Profile of a regular BAEC GOLD and above status chaser?
 

Always been intrigued by those who chase BAEC status year after year. Not those who earn it fully or partly through work travel more those who treat it as a hobby. Must admit I have always assumed those who do it are most likely single, have a big interest in air travel and have plenty of time on their hands.

Am I wrong?

I think it is hard to generalise, to be honest. I do not travel for work these days (referring to pre-covid times as well) but used to. So every shiny card I have is earned purely by leisure travel. In my case, your description is wrong. Not single and do not have plenty of time on my hands, but I do have an interest in air travel :D

I suspect most will have at least 1/3 of those traits but very few will have 3/3.

I'd say it's more the allocation of free time to flying, rather than plenty of time on their hands. That and the cash, of course. I suppose you'd have to have an interest in air travel, otherwise what is the point of a shiny card? Unless you were a shiny card collector, which is also possible.
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Are you wrong = yes

of the people I know who are flying as a hobby, then a significant percentage are married or in long term relationships.

I only ever made Silver while I was single, and my partner only ever made bronze! Now I regularly hit Gold and she hits Silver. We consider ourselves fortunate to be able to do what we do for work and pleasure and to be able to do so together, crossing paths when we travel for work too.

When we both travel for pleasure, we do a few trips a year in J or W cash bought in the better sales (with UuAs and OpUps typically netting us unexpected extra tier points due to the bugs in BAEC!), and also AUP here and there as well when there is a good deal to get the extra tier points. The rest are AMEX 241s where we seem to be doing 2 a year because we get so many avios from our trips given the bonuses for upper tier members of BAEC. BAEC combined with AMEX is a brilliant proposition as it has kept us loyal to BA when it comes to cash spending.

We also travel for work a few trips a year in W and Y only (our respective work travel policies!) that gets us around 30-40% of our TPs. I think these trips definitely help our CIV score as well, given they are usually booked as fully flex bucket tickets.

These are not the only two categories. How about those who simply earn it purely from non-work travel, but who don't go out of their way to "chase" it?

The immense diversity of the human race is not capable of being distilled so simply, dear HIDDY.

• Single? Married for the last 40.4 years.
• Interest in Air Travel? Aircraft are simply transportation, a means to an end.
• Plenty of time? Yes, time rich, having stopped working in 1993. However, not too much time left.

2/3 disagree! :D

Single, 2 day week - semi-retired, and quite enjoy the airport experience and parts of the aeroplane ride (take off, landing, good views) part of a holiday, so I may meet all 3 criteria.
A few years back I returned from Orlando in a what seemed a particularly crappy BA 777 with a limited recline, toilet behind it, economy seat. No more. I started booking WT+ and thought it was brilliant. Then I found this pit of temptation and entitlement known as Flyer Talk. I did my first ex-EU, travelled to the USA in business class and got a silver card, I was hooked, no more WT+ for me.
If I can get a silver card then surely with planning a gold must be possible, and that was it, a couple of years of gold followed, and ex-EU became the norm.
This year with endless cancelled trips I've given thought to the logic of it, and may well stop unnecessary hops, I've seen a fair bit of Helsinki airport in the last 2 years for example, and getting to San Antonio via Philadelphia and Phoenix was in hindsight not my smartest route planning day for an extra 100TP.
I like my gold card, but I don't need it, and I'll keep telling myself that.

Middle aged, not single, not a lot of time, but very interested in travel.

I think you over-simplify it if you put people in such buckets as personal or business travellers. I used to make half the tier points from work (a mix of tons of short haul Y and a few long haul J) and the other half from personal travel. For a few years now (even pre-Covid) I would say 80% is personal travel.

Most of my travel comes from a desire to see the world. The shiny card thing is a part of it, causing me to do weird things such as LHR-JFK-PHX instead of LHR-PHX. At the same time, some purely business travellers I know go to extraordinary lengths to make sure they get their tier points - so again, it probably is more complicated than just say you are part of one demographic or another.

I joined the Exec Club in 19991 and slowly worked my way up through the tiers while at one point falling back from Silver to Blue (there was no bronze at the time). Achieved Gold about 5 years ago and in last couple of years earned about 3,000-3,500 tier points annually and was heading towards lifetime Gold this membership year until this ruddy virus came along and severely hampered my travels. Only 200 points so far since my membership year reset in September. I travel a lot with work- in London most weeks, European trips on average once a month and long haul work trips couple of times a year. The companies whom I work for have a policy that they re-imburse Y fare. I am self-employed and choose to travel in CW or F (if I can get a good price for F) long haul and CE shortfall, but on the basis that I will have re-imbursed a Y fare only (I book in Y, get a receipt and then cancel within 24 hours for a full refund).

I enjoy flying generally and while I tend to choose BA in the main, if other carriers are more direct or competitive price-wise I go with them. Last year went First with EK to Hong Kong as that was cheaper than BA in CW (and EK's F product is far superior to BA's F which I am fortunate enough to have flown a number of times). Leisure travel we also fly in either business or F and again we choose carriers which are most convenient, though often that is BA given its extensive European and North American networks. In essence I enjoy flying and like to do so as comfortably as I can afford. As an aside the GF lounge at T5 has been excellent in recent months and the style of service a huge improvement to that which was the norm previously.

In my experience, status-chasers (as opposed to those earning status as a by-product of holidays) tend to be men of a certain age and shape. (Although I've also met some slimmer ones as well as a couple of delightful ladies.) They tend to congregate in the CX lounge (in the window seats) or CCR and talk only of aircraft types and TP runs. They drink huge amounts of champagne if it's free. They sometimes nip home to see their partners if on a long layover at LHR.

(:))

See my signature!

Birth certificate says I'm in my 60s. No work travel, and work part-time. Married. Not an aviation geek - I'm possibly the only person on FT who can't identify any plane other than a B747 or A380 visually!

I will do TP runs on mistake/exceptional fares (and always enjoy them) and both of us are happy to do ex-EU or INV start to our holiday trips.

We tend to avoid BA long-haul where we can but we travel enough on AA and QR for BA to send us nice shiny cards each year.

Not the only one! There are only three types of aircraft: the 747, the A380 and the ones that all look the same. :D

Hi,

So I joined BAEC in 2014, first flight was economy to Grand Cayman.

I then went through a phase of CV bookings (so NYC in First return for a couple of years) based on CC spend. I had little bit of paid for flying and the odd work trip, so sat in the Bronze level.

I then met my GF and she has a big thing for travelling, and now I have the bug.

My work trips, which barely made a dent in status stopped, but my personal paid for trips went up and I decided to make a plan for Silver for 2020. My year runs to Sept.

Despite COVID I made Silver, and then the reduction came in for Gold so I had a solo TP run in the summer (cheap CE flights and boredom).

Im now Gold for 2 years, I have enough TP booked for this year to re-qualify, even though its a moot point. They will probably be cancelled anyway.

I have booked in enough TP for next year (sept 21 onwards) so that come sept 22 I re-qualify.

One is a trip to HK via Qatar which is Ex EU, this is a planned trip with a bit of TP maximisation.

I also have a few CE flights for holiday (weekend breaks)

I do have one TP run, £800 for 560TP. Partially I want to keep Gold status, especially for things like HKG lounges and the better food/drink at LHR. Also its a bit of fun, again this is a solo trip. I am doing it mid week and the flight times mean I can work and fly and not take holiday (I am flexible working / home worker).

This trip means I get to explore parts of Europe, with limited risk and find new places to potentially go back to for a real break.

Personally, if I can keep Gold by having 2 long haul trips and 1 TP run each year, it sort of makes sense.