BertieBadger

Sense? Well, it is BAEC!

But KARFA has asked the relevant question which offers one possible explanation for what has happened here. The timeline would be something like:

1) OP starts as Silver, and has an expiry of Jan 2021.
2) OP steps up to Gold prior to the 'extensions' being applied. There doesn't seem to be a reason why they should, but perhaps BAEC granted it on a ad-hoc basis due to cancelled bookings as they did for some members. The expiry changes to Jan 2022 at this point.
3) BA do the extension processing which blindly adds a year onto the current expiry giving Jan 2023.

Your wife falls into the category of "not needing an extension" according to BAEC.

cosmo74

That is basically the situation for anyone who re-qualified at the same level. I'm a September year end and my card expires 31 October 2021. Had I moved from Silver to Gold, it would be 31 October 2022. BA don't care about the unfairness of this.

Cyberhacker

BA may *need* to be the first to blink... it has Elites whose membership year expires in July.

Most of the other airlines (with their calendar years) do not have to worry until later in the year...

drwook

Well yes, personally that'd be helpful as my collection year ends July. And it probably would be a good idea from a customer relationship perspective to pre-empt and do it early so everyone feels loved and inclined to book future travel etc. But I'm still not sure I'd bet on it happening.

ISTFlyer

As I mentioned upthread, BA wouldn't need to be the one taking action first.

There are some programs such as FlyingBlue, Qatar Airways Privilege Club, etc... that don't follow a calendar year format and have members ( as far it stands ) losing status this March. These programs have pressed the +12 month button the first month of COVID and then didn't take any further action.

BA's first member would drop status ( as far as it stands ) on 8 July 2021

Geordie405

Certainly for me the biggest challenge will be getting the required number of qualifying flights. There should be no problem with the TPs based on what I have in the calendar already, but they are all domestic US flights booked with AA. As things stand I don't see me being on a BA marketed or operated flight anytime soon, let alone any with IB. My status is good through January 2022 with my wife's Gold status assured until January 2023. I appreciate that people shouldn't be flying at the moment but I'd still want to have my status and the benefits / perks that go with it when we *are* able to resume flying again. Whether BA extends status again is a different matter altogether. From a customer relations perspective they might. However, from a business perspective they may choose not to and allow people to lose status simply through attrition. I guess we'll see in due course.

spidmack

yeah I was Gold the previous year. So yeah gold 9th Dec 2019

BertieBadger

There goes that theory then If you had stepped up a tier it could have explained the extra year, but obviously that is not the case here.

Under normal circumstances on the 9th Dec 2019, your expiry date would have moved to 31st Jan 2021. Then when the extension processing was done in June, it would have been adjusted to Jan 2022, exactly as you lay out in your original post. So quite why 2023 is a mystery.

At the time, it was observed that they applied the expiry adjustment "blindly", i.e. the system didn't look to see if it had already been moved out either due to stepping up a tier, or for some other reason. At the moment, the only thing I can think of is that for some reason which is not apparent, your expiry had already been moved out to 2022 before the batch processing. Can you think of any reason why it might have been? Did you perhaps contact BAEC about retaining your status due to cancelled flights and someone extended it manually?

(If the expiry has been 2023 since June when they did the extension processing, that would seem to rule out something happening at the start of your new collection year in Dec 2020)

Other than that, maybe someone else can explain it. Maybe it is just another inconsistency that we can add to the pile - under the extension scheme some people got nothing, some people got into 2023. You appear to be one of the (very) lucky ones, so perhaps just enjoy your good fortune

FlyerP

I tend to think simply and believe the most pragmatic and flexible response going forward would be extending everyone’s last earned status until 1 year from the date of a meaningful (usually US ) return of flights. Doesn’t penalise anyone including those who got an extension but have been unable to avail of usual FF benefits. This rule can then be pushed forward month by month as required by restrictions. A reduction in TP threshold requirements for the year going forward from that date could be applied to make qualification realistic.

After all what is the point in being awarded an additional status if you are really unable to use it?

DeathSlam

David_Doyle

Indeed!

I'd be amused by the notion that BA extending my GGL by yet another membership year would be overly 'generous'. I travelled in January and February last year but since March I've been able to be on an aircraft just once (in September) for a holiday to what was then a travel corridor for a few weeks, and I availed myself of Galleries First on that occasion.

Since then - not a chance in hell of being on a flight from a business perspective, and leisure travel has been basically impossible and/or prohibited. As much as I love to travel there is no sign of being able to do so again anytime in the next 4-5 months, by which time I'll already be 6-7 months into my membership year.

I can only benefit from the membership when I fly, and I can only earn that membership when I fly.

Footnote: This kind of issue is irrelevant compared to what is happening outside of leisure/business travel. My heart breaks daily at the dreadful waste of it all.

manysyllables

How high are the odds, though, that BA will do another extension and keep TP requirements depressed for the entirety of this year, and possibly the next? I know this is a speculative question, but would anyone care to share their insights nonetheless? ​​​​

brithk

I received my Cathay 12 month extension (the second one) today:
Since we announced the automatic tier renewal scheme for club members last year, travel plans continue to be affected by the pandemic. Although new ways to keep us safe are being rolled out, we know it will be some time before COVID-19 is brought under control.

In view of this, we will be renewing your Gold membership – and the status for all members whose memberships expire in 2021 – for another 12 months. If you have any unused mid-tier benefits that expire between May and December 2021, we will reissue them for another 12 months. This should take about 7 working days from their date of expiry.

KeaneJohn

Not wanting to rub it in but a friend was Silver about 400 TP short of Gold but with bookings to get 560 TP with Qatar.

I suggested he write to BA to see if they’d let him have gold discretionary as his flights were cancelled and they granted this and then he got a years extension on top.

I suspect they will start to come in now as Emirates extended status by a year yesterday but in all honesty with no definite time when we can travel again extending benefits is meaningless as you can’t use them.

cosmo74

I agree that having status at the minute is a bit pointless if you're not travelling, however it will certainly be beneficial when travel hopefully picks up later in the year - at which point people who did not actually receive an extension will start dropping down a level. I certainly hope BA addresses this.