In other words ET and CE are working on two non aligned channels, serving different markets.

I'm not aware of any across-the-board stats on who pays what, I imagine that would be extremely market sensitive to BA so I doubt we will ever know the full underlying story. Anecdotes - unreliable as they are - will have to suffice. But on business routes the business class fares will be market led - so detached from ET fares but relative to LH/AF/KLM etc - whereas on leisure routes the structure is more about "if we can get Ł100 out of them, how can we get Ł150?" There again if you look at some of the Greek island fares from LHR (not LGW) the CE fares can be amazingly high. I remember seeing one such flight through the system, and very, very few people paid under Ł300 to be on that particular flight in ET, the last CE ticket being sold for Ł600 per leg. The flight went out full, no staff standbys, BA made an absolute mint on that service. I suspect they had takings of Ł50k and marginal+staff costs of under Ł10k, Nice work if you can get it.
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Old Jan 26, 2018, 1:32 pm
  #130  
 
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I have seen CE being cheaper on so many occasions that I remind me pals to ALWAYS check Club Europe fares when they are looking at BA.
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Old Jan 26, 2018, 4:11 pm
  #131  
 
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Originally Posted by dougzz
Maybe if we all but Pro-BA or Anti-BA in our profiles we can save the Internet from death by a thousand tedious threads.
I only speak for myself, but I am neither ‘Pro-BA’ nor ‘Anti-BA’ (nor, for that matter, am I a fence-sitter).

What I am is someone who will never let BA take my business for granted, someone who doesn’t slavishly fly BA to the exclusion of all other airlines out of a misplaced sense of loyalty, someone who recognises that there are often better options available, and is not afraid to try them.

Just like a democratically-elected government BA should be constantly held to account for their performance. When they do something well they should be praised for it; when they drop the ball they should be taken to task for it.

There will always those on this forum who, come what may, will invariably support or criticise BA - just like there are UK parliamentary constituencies that will always remain Conservative or Labour. Just as the marginal constituencies (or swing states) are the most interesting, so are the opinions of those here who, from experience, you know are capable of expressing a non-partisan view.


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Old Jan 26, 2018, 6:52 pm
  #132  
 
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Originally Posted by Sealink
I have seen CE being cheaper on so many occasions that I remind me pals to ALWAYS check Club Europe fares when they are looking at BA.
Shhhhh ! Now you have gone and woken up the algorithm gnomes !
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Old Jan 26, 2018, 9:00 pm
  #133  
 
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Originally Posted by Sealink
I have seen CE being cheaper on so many occasions that I remind me pals to ALWAYS check Club Europe fares when they are looking at BA.
That's assuming you can actually use them. My last employer had a "Y only" policy and you had to book through an Amex Concour portal where the company policies were already applied. You'd never see anything other than a Y class, so even if CE was cheaper it wouldn't show up as it was in violation of the Y only policy.
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