British Airways launches a status match – but only for US and Canadian residents

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• Lady London says:

  9 Apr9 April 18:30

  Good initiative by BA. I hope they get what they need from it.

  I would be interested if there’s any way to find out later, how many matches they do from this and if there’s a way, how many are new people who did not previously hold BA Exec Club membership, and by what numbers the Exec Club status levels expand due to this campaign.

  I’m suspecting the qualifying flights might not include the UK destinations, at least right now, so as not to reward existing business into the UK, where they’re stronger than into EU final destinations. Plus of course I’m guesing a majority of existing Exec Club members are UK based and that’s not who they are targeting?

  • Shl says:

    9 Apr9 April 18:51

    That’s what i think. This does not target the UK.

  • Richie says:

    9 Apr9 April 20:10

    BA.com says

    Qualifying Flights
    5. A Qualifying Flight is a published fare or a net fare negotiated by BA for various corporate customers, for a round trip flight in First or Club World (Business Class) in any selling class, with: a prefix of British Airways (BA) and operated by British Airways (BA), American Airlines (AA), Iberia (IB) or Finnair (AY)

    between North America, Canada, Mexico and Europe, Norway, Switzerland only.

    The United Kingdom is part of the European continent. BA.com does not refer to the EU.

    • Rob says:

      9 Apr9 April 20:11

      Norway and Switzerland are part of the European continent.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        11 Apr11 April 00:36

        Therefore the terms are crap it’s either the continent or it’s nothing. European Union

• John says:

  9 Apr9 April 19:28

  I qualify and will apply. Gold card will come in handy for summer travel in Europe. I split my time between US and UK, but I can’t see myself switching transatlantic business back to BA permanently – top tier perks are much much better on AC and UA.

  This is great timing and much better than my plan B of setting up a successful frequent flyer website to get a comp gold card.

  • Rob says:

    9 Apr9 April 19:43

    No airline gives us comped status cards. The only status we get is Eurostar. I think Rhys still has Hilton Diamond because he needed it for a review last year to get lounge access. That’s it.

    • John says:

      9 Apr9 April 19:47

      Then I’ll stick with the status match!

      BA fares from Canada and US to Europe are much higher than reverse, so while it’s only one trip it’s still a big disincentive to extend beyond the summer.

    • Richie says:

      9 Apr9 April 20:36

      Thanks for the clarification.

  • Joe says:

    9 Apr9 April 23:02

    It depends what you want John. When i was based in the US, I much preferred access to the flagship lounges on domestics with ba silver over an exec plat upgrade that literally never cleared (ua was slightly better). You still get the same day change, standby and bag perks that you’d get with aa status.

• Bernard says:

  9 Apr9 April 20:42

  So this is BA’s answer to overcrowded lounges.
  P1ss off existing goods etc for transient status marchers too. Weird.
  And once the newbies have experienced BA’s boarding scrum, excess move carry on issues, useless app, lack of support in irrops are they really going to stick around?

• Dave says:

  9 Apr9 April 20:47

  I wonder what they actually mean though?

  EU member states + .no and .ch? So Iceland (part of Schegen but not EU) doesn’t count?

  GIB doesn’t count but AGP does?

  Thankfully BA don’t fly to Monaco/Vatican/Andorro etc to avoid those complications.

  Does Saint Martin count? 😀

  • Richie says:

    9 Apr9 April 20:51

    What about Belgrade and Tirana?

    • Bagoly says:

      10 Apr10 April 00:06

      One would have thought they meant anything TATL, and why would they want to exclude somebody flying USA-LHR-MiddleEast/Asia ?
      The fact that it mentions the JV partners suggests it’s anything included in the JV.
      The alternative would be that it requires a connection at the East end, but that seems unlikely.
      Are Norway and Switzerland mentioned because BA thinks many Americans don’t think of those as being in Europe?
      Perhaps they conducted a test on a focus group of a few staff’s families.
      Or the phrasing came from outsourced agency staff in Asia who meant EU, had not understood Brexit, and (correctly) regarded flying NorthAm-LHR-Iceland as nonsensical.

• Professional Traveller says:

  10 Apr10 April 02:11

  I wouldn’t fly BA if they gave me free tickets. I qualify for their Gold level three times on this list and there is the root of it. I told BA in 1994 that I would never willingly give e them another penny of my business and over 1500 business long haul flights since that’s why I don’t have a BA frequent flyer card. This clearly smacks iof desperation to poach from other airlines. There’s a reason people ain’t flying BA… poor attitude poor service overpriced….

  • Mikeact says:

    10 Apr10 April 14:45

    You mean millions are not flying BA, but millions are ? You need to look at their load factors.

• Michelle Merry says:

  10 Apr10 April 04:35

  Could BA please offer their double tier points for BA holidays departing North America. That would make me really happy.

  • Tom says:

    10 Apr10 April 05:39

    They do. See here: https://www.britishairways.com/content/en/us/executive-club/offers/holidays-double-tier-points

• Paul Francis says:

  10 Apr10 April 06:10

  Just spending 3 weeks in US road tripping and skiing. Everything is expensive,. Ok – the exchange rate isn’t helping, tipping is out of control with minimum being 20%, often growled at if you don’t tip more. Facilities have not been invested in – eg pools & hot tubs don’t work properly, hotel rooms are not always properly maintained or cleaned. But it’s not just us that are saying it – the locals are all saying things have become extortionately priced, (maybe they’ve just had it too good for too long?). Recycling’s not happening in most places – plastics are being landfilled and there’s plenty of plastic packaging around every item. Planes are going wrong, car hire is generally more expensive, especially via BA Holidays where they are not matching other sites quickly enough. And flights do need to get realistically priced for TATL and going east, otherwise BA will scare off the UK leisure traveller for ever and not get them back onboard. Flew AA out here and can’t fault them on anything. BA is good sometimes very good, sometimes very poor. It’s very hit and miss at the moment. Hope they listen to exec club frequent travellers and improve quickly. It’s the little things that count and will change peoples opinions, especially when they have introduced them like boarding, greeting, priority offloading of bags etc.

• BJ says:

  10 Apr10 April 06:19

  Has this lost its “Wow” in the light of day?

  • Rob says:

    10 Apr10 April 07:05

    Deleted due to BA Amex story also having a prefix!

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