MileHighFizz

Hey my skilled flyertalk buddies, I'm sure some of you will have some advice for me here.

Currently on 420 BAEC TP having flown 11 flights on BA/IB metal, and over 8th & 9th June I took, two QR J class flights that give me 140 TP each, yeah, Silver is mine!

Except I'm flying home with Qatar in Economy, and I really want to have lounge access, priority boarding & extra baggage allowance that comes with BAEC Silver / OW Sapphire. My first return flight is on Mon 18th June.

No TP have posted yet to my BAEC account, if there is a delay do you think I can sweet talk BA into hurrying things along for me?

Airprox

QR TPs generally post on a Wednesday, so with any luck your outbound flights will both post this week, and your status will be updated by the weekend before you fly on the 18th. No you cannot sweet talk BA into hurrying things along for you.

Pascoe

However what you certainly CAN do is keep your boarding passes etc from the outbound leg and explain as politely as possible to the QR lounge 'guardian' about the situation. My best guess is that you have at least a 50/50 chance, possibly better, that this will work for the lounge access even if your TPs haven't hit your account yet.

However I would be a bit surprised, unless there was something non standard in your booking, if the TPs aren't already there by then.

HTH

NWIFlyer

Steven Jack, welcome to FT and the BA board.

As has been said, QR flights normally post on the following Wednesday, although sometimes you have to wait a week depending on the time of your Tuesday flight. Nonetheless, certainly recently posting seems to have been fairly predictable, so with a set of flights several days before I think you can rely on this.

Your BA status on the app/website should flip over before you fly again (you might need to log out and in again on the app), but clearly your physical card won't reach you and it's also possible the oneworld database won't update in time either so you won't have your status on your boarding pass..

I have no experience of QR status lounges, having only flown in J with them, so I don't know what obstacles, if any, will be put in your way if you present a virtual card to them. As you've probably realised, we have a QR forum with some very knowledgeable people so you might well get good advice if you post a slightly different question over there.

I would certainly be sceptical about QR accepting the previous BPs as evidence of your pending status - they are very unlikely to know how the BA scheme works or the required threshold levels, and likely will not be particularly interested in any explanation you give them!

Schwann

MileHighFizz

Thanks everyone, sounds like there is a very good chance my status will have updated in time, in the worst case I have a Lounge Club card that will get me a something while I wait for my flight in BKK. My layover in DOH is only just over 2 hours, so lounge access there while nice is at best going to be a quick drop in and out, before my flight back to HEL, where I have a much longer layover awaiting an economy BA flight (19/06) to LHR, really hoping for the Finair lounge before that flight.

I'll be sure to share the outcome, especially around the OW DB and how smooth the whole thing is. :-)

Airprox

Just in case you're not a QR regular, don't forget that the lounge you use in DOH as a Oneworld Saphire travelling in Y ("Business Class Lounge") is different to the one you will have used outbound when travelling in QR J class ("Al Mourjan")

FlyerTalker6823123456

Pascoe

I always figure in these situations it costs nothing to ask, and the same nothing to ask super politely, and I find it is more often than not a winning strategy. I'm not talking p1ss take requests mind (no status, amble up to gold lounge and ask what are the chances etc). But requests that have some degree of reasonableness to them.

Quickest way to be denied, conversly, is to imply, overtly or otherwise, some degree of entitlement unless you're absolutely sure you have it. This is a proven confrontation trigger in general. Whereas asking someone for help is a trigger for a different kind of response.

And remember, regardless of how generally successful the strategy is, Airport and Airline recruitment schemes do AIM to get the staff who are front facing to be, erm, people people / people persons / person people (I have no idea what the clue of people person is). So they should in theory be personalities who get positive reinforcement from these acts of assistance.

There - that'll trigger a huge additional thread about staff personality traits ;-)

Globaliser

I just wanted to check that your membership year end isn't 8 June.

MileHighFizz

8th of Oct is my end of membership year, so no stress there, 8th of June was my 40th! hence my trip really. The LHR to HEL cabin crew including the Captain and SFO, gave me a really sweet birthday card when I flew on the 7th, you do you see so many people moan about BA, but they do have some fantastic service. It made me feel so touched and special. Plus they made extra sure my champagne glass was never empty! But to be fair in CE they are always pretty good with the booze.

criso

And the one for Silver/Sapphire really isn't great. However on a couple of occasions they've waved me into the Gold one instead which was a little more relaxing.

MileHighFizz

Thanks everyone, just logged into my account and it's now showing a total of 720 TP, and a message saying you have achieved silver. I still can't reserve seats on flights > 7 days away, but I imagine once my account properly moves to silver I'll have that ability.

As for the lounge in DOH, yeah I know Qatar save the best lounge for their own Business PAX, but I have such a quick turn around in DOH, I'm not too bothered, but it will be nice to use the Cathay Pacific lounge in BKK, always enjoy their noodle bar!