Let's be honest, the Concorde room is not really that special. All it has over the normal First lounges is proper food and furniture which is a little less tatty! I will take CX's Wing or Pier any day.

I've had a BAEC Blue card for about 4-5 years and have never taken the minimum 4 BA op flights and it has been renewed every year, I'm told (by BAEC) by virtue of continuing to hold a BA AmEx PP. Same applies to the supplementary cardholder.

I have had a BAEC Blue card for three years now, renewed automagically every year, never ever credited a single mile to it. I joined online 2+ years ago, got the card in the mail a couple of weeks later, still valid. No 4 BA flights, no Amex card, no nuthin'.

The official word is on ba.com (link requires EC login). You don't lose Blue "status" by not flying the 4 flights, it only affects the higher levels.

After reading the above posts I think the penny has dropped..... I think you are referring to the days when BA programme was linked to AirMiles. In those days, if you did not fly 4 sectors, even a blue membership was cancelled. I think when BA scrapped AirMiles and made it a shopping programme that the blue card 4 flights rule was dropped.

However, an inactive BA EC account (> 36 months) will still be cancelled.

Since 2005 the CR is not special, prior to that it was quite good. The physical room hasn't changed, but the food, wine, staff and attitude have changed dramatically. In the Concorde days the staff would go out to WHSmith to buy whatever magazines you wished to read in the lounge, if they didn't already stock it. Of course this service level only worked when the lounge was not crowded and they could afford the cost of serving a few pax well. The sad decline of the CR is completely in step with what has happened to BA during the last few years.

So I have noticed. :(

However, while that (not losing blue status) has been the case for several years, for a LONG LONG time they didn't have the clarification of Gold or Elite on ba.com, and simply said (very confusingly) that you had to have 4 BA flights to retain your status. (If you go back a couple years on the BA forum, you'll find enless questions about it from that period.)

Their website is notorious for being out of date on various policies. For example, for at least half a year after they made it possible to change partner awards, their website said you couldn't. (I haven't been reading the BA forum as consistently in recent months, so dunno if that's finally fixed on the website by now or not.)