Are you listening British Airways? Air Canada shows how elite status extensions should be done

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• Cheshire Pete says:

  8 Apr8 April 07:47

  BA has this absolutely right at this moment in time. What if someone who was as an example Gold, and their year ended Apr/May/June and their lifestyle had changed so did very little travel the past 12 months. They managed to scrape a handful Of tier points with absolutely no intention of getting Gold again. Quite rightly they should soft drop to Silver. Why in this circumstance should BA give them another year of Gold?

  I admit there are more marginal genuine cases which BA will STILL assess case by case as your year expires.

  You know I’ve followed Rob for many years, and fully agree with much of what is written. But I also have a long memory. Nearly 3 years ago Rob wrote a rather critical article saying BAEC were far too generous in extending status for 1 or 2 years just for those travelling on a narrow range of days, due to the May bank holiday IT issue. I fully agreed with him actually. I don’t agree with his angle this time round however.

  • Jill (Kinkell) says:

    8 Apr8 April 09:41

    Well! I did a lot of flying last year and gained Gold for the first time. My year ended March. I’ve since had 2 trips cancelled and expect the June trip not to go ahead. So, I feel a bit peeved not to enjoy the benefits that status gave me….use of First Wing, lounges,additional significant Avios to add to the pot, reciprocal benefits in other countries etc. Who knows when travelling will pick up again. So my hard earned status gives me no benefit for the foreseeable future. I would feel like a valued customer and ‘important ‘to them (so they keep telling me!) if they did extend status for a year.

    • Andrew says:

      8 Apr8 April 10:13

      Absolutely Jill – a lot of the discussion is focused on retaining status for next year, but it’s also about being able to use your status you earned last year now – which clearly we can’t. I’ve not flown yet in 2020 and looking like September at the earliest to be able to. It serves me right for doing all those tier point runs to Helsinki etc – the house always wins!

    • marcw says:

      8 Apr8 April 10:25

      Is it the airlines fault that people are not allowed to travel, enter countries and, and, and, and?

      • Jill (Kinkell) says:

        8 Apr8 April 13:11

        Of course it isn’t their fault, and I think we all understand ( at a basic level, for me anyway!) the economic plight the airlines are in. But BA have been tardy with their refunds and conflicting in their responses to customers, not to mention the IT hoops folk have jumped through and still waiting for either cash, Avios or vouchers having been told to expect them within a defined timescale.
        BA could sweeten and smooth this Corona highway and ensure my loyalty where I would be happy and more likely to give them my custom…..because they value me as a FF.

      • AJA says:

        8 Apr8 April 15:25

        marcw, it’s not the fault of any airline that we and they can’t currently fly nearly as much as we might like but the way they treat their frequent flier members is totally under their control. BA’s approach works for some and not for others. That’s the point. It needs to be seen to be treating all members equally. For whatever reason BA chose not to do that. Many people are saying we just have to be patient and all will be resolved but that’s not a guarantee that we will all benefit equally.

• Andrew says:

  8 Apr8 April 08:03

  Thankfully Pete, the other airlines all have a different view of how to retain customer loyalty. I also have a long memory and will remember which airlines treated us well and which didn’t in the future. This whole Covid situation is changing the world and people’s mindsets and when we emerge from all this we won’t be putting up with the same rubbish as we did before and things which were important before won’t be.

  • Doug M says:

    8 Apr8 April 09:20

    The airlines that treat you well may not be around.

    • Rob says:

      8 Apr8 April 09:48

      Potentially true. If Virgin had charged £100 each way for Upper Class seat reservations for the last 5 years ….

    • Andrew says:

      8 Apr8 April 10:08

      I’m sure the likes of Singapore Airlines will be around for a long time to come

      • Doug M says:

        8 Apr8 April 12:02

        Yes, maybe, but what use are they compared to BA.

• Phillip says:

  8 Apr8 April 08:17

  Air Canada – they’re in the process of buying back their FFP which no doubt plays an important part in the decision.

  As for BA, they have always been stingy on all fronts particularly (not) rewarding their loyal customers, but I will take my hat off to them for having one of the most flexible policies on bookings from as far back as January for flights to Asia and getting refunds on cancelled flights has been very easy. Yes, they can make it easier by maintaining the option to do it online etc, but compared to other airlines I’ve had to deal with (TAP, Aegean, American, Emirates, Fiji Airways and more), they were by far the easiest to deal with (in relative terms)!

• Steve says:

  8 Apr8 April 08:24

  Does anyone know who is the equiv of Rob in Vancouver or Montreal, covering AirCan with the intensity that HfP covers BA? Is there even such a person? I follow some of the US equivs but for them as well AirCan is an afterthought, so far as I can see…

• Marcw says:

  8 Apr8 April 09:12

  Only issue with Air Canada is that on top of elite qualifying miles or segments, you need also a $ spend.
  You should be grateful that, for the time being, BAEC hasn’t added a minimum spend criteria to obtain status.

• TeessideTraveller says:

  8 Apr8 April 09:34

  Something more will come, i am sure of it.

  First of all, those with March-June year ends have rightly been looked after with regards to retaining their status. However, if normal flying does not resume until (say) July, there is no way that many of those will be able to earn enough tier points in their current tier point year to retain status going forwards. BA will have to do something for them at some point but only when they know when normal flying is going to resume.

  But BA can’t go on continually reducing the tier point requirement for the rest of the year for all other BAEC members otherwise they risk giving gold status to lots of people who have done a premium long haul on Qatar but downgrade those who regularly used to fly BA once a month.

  The solution is to extend the tier point year end date, however I have been told that whilst the year can be easily changed, the month cannot as it is deliberately fixed in BA’s systems. So either BA do a huge IT change and change the TP collection month by 6 months or give everyone a full year’s extension. But as no-one has any idea of when flying might resume, that might not be good enough either as if the current situation goes on until August, people still might only have 9 months to retain status.

  So BA do something for their customers who have their collection year ending in the next few months and then announce something when they know flying is going to start up properly again. This could be a full year extension for many people or potentially bonus TPs for the rest of the year. Of course they could do nothing but if that were their intention, why bother lowering the requirements for those struggling to retain Bronze when they risk losing high spending Golds (like me who has a July year end)?

  • roberto says:

    8 Apr8 April 12:07

    its not March to June – its April, may and June only.

    • TeessideTraveller says:

      8 Apr8 April 15:43

      March expiry requirements were.
      Bronze: 220 TPs
      Silver: 520 TPs
      Gold: 1,280 TPs

  • AJA says:

    8 Apr8 April 13:10

    The thing with BA’s approach so far is that it is only looking forward, it is ignoring those whose year ended before April. It doesn’t matter when in the year your tier points reset, we will all suffer from the same length of time of not flying but will have differing periods in which to retain status. My TP year ends on 8 Feb. If the ability to start flying again only happens in August I will only have 7 months instead of 12 months to retain status. I am in a worse position than someone who’s TP year ends in June as they will have 11 months to retain status. This is the downside of BA’s scheme having differing year-end dates.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      8 Apr8 April 17:58

      Flights were grounded post 8th March. Why are those whose TP year ended in March 2020 affected?

      You may be in March 2021 but that’s a problem for 10 months time isn’t it?

• Gillian Wilson says:

  8 Apr8 April 09:51

  BA also need to step up for those who lost status just before this and had flights booked. Both my husband and I lost silver status in feb but had business class trip booked for 4 people to Thailand in April. We had seats booked but more I am trying to move the cancelled trip I am not allowed to select seats. This potential is going to cost over £900 for 4! In would have made silver again by summer but obviously won’t now and don’t want us all to be split up on the flight. Any suggestions?

  • Genghis says:

    8 Apr8 April 10:04

    So you failed to retain your silver status but want BA to extend it so you can select seats on a rebooked flight where you would otherwise not be silver and therefore not really entitled to free seat selection? Funny.

    • Tocsin says:

      8 Apr8 April 11:07

      I can see both points of view – the TP gurus often suggest booking flights to regain status in the year-end to status-end period. Looks like that is what Gillian originally did…

      • TGLoyalty says:

        8 Apr8 April 18:00

        It’s a trick that very rarely works. Once there’s anY equipment changes etc your seat selection can disappear.

    • Doug M says:

      8 Apr8 April 11:51

      You’d almost certainly have lost the seat booking anyway. It’s not held when your status drops, it ‘may’ stay in place, but only because BA IT is lacking, and many thing will trigger it being undone once status has dropped.
      You may have been gaining status again, and could have re-established it when the status was regained if the seats were still available. On the terms of the BAEC as it stands you’ve really lost nothing.

    • Sean says:

      8 Apr8 April 12:01

      and get seat selection.

  • Doug M says:

    8 Apr8 April 11:04

    You would most likely have lost the seats anyway. When you have seats booked using a status that’s in place at the time you select the seats, and then lost before flying, any aircraft change or other activity on the booking by you or BA will almost always cause your seat selection to disappear.

• Ra says:

  8 Apr8 April 09:57

  Has anyone else noticed that their cancelled flights have disappeared both from MMB and from their list of past bookings? Very glad we took screenshots of BA cancellation messages on the website before the booking disappeared.
  BA could have reassured customers waiting for refunds by sending a confirmatory email following calls to their call centre, stating that the refund was being processed and would follow …….
  Currently people have only to hope that the call handler has actually initiated the process and when refunds are not arriving when advised, an element of doubt arises. A pro forma email is all that is required and this could still take place.

  • jamie says:

    8 Apr8 April 10:38

    Yes mine have, although outbound flights on same booking still there. Tried to get a refund for inbound but when I got through the adviser said I’d need to raise a complaint, all too much hassle which is prob what they want.
    BA have shown true colours.

    • Catalan says:

      8 Apr8 April 11:16

      I’ve found Finnair have done the same thing. Good thing I took screenshots.

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