Tier points and miles for "UK Business"
 

I have broken the habit of a lifetime by flying BA shorthaul a bit recently. At the current rate I might even end up with a silver card by the end of the year.

I am a bit confused about how BA treats C/J class tickets on domestic flights though. I was aware that these services are one-class in terms of service, but that "UK Business" tickets get you lounge access, flexibility and so on.

The BA website (my ancient blue card has not merited the sending-out of an Exec Club manual for some time) says that a UK flight in Club class will net you 40 tier points per segment flown, and 500 miles. The entries for 2 recent flights (LHR-MAN-LHR) have awarded me 20 tier points per sector and no miles whatsoever.

Now, while I can accept BA's business class for rewarding passengers based on revenue worth, I'd have thought that a GBP280 ticket in C class would have attracted more tier points than a Y class fare which sells for over GBP100 less. A trip to BRU in C, which cost barely GBP30 more, netted me the full 40 points.

Is this a glitch or simply my misinterpretation of the rules?


I'm confused!

It is confusing isn't it. And to make matters worse they have recently changed the fully flexible UK Dom fare code to "J" - so now if you get a print out from Checkmytrip it says you are travelling Club World.

Even though BA make it quite clear that UK Domestic Flights are economy - I have never understodd why they use a Club Class fare code for full fare economy rather than "Y"?

It can't be because of lounge access as that is a recent thing.

It causes all sorts of confusion and I have noticed that even the Fare Explorer booking engine refers to full fare UK Dom as "Business (Club)" now they have adopted "J" as the full fare code.

But the bottom line is that fare code or not you get 20 tier points and 500 miles for a UK Dom flight booked in J (and also for the cheaper B and H fares - which are not Business UK).

I hope this helps a little.

UK Domestics earn 20 Tier Points for fare classes - J,Y,B,H or C. C is due to vanish shortly as it is being replaced by J. You should get a minimum of 500 Miles for each sector. There are no "Cabin Bonuses" for Domestics.

It is a bit confusing, but the correct information is shown. If you look on:

http://www.britishairways.com/travel...o/public/en_gb

you will see at the bottom:

*UK&I Domestic flights are in Economy Class, except for those flights with a separate Club Europe cabin

i.e. single class layout = 20pts regardless of booking class

IMHO, it was stupid to add the J code to domestics, they should have got rid of C and kept fully flexible as Y to avoid all this confusion! you know how pi$$ed the yanks already get with Club Europe, Can you imagine how upset they will be when they have a domestic J ticket?? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

[This message has been edited by dnw (edited 10-03-2003).]

Thanks for this. I had assumed that the fare class code was what would be used to calculate tier points.

I have to say that, while the service on my recent BA flights has been very good, I can't see any real incentive to use BA (except flight frequency) on domestic flights if you're paying full fare. On the LHR-MAN run for instance, a C class ticket (same price as BA's J class tickets) gets you slightly wider seats in a separate cabin, and a much more extensive drinks selection. The new C-class food offered by BD is a step down on their old product, but still considerably ahead of the All Day Deli (which is better than BD's short haul economy food offering, IMHO).

While we're on this subject, I'm doing a day trip to DUB on EI this Monday in Premier (Business). As this is clearly a 2 class service, am I right in assuming I'll get 40 points each way?

Also, are BA's LGW-DUB services proper 2-class short haul flights, or treated as domestics?

On your Dublin flight with EI you will get 40 tier points each way. In terms of BA miles you only get 300 plus a cabin bonus of 75 more. It appears you can't win on all fronts!

Hopefully, now that my account is active again, I'll soon get a shiny new blue card (which, naturally, I will have to turn into a luggage tag to sit alongside my LH Senator tag http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif ) and an EC Manual I can read from cover-to-cover so that I won't have to plague you all with further questions like this!

Not only for the yanks. Did my first UK dom flights recently... MAN-LHR in Y which gets you a seat in C on BMI and LHR-GLA-LHR in C which gets you a seat in Y on BA. That was the last time I flew BA domestically, if BD is flying the same route. Actually, on the return trip I wanted to have BA endorse my E-ticket to BD, but they said there was a service charge of GBP25 to do that, so I roughed BA. However, today I had a letter from BA in the mail that all service charges are waived for golds. All, but unaccompanied minors, that is.

Don't hold your breath. They haven't sent the handbook out for at least two years. All info is on-line. There was a downloadable PDF but after the 1st July it has gone.

House

LHR-DUB on EI metal -

EI ticket 40 tier pts but only 300 pts plus small cabin bonus
BA - cheap I ticket (50 pounds less) 40 tier pts and 1000 miles
EI flexible ticket ticket less than BAs but more pts ( use the difference in price to buy malt whiskies current on offer in tescos to match the miles lost)


LGW - DUB BA metal - full two class service - nice way to London but only a few flights per day - EI flexible ticket again cheaper than BA but less miles same pts

Don't hold you breath House apparently not even Golds get this sent to them anymore, even though quite a few years ago Blues were sent everything too

Its one of BA's famous 'enhancements'

That sounds remarkably like what I said just a little bit further up! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/tongue.gif

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Gaza's oneworld & Star Alliance Round the World Information Pages - www.rtw-info.co.uk

What fare codes qualify for "Business UK"? I know Y,B,H or J qualify for Tier Points and Miles on Domestics but do I have to book J to get lounge access? With my forthcoming move to the south coast, Sheena will be doing quite a few EDI-SOU-EDI trips. If she gets lounge access on "H" fares I may book these.

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Gaza's oneworld & Star Alliance Round the World Information Pages - www.rtw-info.co.uk

Gaza,

I've done UK Dom in almost every fare code since July and J is the only bookable one that prints Business UK on the BP.

If you have a multi-sector ticket from UK Dom into Europe and Worldwide then Y also gets it (and D and I )obviously.

I don't know of any UK routes where you can book a Y class fare on its own as opposed to multi-sector.

Thanks. I thought that might be the case. "H" Class fares including Tax are around £288. For some of the weekends she will be coming down flybe are offering fares at less than half that. No points or miles on flybe but the equivalent of 2 for the price of one negates any value in accruing Miles.

Slightly OT: I did a day trip EDI-SOU-EDI yessterday and was hit for the full "J" http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif fare of £410. On the outbound (08:50) there were 13 passengers and on the return (17:50), 26. These are not good peak-time loads on a 50+ seat RJ. It may be conincidence but I suspect flybe have had some early success. Perhaps we will see more realistic pricing or more seats being made available in lower fare classes. On checking Galileo on Tuesday evening all the fare classes except J, C, D, I, & Y were showing closed. Looking at random dates well in to next year there is very little, or no, avaiailability in anything other than full-fare.