ethan

Hi

This is probably a glitch, but my daughter went from Blue straight to Gold. She started as a newly minted lowly Blue back in July and earned enough TPs for Silver but didn't have the necessary 4 sectors on BA. Her fourth BA flight coincidentally had her with enough TPs for Gold (had she been Silver). I fully expected TPs to be reset to zero and Silver status attained. Instead TPs were reset to zero and she had Gold! With a loss of just 70 TPs. I couldn't have planned it better if I had tried! It didn't bother me that much as she would have got Gold anyway by Christmas (mostly by flying BA). Nice for her to have the status though to help with seat assignments - the only reason I wanted her to have BA Gold.

[Rant on]Now if any BA lurkers come across this thread and decide to close the loophole, may I respectfully ask consideration be given to some sort of fast-track to Gold status for very frequent flyers starting from scratch? Or amend the seat assignment policy - it drives me nuts. Or at least get it to work as advertised. And get the website to tell you why you can't move and/or assign seats in your specific case - not a generic message.[Rant off]

nimeta

Well done on this.

I would have thought that this is a sufficiently rare event that BA wouldn't go to the trouble of "fixing" it, especially as such passengers are precisely the sort that BA presumably want to look after.

NM

While the Blue is excellent, it is a little over-priced for what it is. I find the Gold to be very good value, at about half the price of Blue. But I do have a preference for Islay and Speyside malts over Johnnie Walker blends.

ComputerCommuter

Indeed but probably a little too "obscure" for our friends who don't enjoy a Scapa or an Orcadian or my personal preference, Dalwhinnie

LeisureFirst

It's not all that obscure by FT standards at least! It has been discussed on here recently (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...hp?p=8459806)/ At the time I pondered - in the way that mathematicians and lawyers tend to ponder about games and the precise application of rules - whether or not there was BAEC rule that made it clear what happened as I couldn't find one. G-BOAC succeeded in finding one within 11 minutes of my query, but it said the opposite of what happened here.

This all leaves me wondering if this is what is intended to happen by whoever wrote the system - despite contradicting the BAEC terms and conditions - or whether the OP's daughter benefited from a bug.

G-BOAC

Indeed, LeisureFirst - I was surprised to read this thread this morning since it contradicts what 'should' happen, plus what's been posted on here before based on the experience of others. I wonder if this is a recent bug/glitch/change somewhere because of that.

The OP, is the account registered in Europe or somewhere else? Just curious as to whether that plays a factor too?

Surely, if you're a very frequent flyer you make Gold (or at least Silver) quickly anyway (as in your daughter's case, regardless of the actual shiny colour in question). And if you're starting from scratch, how do BA know you're going to fly them very frequently?

BLG

My plebian taste buds actually prefer Black. I do, however, have a great fondness for the 18 year old Glenmorangie.

sllevin

Speaking of 18 year olds...there's an 18 year old Talisker that's out and quite excellent -- especially since it's only $90 US.

I'd love to know if this is a rare bug or something I could count on; I'm in a similar boat that my natural travel plans would leave me with a significant number of TP's before I I fly BA (without figuring in a special trip just for that).

And Silver's not of huge interest to me right now since I have OW Emerald through AA until early 2009. So I'd be good with jumping directly to Gold

Steve

NM

I picked up two of those in SIN back in June for SIN$77 each. Now I know the US$ is on the downhill slide, but I find US$90 a bit stiff. Yes it is an excellent drop, which I came home with 2 bottles.

And of course this is on-topic as many TPs can be earned getting to SIN to make the purchase .

NM

My post was made under the influence of Lagavulin (16yo)

sllevin

I routinely justify trips to the UK for whisky acquisition. The only risk these days is that one must transport the bottles in checked luggage.

My wife shops at Liberty for fabric, and I shop at the Whisky Exchange and Royal Mile. A fair deal.

I don't even recall what I paid for the Talisker; I just know it's not particularly expensive relative to most drams I acquire (as those who have met me can attest to).

Steve

ethan

Agree, LeisureFirst - this isn't what should happen according to the rules which is why I was so surprised and why I posted in here.

G-BOAC BA could guess how much flying you're about to do by extrapolating what you've been doing, but I take your point. AA manage it. CX were willing to give her CX Gold. It's a pain that status is based on what you did rather than on what you're doing. My daughter will make GGL in two years (or whatever the minimum number of consecutive years is) but won't get any additional recognition in the meantime.

LeisureFirst

This rather reminds me of one of my friends (a student, no less) whose unintentionally withering response to my explaining the check-in and lounge-access advantages of a Silver card was "Oh. I don't bother about that sort of thing. I never fly Economy anyway."

With all due respect, if your daughter is doing that well, I presume she travels FIRST all the time (and never flies commercial on short-haul) so the advantages of all this status do diminish somewhat.

ethan

To clarify, no she doesn't need status. But status isn't just about check-in and lounges - as you say, she gets that anyway. It's also about seat allocation and sorting things out when they go wrong.