Forums › Frequent flyer programs › British Airways Executive Club › BAEC changes – “2 yrs in the making” and based on “extensive modelling”? › Reply To: BAEC changes – “2 yrs in the making” and based on “extensive modelling”?
would love to see the underlying data used re. BAEC changes. The total outlay for someone achieving status ‘on the cheap’ and then additional flights to benefit from lounge access, vs the revenue generated from the flights etc. how much did the average status holder cost BA from each lounge visit? £10-20??
Recent article on OMAAT says, “Based on what I’ve heard (and these are ballpark figures), you can generally expect that access to a business class lounge belonging to a major alliance will be billed at somewhere around $50 per person, and a contract or Priority Pass lounge will be billed at somewhere around $30 per person. Meanwhile for first class lounges, the reimbursement rate could even be a bit higher than that.”
So a Silver return trip in Economy costs BA about $100. Plus a lost opportunity to earn baggage fees or seat reservation fees. Plus the cost of upsetting high-yielding customers who face a queue at check-in. Nine times out of ten, the fare will be loss making.
So change the TP requirements (but keep TP as it will promote frequency of flying PLUS spend for 90% of customers), and look at making the system chargeable for lounges (say GOLD £0 fees, SILVER £5 fees prebooked, £10 if just turning up at the door, etc). I would not like to be paying for these accesses personally but if costs really driving this there are better ways to do it. For me is sounds strictly like perception of lounges being too full and using a sledgehammer approach to resolve it.
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