PUCCI GALORE

Now KARFA - You know that I am blond, but we know that I am not dumb. I just really wanted to be sure that I understood. The way that I had read his reply (and this is not a criticism but it shows the problem of reading between lines sometimes) that there were other ways of earning TPs other than flying one airlines or another.

I love your metaphor for British Airways Social Security, I suppose that some groups will be luckier than others. My TP year ends in April - Hi's is July and so he rather has less time to accumulate the points for the Dec 31 st cut off. Still, he will be dependent upon me to guest him into Flounges even though he only travels with me. I agree with you in principal but am bound to inform him that he is in there thanks to BA' social conscience (which is probably an oxymoron) and me and thus a Charity Case. This could be interesting,

sl1ppy

That assumes folks just book flights for the sake of it though. My travel patterns are fairly fixed to March/April(LH) and August/September(SH) and December(SH) - I'm not about to start changing that to when BA think they can deliver a service. Have flights in Sept but travel (with IB BA) hasn't looked very appealing lately.

KARFA

Ok. So you want ba to extend your status because you won’t have enough points? Are we going to keep doing this whenever there is some disruption around the narrow date ranges when you have flights?

Flyertalker001342

My 2 cents: This whole thing, extensions, reduced point thresholds, etc., was not going to end well no matter the cutoff date or any of the other overly complicated things that BA has haphazardly "Band-Aided" on the BAEC the last 2 years.

Do I think that most all of us have benefitted from BA's largesse: YES.

Do I think that BA can make this process "fair" to each and every BAEC member? NO.

Do I think that the BAEC frequent flyer program is overly complex and poorly administered? YES

If I were in charge of the BAEC, I would use this opportunity to simplify the overall program and then use the current cutoff and extension dates with no further modifications or extensions. I'd probably also not make an exceptions for the many BAEC members who in the end are going to think that they got shafted. Life is unfair, it's often a mess, and best to accept that fact and get on with the rest of your life. There is more to life than a free glass of insipid Champagne and some warmed over free food in an overcrowded lounge.

IMH

You're not completely wrong , but letting people who still aren't flying much keep BAEC status (people like me) wasn't just altruism on BA's part. Our 'handout' gave us incentives to continue to choose BA. That will be important for BA going forward.

If I'd dropped from Gold to Bronze over the past two years, which is what my (lack of) travel would have meant, I'd be at least theoretically open to considering the charms of LH Group or KLM/AF.

That said, I accept that I'm now likely to drop to Silver when my current year ends. But Silver's not so bad, as others have said, and will mean I keep the most important benefits for the five or six months I'll need to regain Gold.

sl1ppy

Well those date ranges have worked for me to keep silver for 15 years or so. But no, I don't care so much any more.

Flyertalker001342

BA is a business and not a public charity , even though they are often "un-businesslike" and they do a lot of things that repulse their regular customers. I should add that they have a lot of company in these things with their airline competitors.

BA is continuously re-evaluating how they treat us, how much service and "free stuff" they give us in the normal course of their business operations. This is to say that their loyalty to US, their customers, is open to constant revision.

Likewise, we should always be considering the possibility of jumping ship and going with a BA competitor or alliance. It is only by holding BA and their airline partners to our set of expectations, that this whole thing works as a reciprocal relationship.

Renewing "status" for customers not flying (for whatever reason) is a goodwill gesture, but no business can afford to continue to extend goodwill gestures to current "non-customers" ad infinitum. Business is not going to continue to be conducted as it was pre-pandemic, going forward. It is obvious that some of the changes, such as use of online meetings/Zoom/whatever are going to replace a portion of what used to be regular business travel. As a result, the characteristics of the flying public will change, and BA needs to go after those people who will be filling their planes in 2023 and beyond, rather than those who filled their planes in 2019 and who may not return.

firstlight

As others have said, BA is not a charity but if people aren't flying then they are not using lounges or earning extra avios due to status.

Now flights are getting busier status passengers (e.g gold flying sh economy going through the first wing) will be costing BA more money as the ticket price won't subsidise the lounge cost (although many economy fares are high at the moment) and the customer will be getting more avios (an implied discount on ticket cost). So BA have to call it at some point. As one of the very few passengers who did not rely on the BA social security net during the pandemic (I earned enough tps through flying to requalify for gold in 2020 and 2021 and have just gone up a tier on 2022) I can't see BA extending anyone any further.

hfly

champignon, as they do not even send out cards anymore, which was a cost of what $1 a year, $2 a year? What exactly are the costs to BA of extending status for those who are not flying?

Personally this means nothing to me as like firstlight, the "largesse" meant nothing to me personally.

I have been saying for 2 years that BA should take this opportunity to simplify the program, go with the most generous date, for example grandfather everyone in and put everyone on the same year (whether it be Jan 1 to Dec 31, or end of March, or whatever).

Flyertalker001342

I got a silver card before BA cheaped out and stopped sending those. Then I got a gold card which they haven't cheaped out on sending yet, but there's always next year to consider doing that . . . .

Previously the business model for the airline industry was to extract as much money as possible from the business flyers, who buy tickets on short notice and who generally don't pay for their own seats (their businesses do). Going forward, this sort of cash cow business is not going to represent the huge percentage of profits that it used to for the entire industry, BA included. It's exactly the same thing when it comes to downtown office space; not everything that used to be done in the office can be done elsewhere, but a lot of it can be. A "hybrid work" model is replacing what was for years a mostly office-based work model. Ask me how I know this, as the unfortunate owner of 7000 SF of downtown Class A office space, that has been vacant for the last 2 1/2 years and which I need to "feed" with my own cash every month in order to have the "privilege" of owning it . . . .

BA and the other airlines are just like me and my costly vacant downtown office space. I am used to having stable tenants in this space, but now I get periodic offers from flaky businesses and others who think I must be made of money and that I can afford to give them ridiculous, uneconomic concessions, because the space is now vacant. But I can't afford to do that, I'm not made of money.

Likewise, BA. They are trying to adapt to a new business model and new economic environment. Who knows what their actual cost is in having tens or hundreds of thousands of previous customers on their "elite" rosters who are not currently patronizing the company and who may never come back, at least not come back to the extent that BA would treat them any differently than some random person who flies with them every other year to visit their Aunt Tilly?

sl1ppy

Reasonable argument until the last sentence.

scottishpoet

i have 560tp from 4 qr flights for example

regarding your comment in your reply to Karfa about by post..


i did not say there were ways to earn TP without flying.

I did say there were way to earn TP without flying BA

jplondon

Your perspective, I just see that my previous membership year ending April I quite easily made the TP for GGL and that this year, ironically, post COVID, it will be harder for me. Reason being that I have to travel at exact days and times to exact locations, and cannot fly whenever BA decides to fly somewhere or is willing to offer me a ticket. Hence since April about a third of my flights have been SH with non OW, and I don’t see this improve. Try booking some flights to basic European destinations end august or early September and the schedule is awful, So yes it seems for people with flexibility when to travel all is possible but for business travellers (that pay better money) it is less so, I am almost beyond now, whether they do something or not, but it sounds they may end up with higher tier member that will spend less than others.

Flyertalker001342

The BAEC rules and benefits were always clunky, and the presence of airline alliances makes them clunkier, still. It's like a giant game of 3 dimensional checkers, especially if you regularly fly with airline partners and have decided to consolidate your frequent flyer activity with one of the OW carriers (as is 100% rational and which is what I am personally doing, going forward).

Perhaps in this situation you should have had the credit from your 4 QR flights deposited into a QR frequent flyer account rather than into your BAEC account? Obviously, you can't change that now, but you can, going forward for the next BAEC year.

It would make the most sense for there to be a OW Alliance FF program, and then where you deposited your Avios, TPs, whatever would rationalize itself and it wouldn't matter. But, there are strong, large, OW carriers with lots of lounges and a presence in a large number of airports, and then there are small ones that are more like regional than international carriers, so it's unlikely that this will ever happen. As a result, you may get the short end of the stick this year. Next year you should plan accordingly, in order to cover all bases and to get the most you can for yourself based upon your anticipated travel behavior over the next year.

KARFA

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Are these the business travellers who earn status due to their employers travel budgets, and which employers normally state in travel policies that you shouldn’t skew your travel based on your own preference of frequent flyer programs and earning of miles?

I am sorry to sound rather short on this, but you seem to be missing the context of your own story here. At the end of the day business travel is for the purpose of getting you somewhere to conduct business on behalf of your employer, not to earn status with an airline. The latter is only lucky consequence of the former