cauchy

My recent flight with BA had no wifi, the free water looked revolting, the plane was filthy (despite it being an early morning departure ex-LHR), I had to pre-queue to try to avoid gate-checking bags, I could not sit next to the people I was travelling with [no HBO fares involved] and the 250 Avios I got doesn't move the needle. And it was very expensive.

But if you've got a blue card, there are no discretionary benefits from BA. For example, they seem to look the other way when someone from Boarding Group 1 has too much (non-compliant) carry-on -- but will then gate check your bag as you're in Group 4 (even though your bag is compliant). You get the worst seats (rather than it averaging out). In a way this is worse than Ryanair or EasyJet - you can't pay to improve your situation, and it sometimes feels like BA is providing discretionary benefits to other customers at the expense of regular customers of you (which is different to say giving a free drink to a gold member, which isn't disadvantaging a blue card holder).

subject2load

I’d agree that - where the inflight product is concerned - the distinction has narrowed dramatically in recent years. But there are some notable differences : eg, am I right in saying that Ryanair now offer a little more legroom than BA (or at least when compared to BA’s 321 Neo’s ) ??

I continue to use BA short-haul regularly, including for routes that are served by FR (or indeed easyJet), provided fares compare favourably ; but that’s primarily because a) I have the benefit of lounge access at LHR/LGW, and b) public transport to LHR is somewhat easier for me than to LTN or STN. For many others, such criteria may not be determining factors, and that’s when BA can sometimes become second choice. Certainly far more business travellers use FR today than in the early days of the airline.

Seating / legroom apart, two other issues where I see increasingly little variance are the general state of the aircraft (a BA a/c is just as likely to be as clean or as scruffy / badly worn as any other carrier), and the often badly-managed boarding process. On the latter, FR and EZ do tend to be rather more zealous in policing priority boarding - even if there is often little to choose between all three when it comes to calling pax through the gate far too soon, only to then leave them to endure a significant period of time being ‘held‘, rather than seated promptly.

CirrusDesAigles

£19 to pick a seat at check in!

You can get a half decent seat on Ryanair for about a fiver can't you?

Disagree on Ryanair boarding being worse than BA. Manchester T3 boarding for Heathrow flights is even worse than Ryanair as the gates that BA use don't even have any seating next to them and the same queueing before the plane has finished disembarking procedure applies.

cauchy

And thats £19 to pick one of the worst seats (rather than any unoccupied seat).

bil

This is an interesting strategy... wouldn't this systematic use of SDC be picked up as abuse and somehow against T&C?

squeeler

Good question. Is it against T&Cs? The offer to change comes up on MMB and on the App after midnight on the day of the flight. Hard to see this as a violation, unlike some other strategies. I have never seen 'Would you like to drop the last leg of this itinerary?' for example. 😉
If it was a violation, I personally would no longer use it.

cauchy

The danger is that they find an outsourcer who'll update the IT for a few pennies so that there's a US-style "free standby on the day" which is far less attractive (and a massive IT failure when the software turns out to be buggy).

Mountlodge

One of the positives of being Blue is you dont attach your card to your laptop bag for all to see!!

ML

subject2load

Good point.

One for the tier benefits ‘comparator’ tick box chart ...... ?