Sorry Ian, sorry Will …. British Airways rolled out the red carpet for a copycat

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• Dave says:

  10 Sep10 September 11:05

  I hit gold next week after a TATL in J to GIG for a work conference. Which way should I head for my champagne reception on arrival in T5?

  • Henk says:

    10 Sep10 September 11:11

    Obviously unlikely to happen, but I must say that the first time I went to the LGW F lounge after getting gold for the first time, I did get a nice “congratulations” from the lounge angel.

    • creampuff says:

      10 Sep10 September 11:22

      Maybe that’s a difference between BA and Star Alliance Gold.

      With Star Alliance Gold (which is the top tier unless there is some esoteric tier I don’t know about ), you don’t get First Class lounge access, you only get Biz Class lounge access. I’ve never been in a biz class lounge I could get excited about; the food is quite ordinary, like what you would get in an £8 all-you-can-eat buffet. There are a few *A biz lounges with a shower, eg the Lufthansa Frankfurt lounge, that can be handy.

      A bit off topic here, but overall, if you only were to get biz class lounge access and had to spend your own money to achieve status, then you would be better off putting that money to just something good to eat on your own dime at the airport. For Heathrow T5, I like to go to the Giraffe restaurant where you can get a table which looks over the apron and runway.

      Never tried out a Priority Pass lounge. Do they run their own lounges or do they have a deal with other lounge operators?

• Lady London says:

  10 Sep10 September 11:20

  Oh dear. Looks like a puff piece to try to reach audiences like this guy. Once a few people pile in, it looks almost certain that we are heading for a Gold devaluation in 1 year or less.

  Still tee’d off with the imposition of greedy change fees on Golds – when I know what they hand out to corporates. And slopgate that took serious longstanding complaints on FT to improve to a level where you worry less about what you might catch due to poor hygiene standards in T5 lounges.

  • creampuff says:

    10 Sep10 September 11:24

    > Once a few people pile in, it looks almost certain that we are heading for a Gold devaluation in 1 year or less.

    I don’t think there are too many people who will be willing to spend almost £2000 for 45 hours of economy class flying to get status. Your gold benefits are safe 😉

    • James says:

      10 Sep10 September 15:05

      Also, I think he flew business and first. The TP runners try to avoid economy if they can.

  • creampuff says:

    10 Sep10 September 11:25

    > puff piece
    creampuff piece 😉

• David Passmore says:

  10 Sep10 September 12:09

  Am I missing something here?

  Doing tier point runs to attain a certain status are obviously done by those who don’t fly enough to reach a desired status level organically.

  So you do your tier point run, get your shiny card which will in many cases never be used until the next tier point run is required to maintain status.

  What is the point?

  • Rob says:

    10 Sep10 September 12:16

    You could fly a lot of domestic or economy European flights a year with BA and not achieve Silver status. A run would give you lounge access, fast track security, priority boarding and seat selection at booking for those flights. Simply being able to book an emergency exit row seat on every flight would make it worthwhile for some.

    You can also get effectively 3 years of status if you time it right. Do it just into your new membership year and you get the rest of the current year as Gold, all of the following year as Gold and all of the following year as Silver.

  • planky says:

    10 Sep10 September 20:43

    There’s a cost. There’s the perceived value.

    Doesn’t work for me but I travelled enough in my life for it basically to be a bit boring these days regardless of Champagne & snacks.

    Anybody spending £2000 or so of their own money – well done if it works for you – to get Gold for 2 years & Silver for year 3, probably never was a warrior of the air for their company in the first place.

    We got it free and got bored, later.

    Though I do miss it, of course.

• Jen T says:

  10 Sep10 September 16:21

  I went to university with Adam and this wasn’t a press stunt and I’m certain that BA didn’t pay him to do it! I think he just got lucky that his story got spotted. A lot of us started reading his blog based on Facebook posts he made. This is my first ever comment on HFP and although I visit FlyerTalk, I only ‘lurk’ and never post – all the same, my other half and I have been considering a similar tier point mission trip. Just because you don’t appear online all the time doesn’t mean it’s a set-up!

  • Erico1875 says:

    10 Sep10 September 20:48

    Wills blog wasnt finished either, he was still technically in LA the last time I looked

• richie says:

  10 Sep10 September 16:22

  so are you saying a bronze member would generally get better compensation for the same incident?
  to keep them loyal?

  • richie says:

    10 Sep10 September 19:00

    i only ask because i have noticed the same very recently.
    i think you could be right.

• Andrew says:

  10 Sep10 September 18:19

  If there was a Priority Pass lounge in T5 who would bother? Perhaps that why there isn’t one 🙂

  • zark says:

    10 Sep10 September 18:55

    Andrew,
    Be careful what you wish for.
    I find the BA Business lounge in T5 pretty good and when in there last week, I had a very reasonable lunch and a good selection of drinks (including champagne when I asked for it).
    I believe (all be it ,based on limited experience) that all of the bad comments after BA changed the contractor, has resulted in improvements.
    Don’t know a Servisair (or whoever) lounge that does that, and sometimes they will not let you in when too busy – never had that experience with BA at T5.
    Zark

    • Andrew says:

      10 Sep10 September 21:57

      Don’t get me wrong, i find the lounge rather comfortable. My point was more that the traveler who has to influence his/her travel to retain status – would probably not (in my opinion) do so if there was a PP lounge in T5.

• Adam says:

  10 Sep10 September 19:50

  Ha!! I read his blog last night and it absolutely freaked me out considering my name is Adam, I work as an Online Marketing (SEO) Manager and I live in Epping (Although Business Traveller incorrectly refer to it as Epping, Surrey when it is in fact Epping, Essex)!! Not to mention I am also embarking on a LGA-PHL-PHX-LGB-PHX-BOS-LGA tier point run with UA in November to reach gold status!

  Regardless of the earlier post from someone who went to University with him, this was almost certainly not by luck or chance. Considering the blog has zero organic search (Google) visibility and clearly very little traffic, given that most of the posts have only ever a couple of comments. There were also quite a few hastily written posts, riddled with typos. All of this adds up to the fact that he almost certainly initiated conversations with either BA or someone on their marketing team to hook this up!!

  Either way, good on him for getting the Gold reception from BA!

• Adam says:

  10 Sep10 September 19:53

  Sorry, just realised that should have been US (regarding the tier point run).

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