BoB-O

Hello all,

I have all the TPs I need to keep gold, but my work travel didn’t allow me to get on BA, so I need to do a run to get my 4 flights. I’ve never had this problem before, so I wonder if there’s any advice. Have people ever appealed to EC to waive that? It seems like such a waste of fuel to fly to Dublin (or wherever), just to turn around and come back.

1) Any tips for getting the 4 flights as easily as possible (other than flying)?
2) If I must fly, is there a destination that is known to be cheaper from the US? I’m starting in Seattle.

Thanks!
BoB-O

palcsaky

There are some BA fifth freedom routes in the Caribbean. This article has more details although it may not be up to date as it’s pre-pandemic.

AJA_

You will have to fly the 4 qualifying flights. AFAIK BA has never waived that rule to retain status. As [MENTION=743024]palcsaky[/MENTION] says the BA 5th freedom routes in the Caribbean are your best bet. I had a quick look and you can book St Lucia (UVF) To Grenada (GND) 9Nov returning 12 Nov 2022 for USD297.70 return in economy on BA. Unfortunately that is the minimum timescale on that particular route so you would have to pay for a hotel for 3 nights as well but experiment with the other routes listed in the HeadForPoints article.

Regarding the inability to fly BA are you saying that your employer refused to allow you to fly BA metal? In future could you not book AA metal but on a BA flight no? That would count as a qualifying flight as BA marketed flights count towards status as a qualifying flight

guv1976

OP: Have you considered getting oneworld status with Iberia Plus, rather than with BAEC? Iberia Plus does not require any travel on IB-coded flights to attain status.

In the meantime, you will have to look for some cheap-ish roundtrip from SEA to somewhere in Europe to get your four BA-coded segments.

ISTFlyer

Despite the advice given upthread by other members, taking the 4 BA segments in the Caribbean would be more costly compared for the OP to do a Europe round-trip with 1-stop.
The intra-Carribean flights could be OK in terms of cost but positioning for a US based person last-minute would be skyrocketing due to the high demand of holiday flyers as the market has the demand.

While the OP could fly to Paris from Seattle in Economy for $606 round-trip and get his 4 segments, I personally wouldn't attempt to do the Caribbean detour.

*************

Also for the OP, I got a waiver for the 4 segments back in 2021 ( needed the waiver as I was trying to upgrade from Silver to Gold rather than only extending status at my current tier ) and with a compelling reason I was able to get that waived. For those who haven't read the situation back earlier in previous thread, I was able to convince BA that I couldn't fly them because they suspended flights to my hometown for 8 months.

However, if you don't have a compelling reason and do not want to spend time flying I doubt that it would work.

Jaenks

Although you did not mention the end of your membership year, there is no need to keep Gold, especially when you are worried about wasting the fuel. There is no way to get the 4 segments other than flying. You will fall to Silver but could fly those 4 BA/IB segments during the first two months of your new period and therefore get longer period for Gold after those 1500TPs are flown during the new period.

cauchy

This is quite a common issue for US-based folk -- there's the Fly America Act that means federal funds have to be spent on flights marketed by US airlines. There's an exception for EU-based airlines that could previously be relied on when flying BA.

AJA_

Thanks for this I've never heard of this before. I learned something new today. It seems a bit strange to restrict to particular airlines given the transatlantic revenue sharing agreement between AA BA IB and Finnair which basically means it doesn't matter which airline you fly they all get a share.

ISTFlyer

As a clarification, this act only applies for US government employees/officers or government contracted employees on travel paid by or billed to the US government.