What does BA Gold give you that other oneworld Emerald cards don’t?

With the changes to British Airways Club, many people have been looking to other oneworld frequent flyer programmes as alternatives.

(And, yes, we’ve now given up on BA backtracking to a large extent and will be publishing our overviews of the other key programmes.)

We usually say that British Airways Gold is the same as top tier status from Iberia, Qatar Airways, Finnair etc. This is pretty much true (all give you oneworld alliance Emerald status) but there are always nuances.

A thread on Flyertalk this week looked at what you might miss if you go for, say, Qatar Airways Platinum status instead of British Airways Gold status. I thought it was a good idea for an article so I’ve summarised the discussion here.

Please note that this is a one-way article. I’m only telling you what you will lose (compared to BA Gold) when flying British Airways with another oneworld Emerald status card.

There is another side to it, because you may gain extra benefits when flying with the airline which issues your card. Earn Qatar Airways Platinum status, for example, and you can use the Al Safwa lounge we reviewed yesterday when flying in Business Class. You also receive Qcredits which you can use, for example, to buy additional lounge passes for friends and family.

What do you lose with oneworld Emerald status vs BA Gold when flying BA?

We’re not looking at the obvious benefits here (lounge access etc) which are standard across oneworld. It’s only British Airways-specific quirks that I am covering.

What you DON’T lose with oneworld Emerald:

• access to the First Wing at Heathrow Terminal 5 – oneworld Emerald members can use this (image below)

• free seat selection – any oneworld Emerald card gives you the same ability to book BA seats for free at any time

• Row 1 seat priority – any oneworld Emerald card will allow you to book Row 1 seats in Club Europe and 1A / 1K in First Class (in First Class, only the cardholder can book 1A / 1K, in Club Europe everyone on the ticket can have a front row seat if one person is Gold)

• Gold seat blocking – anecdotally it appears that oneworld Emerald members get the same seat block as British Airways Gold members (the seat next to them will show as taken until a certain occupancy level is reached)

What you DO lose:

• access to additional Economy Avios reward seats on British Airways flights – a BA Gold who searches for Avios seats will find that ‘V’ class Economy cash tickets are made available for redemption

• ability to book Gold Priority Rewards (book ANY seat, any BA flight, for double Avios if booked 30+ days in advance) – although the value of this benefit has weakened substantially since it was restricted to the ‘lots of Avios + £1’ pricing option

• no access to the Terminal 5 Arrivals Lounge when travelling in long haul Premium Economy or below – only BA and American Airlines top tier members can access this on Economy or Premium Economy tickets

• lounge access with Vueling when flying from Gatwick

• lounge access with Aer Lingus under some scenarios

• access to the British Airways Gold telephone line – you can’t ring this line to discuss BA travel if you are, say, Qatar Airways Platinum, and (in my experience) it is usually answered quickly irrespective of what is happening on the main phone lines

• arguably a oneworld Emerald will be treated worse than a BA Gold if passengers need to be upgraded or downgraded for operational reasons

• 15% discount at The Wine Flyer (!)

Of course, for many people considering earning status with another oneworld airline, this list isn’t important.

There is no way they can spend £20,000 net of taxes (around £25,000 of business class tickets or £30,000 of economy tickets) so the only route to oneworld Emerald / BA Gold equivalent is via another programme.