ayearinmx

i'm really miffed that since turning gold in March, and getting the holy grail of "Group 1" status..... I have yet to be on a flight that has allowed me to board first, unless I decided to announce my DYKWIA-ness for every other passenger to bow down to (and put the ticketing agent in the awkward position of either following the rules or being dazzled by my gold card which I attach to as many items as possible).... or unless, i booked a seat at the very back of the plane, with completely negates the point of Group 1, as then I'd have to mingle with the plebs who I have worked so hard to avoid.

luckily the lounges have since opened so i can drown my despondence in vaste quantities of free and drink...... either way, I'm not sure any airline has covered themselves in glory during these times and sometimes it is better the devil you know, and quite frankly, I think BA do a decent enough job and I get enough perks from them to keep giving them the benefit of the doubt and flying with them... I must also commend every person who i've spoken to on the phone for cancellations/changes/whatevers because whilst BA is a behemoth of a company, it is made up of people and these people have always dealt with me very well.

itsmeitisss

It serves the regions, but only at the expense of a connection. This isn't so bad when going Long Haul, but if going to Europe, it becomes expensive and takes longer...

Mordac

The train tickets or car parking at Heathrow are expensive too. Horses for courses. Meanwhile it costs me about £6 to get to BHX on the train.

lcyguy

id say the best option ( particularly if you only intend to fly in the pointy end) is to forget ff programmes for the next year at least and makes your choices based on cost, service, schedule. In fact, it may be quite a liberating experience

BOH

For people annoyed or "disillusioned" because BA extended status to those that had fallen short of re-qualifying....what on earth is the problem with this? It was hardly the fault of those who fell short of the required points when virtually overnight, flying was stopped for months. By sheer chance, you simply fell on the right side of this restriction, no doubt only because your membership year runs differently and you were the majority of the way through your year.

The offer by BA to extend status to those less fortunate with the EC year timing was a wonderful gesture and was provided to those on a less fortunate EC year timing. What does it matter what others got, some needed a helping hand due to circumstances totally outside of their control, you were simply fortunate.

cauchy

PriorityPass + EasyJet Plus.

Geordie405

Voting with your feet / wallet is certainly one option!

My experiences (albeit limited) with KLM were mostly positive and their customer service was very impressive when I was trying to fly from AMS back to the UK for Christmas quite a few years ago. Due to the threat of BA industrial action and a Eurostar weather-related shambles I'd decided that I'd take the train from BRU to AMS and then fly back to NCL from there. Even before I'd arrived in Schiphol it was patently obvious I'd missed my AMS - NCL flight because of weather delays impacting the Thalys. Fortunately I'd booked a flexible business class ticket and so KLM rebooked me without hesitation onto the next day's flight to EDI (as NCL was full). However, when it was cancelled due to snow in EDI / GLA they were able to get me rebooked back onto a NCL service! I got lucky because they had one customer who hadn't checked in and had missed the deadline! The fact that they had dedicated staff handling business class customers clearly helped too as I didn't have to wait in a queue and made a flight that, if I was honest, I really shouldn't have. As a loyalty program I really have no idea whether it would be a good alternative to the BAEC. As others have said most of this depends on your flying patterns and destinations. Connecting via AMS may or may not be better than connecting at LHR.

As for the status extension, I got one to 2022 but my wife who qualified for Gold this year has her status until 2023 - and she delights in telling me she'll be the one guesting me into the lounges!

Is the BAEC worth it anymore? To me, yes - but mainly for lounge access when flying on domestic US itineraries. I am currently taking advantage of generally good pricing for (domestic) First / Business class fares and that coupled with TSA PreCheck negates all of the usual benefits of status. The one big exception is lounge access but, to an extent, that is also covered by my Amex Platinum and Priority Pass card. AS joining OW in March next year is definitely another reason why I think the BAEC is still worth it. I have flights to BRW booked for July so 8 x 40 lots of TP will be something to look forward to (assuming that I class fares credit at 40 TPs)!

dylanks

I think it’s highly likely we’ll have a further 12 months (ignore my use of further if you were a July-September person who had already qualified) of reduced threshold for earning and/or extensions. Most of us have received very little benefit since March and the current norm is likely to continue until Autumn 2021 given the time for a vaccine rollout and given BA’s expectations with a significant reduction in flights for the summer.

cauchy

Or, letting people lose their status is a way to cut costs from the business. Some of the people who lose status won't keep on flying extensively, and so renewing them doesn't help the bottom line. I think a status challenge - e.g. fly X flights in two months and get silver - is more likely.

BOH

What is the cost to BA to renew though for those status pax falling short of the TPs because they are not actually flying at the moment? Pretty much zero I would think so I can't see how costs would be cut. Keeping those pax on status surely means that when flying does resemble anything like normality their first choice should be BA because they retained the status benefits.

If BA remove someones status when everyone is prevented from flying then when they can resume they may well choose another alliance and not come back to BA. Talk about a case of the airline shooting itself in the foot!

Misco60

As I see it, membership of BAEC is always "worth it", in the sense that it's better to have the benefits of membership than not have them.

But if the question is "Is chasing BAEC status worth it?", then I would say that chasing status for the sake of it makes even less sense at the moment than it usually does.

If you fly enough to make status worthwhile, then as soon as the pandemic is over and travel returns to normal you'll quickly accrue the TPs necessary to reach whichever level you desire. I am about to end my collection year on zero TPs and am absolutely relaxed about it.

firstlight

I think the benefits of status at present is the relative ease in contacting the airline when those cancellations roll round and you need to call in. Generally I'm not waiting for hours, normally a couple of minutes and most of the call centre staff go out of their way to help (although there's been one recent exception for me at BA holidays). It also makes the airport experience a bit more frictionless. Living between LHR and LGW does of course make BA the obvious go to airline although in 2021 we'll be experiencing almost as much QR as BA due to flight cancellations!

But this board has been of almost equal level of help with the various contributors assisting greatly at various times. I hope I have also helped others...

fartoomanyusers

There's a quote along the lines of "a tax cut for one person, is a tax rise for everybody else"

Most people perceive their lot in life in relation to others - it's just the way human psychology works !

Mordac

You'd hardly need more proof of the Christian doctrine of original sin!

OverTheHorizon

This, absolutely.

Gaming TPs, for us at least, never made - and was never intended to make - any sort of financial sense re costs vs. benefits.

But it was often fun and led to us accumulating a pile of rather useful travel tips and tricks (not to mention GUFs and gifted cards).

Somewhat l​​​​ike us, the tips and tricks are ageing now and becoming less useful and the statuses will all surely expire in due course.

​​​​​​For the time being we are hunkering down and hoping for better times... What else is there to do?