billyb750

Hi all,

Having noticed that it has been possible to earn Exec Club Silver by flying 50 BA flights in given year, I do wonder how many (few) people achieve BA Silver this way, as opposed to earning 600 TPs (and 4 BA flights). Certainly, I would take my hat off to anyone who manages 50 BA metal flights a year in this way. It can't be easy - especially if you are doing it without having Silver status (and therefore lounge access) rolled over from a previous year.

Would be interested to hear of anyone who has earned BA Silver this way, as I can't imagine there being many people each year that do so without triggering 600 TPs first?

In a similar vein, whilst I am not surprised that BA has not placed some sort of stretch-goal for earning lifetime gold through an accumulated number of BA flights, I do what such a number of flights would be if they ever thought about it? I suppose if lifetime gold is 35,000 tier points, which is effectively like earning Silver status 58.5 times (58.5* 600 TPs), on an equivalent rate that would work out at 58.5 years of doing 50 BA flights a year to get BA Silver, which would be 2,925 BA flights. Perhaps call it 2,500 to earn lifetime gold? Certainly, doing 2,500 BA flights in a lifetime would be an achievement (of sorts!). I wonder if anyone has got, or is getting remotely close to, that? To be fair, may as well throw in lifetime GGL to anyone that would have the commitment to do that number of BA flights!

FlyerTalker39574

Commuters on short Economy routes earning no more than 10 TPs per sector.

scottishpoet

Not me personally but there are a few posters on here who 'commute' GLA or EDI to LHR in Y. 2 flights a week, 25 weeks get you to 50 flights. 10 tier points (some flights may be 5) would only get you to 500tp.

Similarly if you do not live in the london area but regularly fly via LHR so it is 4 flights per return trip basically means 1 return s month and you are all but there. (I benefit from this on M&M to get to FTL status flying from KRK via waw, muc, fra or zurich)

craigthemif

Very very easy to hit 50 BA flights at 5 TPs each. Many people commute weekly to London for work. Monday morning / Friday evening. 25 weeks to Silver.

The surprise isn't that BA gives these travellers Silver, but that they don't get Gold or better due to the clear loyalty shown...

Globaliser

If you're weekly commuting, you may care relatively little about lounge access. Doing that many short-haul flights, you may want to try to spend as little time as possible in the airport whether or not you are entitled to lounge access.

FT discussion sometimes gets very skewed towards a certain view of air transport. For most of the world, status is not a goal or an achievement in itself but a useful by-product of their flying. And lounge access is not an aspiration but simply something that, similarly, is useful if you happen to have some time to spare at the airport.Status isn't a reward for loyalty. It's a set of benefits for those who have demonstrated a small amount of commercial importance to the airline. If you're weekly commuting on 5TP short-haul fares, you're not really of much commercial importance to the airline.

If you were of real commercial importance, you'd be a Prem.

DYKWIA

When I used to do the weekly MAN-LHR commute, the Friday evening in the T1 lounge was the start of my weekend

Globaliser

I think it would be for me, too.

But I look around at how friends approach this, and I realise how weird I am.

rapidex

But your still not a prem, unlike some on here Sadly neither am I.

craigthemif

True... except BA gets far less revenue from hundreds of Gold and GGL FTers than they get from a weekly commuter.

tuonopepper

Had one year where I made gold all on economy flights and only 3 long haul returns, was horrendous and not a travel year I will ever repeat.

Globaliser

But again, that minority of FTers isn't the real world.

Pagan98

As a weekly commuter between LHR & Copenhagen I couldn’t disagree more. Lounge access, particularly on the return leg, makes the whole experience much more palatable, particularly when there’s a delay.

I have reached Silver from the 50 SH economy flights for the last 2 years. In retrospect I should have put my (apparently commercially unimportant) business to SAS and I’d now be getting a free mixed drink on each flight...

Agent69

I've always thought that 50 flights to get Silver was a bit excessive, given how easy it is to spend £1200 for a QR flight in J to south east asia, and then add on a couple of short haul trips to get the 4 qualifying BA flights.

That said, I did once work with a quantity surveyor who lived in France and commuted to Exeter on a weekly basis

LCY8737

I did many years of weekly commuting LCY-FRA. Tickets always booked months in advance and usually at 5 TP a pop.

I'm a bit torn about "should loyalty be rewarded". In the early years, BA had some minimum stay requirements for the route, so doing a 2 nighter in FRA meant tickets were always north of £250, even when booked early. In other years the flights were cheap as chips and by the time I had my G&T and half sandwich they can't have made much money.

What is true is that your perspective changes. I couldn't have cared less about what bubbles they serve in the lounge or that LCY doesn't have one. What mattered was seat selection and being top of the pile during ir-ops (and FRA was notoriously bad at that).

JamieT

Slightly different situation but way back when, I reached Gold based purely on domestic flying. A combination of a corporate route deal and almost weekly return trips between London and Edinburgh (worked in financial services). Maintained it for several years.

I never really used the lounges on work trips though - I timed airport arrivals for the minimum amount of time possible (and used LCY a lot so no lounge anyway).

I do not miss it; I found it ate into other aspects of your life.

incidentally I’ve just dropped to blue for the first time in a decade - I’ve started to take the train more and, thanks to either or both Amex and higher earning power, lounge access comes with the tickets for our two long haul hols a year.