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I think the goose that has been killed are those travelling Club on business who choose BA to benefit from status on leisure travel. All of a sudden there are better options…
You’re right about that. There is also a sizable, forgotten group that travels in economy for business but wouldn’t dream of doing that for leisure.
As a CEO, I wouldn’t want to be seen in Business Class on a short-haul business trip; the optics are terrible. And I know a university Vice Chancellor who, again, always travels in Economy for business trips, even long-haul; it’s the optics, again. But both of us always travel in Business Class if we’re paying for ourselves.
…If you can’t complain about what you’ve got or what you think you’re missing out on, what else is there to complain about?
Immigration.
I think the goose that has been killed are those travelling Club on business who choose BA to benefit from status on leisure travel. All of a sudden there are better options…
You’re right about that. There is also a sizable, forgotten group that travels in economy for business but wouldn’t dream of doing that for leisure.
As a CEO, I wouldn’t want to be seen in Business Class on a short-haul business trip; the optics are terrible. And I know a university Vice Chancellor who, again, always travels in Economy for business trips, even long-haul; it’s the optics, again. But both of us always travel in Business Class if we’re paying for ourselves.
I applaud your views on CEO travel! It does seem to be a cultural thing though. We have a good friend who now practises law in Asia having been educated, done his professional training and spent most of his life in England. He says that if he doesn’t exhibit all the trappings of wealth, important clients aren’t interested as they think you’re a loser.
@Paul – you are asking the wrong people! This is something that you would ideally put into your booking ab initio with reservations staff. Travel agents are an easier option. Many have also reported doing it themselves toggling between schemes at each relevant stage of the trip.
And re First Wing access being denied, what would you do? You might have someone else’s membership card but probably not their BP. If you were BA wouldn’t you want to make the point? BA is entitled to change the locks after you have been caught playing away. If you don’t hold the right boarding card it’s wholly unreasonable to expect access and if granted it’s a lucky bonus.
@NorthernLass – there are none so blind as those who will not see!The membership card on the app has a bar code and can be scanned to prevent fraudulent entry. But please do share how you toggle between schemes or indeed have it input to the booking. I have had quite a it of contact with BA in last 2 weeks and the a clueless about FQTV and FQTS and this is the gold line!!
@AJA –
I agree that battling a decision re baggage or lounge access is unwise and quite unedifying. I still can’t get my head around the extensive complaints re BA lounges (in my view not really justified) only now to see people fighting tooth and nail to be allowed access.
Cant agree more and never having had to it in last 15 years makes having to do it now utterly infuriating! Its not even the lounge that is the issues, the slop in the First lounge has been dire recently. It being denied fast track, extra baggage weight, free seat assignment and priority boarding or not having your hand bag snatched from you at the gate.
@Paul – scanning the membership card doesn’t prevent fraudulent entry. Just reading these pages (and I’m sure they are quite restrained compared to other places) one discovers just what people get up to get into lounges, so you can thank them for complicating things for more upright citizens. It’s also an inefficient process to cross check. The boarding card however is tied to your booking and your ID which is why that is the primary requirement as well as it confirming, where relevant, additional eligibility criteria.
I have only done the toggling once to help someone get started playing away. However, it has been extensively reported by the RJ birds since they got their status matches with many seemingly managing successfully to use their higher RJ to get the benefits like extra bags/fast track/lounge access/higher group boarding at each different stage of the journey by changing the FF no. n their booking at the vital moments, but still crediting (until recently maybe to BA).
I’m not playing this game as I find status of no value, and I don’t think it’s wise to shout it from the rooftops, particularly as the birds sh&t all over Finnair and got that shut unless using a slightly convoluted route, and I’m not sure how long RAM will last but others are much easier anyway.
BA’s unwillingness may be deliberate or maybe they just aren’t trained to do it these days, but I was originally taught how to use the function by a BA trainer and there are still a fair number of experienced agents.
Does the boarding card have both FQTV and FQTS numbers or just one of them?
I’m not playing this game as I find status of no value, and I don’t think it’s wise to shout it from the rooftops, particularly as the birds sh&t all over Finnair and got that shut unless using a slightly convoluted route, and I’m not sure how long RAM will last but others are much easier anyway.
This is another avenue that will be closed soon I think. Never bothered from the start. Just got my first to RJ upgrade vouchers in, so time to plan a Middle East trip.
You hit the nail on the head on a previous post regarding people circumventing the rules getting upset the airlines are enforcing/changing them. It’s funny how the same people view their mileage statement as a bank account and their tier benefits as a fixed insurance policy. You can’t have it both ways.
Reminds me of the 5 stages of grief of a football fan. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Stage 1: They must be joking. This is absurd. There’s going to be a huge backlash that BA will u turn any minute. I mean even an ex-MP has written against them!
Stage 2: Am never flying BA again. The lounges were crap anyway. It’s not the end of the world if I board 5 mins later.
Stage 3: Why not allow us to enjoy the benefits of both programs? We realised we actually enjoy some of the benefits, but how is it fair to block our benefits even though we have declared we want to be loyal to another program?I applaud your views on CEO travel! It does seem to be a cultural thing though. We have a good friend who now practises law in Asia having been educated, done his professional training and spent most of his life in England. He says that if he doesn’t exhibit all the trappings of wealth, important clients aren’t interested as they think you’re a loser.
I have no issues flying Club @jj – no-one knows who paid for the flight, what the price difference was, whether you have status for lounge entry otherwise, luggage allowance/cost, etc. I don’t find the optics bad – I I just bought the most suitable ticket so that I can maximise my productive time.
It’s like flying F instead of J, when the cost difference is small – why not?!
Was privileged enough to witness a gold card lounge rejection today. Perhaps an HfP reader as they had the wrong boarding card (fine say some) and followed the bad advice upthread – (so called) politely but firmly tell staff they are wrong, insist on a second opinion from manager, insist they look up the rules. The last bit is an odd thing since it’s precisely the rules that hang you. Please step out of the way sir and madam. Walk of shame past the muttering queue of eye rollers and head shakers who had to wait for all this. Helped pass the time anyway.
In more important lounge news, BA had gone a bit crazy opening a bottle of Swartland Chenin Blanc with a cork, but it’s so rare not to have a screw top that it appears they didn’t know how to open it and that that foil needs to be cut before taking out the cork.
As a CEO, I wouldn’t want to be seen in Business Class on a short-haul business trip; the optics are terrible. And I know a university Vice Chancellor who, again, always travels in Economy for business trips, even long-haul; it’s the optics, again. But both of us always travel in Business Class if we’re paying for ourselves.
The optics issue works both ways. If you want to be taken seriously you often need to insist on certain things to make a point.
You expect me, with 3-4 staff and a pretty sizeable business to oversee, to give up 3 days of my life to come and see your hotel for no fee? Or speak at your conference for no fee even though you are charging attendees €2,000? You will do a), b) and c) for me or its not happening.
Especially in the aviation business, sitting in 1D so everyone else has to pass you on the way to the back is a statement about where we sit in the industry. It is also a statement about HfP – we could hire anyone, from any aviation or travel publication in Britain, at any level of seniority, because everyone in the industry knows that we pay better than everyone else and we treat our staff better than everyone else.
Our company had a simple philosophy, the best way to save on travel is to stay at home. So think very hard about value of trip. However if it was necessary do it in comfort and the ability to do some work.
Luckily we weren’t publicly funded and were measured by business results not so called optics.
Was it multi-millionaire David Cameron who travelled easyJet as a bit of a stunt when he didn’t need to?
i’ve seen ZERO evidence of BA/IB “tightening” anything (assuming there’s anything to be tightened), I’ve accessed both BA and IB lounges with BPs crediting to statusless programs several times in the last two months without any issue.
If this was an official policy change by the two airlines you’d expect some degree of consistent enforcement with well informed agents basing their decision on recently issued guidance.
The only evidence I’ve seen is of some poorly informed agents getting confused and refusing entry for that reason (often reversing their decision when challenged – which clearly would not happen if this was an explicit policy change) and of several internet trolls having a misplaced grudge towards fliers “gaming” the system, when they’re not gaming anything, just making the most of the programs they’ve signed up to.
Let’s stop the nonsense please.
@bthere79 – you may not have “seen” anything but it has been reported here by a variety of people that they variously been refused lounge access, refused the extra gold baggage allowance, entry to the first wing and priority boarding. I personally observed a gold card holder being ejected from a lounge today and even the gold card holders weren’t sympathetic. So, whether you like it or not, it’s real and not nonsense. Realistically, we will see more of it until people earn sufficiently elevated status in the alien scheme.
It’s not a new policy but rather new behaviour by the passenger getting caught out and assuming they hold a gold trump card when they don’t.
I don’t think anyone has a grudge but it’s just so embarrassing seeing an entitled gold card holder hectoring BA staff about the ‘rules’ when they are simply applying the rules correctly and it’s the cardholder who is in the wrong. The gold card holder is behaving like a total amateur when it is in their power to avoid the issue.
@bthere79 – you may not have “seen” anything but it has been reported here by a variety of people that they variously been refused lounge access, refused the extra gold baggage allowance, entry to the first wing and priority boarding. I personally observed a gold card holder being ejected from a lounge today and even the gold card holders weren’t sympathetic. So, whether you like it or not, it’s real and not nonsense. Realistically, we will see more of it until people earn sufficiently elevated status in the alien scheme.
It’s not a new policy but rather new behaviour by the passenger getting caught out and assuming they hold a gold trump card when they don’t.
I don’t think anyone has a grudge but it’s just so embarrassing seeing an entitled gold card holder hectoring BA staff about the ‘rules’ when they are simply applying the rules correctly and it’s the cardholder who is in the wrong. The gold card holder is behaving like a total amateur when it is in their power to avoid the issue.
again anecdotal episodes are not evidence of anything, as i said, if this was a deliberate ‘tightening’ of whatever rules you’re making up, we’d see a very different picture with consistent enforcement based on clear guidance, not haphazard ‘rules’ made up by the random agent of the day
i also have no idea what you mean by ‘applying the rules’ correctly since there are no rules stating that you need to be crediting the flight to the program where you have status
i suspect that the only people in denial are these that proclaim an ‘overdue rule tightening’ that doesn’t exist in reality
@bthere79 – it would appear you have not read the BAC terms and conditions and what you refer to as “anecdotal episodes” are in fact first hand accounts. I explicitly said it wasn’t any new policy and it’s also not a tightening of the rules, but correct application of rules that prior to April 1 didn’t really negatively impact anyone. Now they do, particularly if you don’t understand the system. When you have done your homework properly, feel free to represent the fair copy.
PS it’s nothing to do (as you would have discovered had you read the thread) about crediting to another programme which is entirely legitimate.
Was privileged enough to witness a gold card lounge rejection today.
<snip>Please step out of the way sir and madam. Walk of shame past the muttering queue of eye rollers and head shakers who had to wait for all this.
I personally observed a gold card holder being ejected from a lounge today
So today you observed one denial of entry before entering a lounge, and one ejection from a lounge? Quite surprising if you are saying people are being actually ejected from a lounge.
PS it’s nothing to do (as you would have discovered had you read the thread) about crediting to another programme which is entirely legitimate.
that’s possible but what are we exactly talking about then?
Was it multi-millionaire David Cameron who travelled easyJet as a bit of a stunt when he didn’t need to?
If he was taking his kids away in the school holidays it would probably have been cheaper to fly with BA by the time he’d added his luggage and paid for them to sit together.
@JDB, it must have been like all your Christmases coming at once. As a data point, what was the offending FF programme on the reprobate’s BP? (You seem to have been close enough to discern all the details).However, you would have been sorely disappointed with the F lounge last week, they were serving (horrors) pre-mixed cocktails from cans! They probably also don’t know what the tiny knife attachment on a corkscrew is for. Though to be fair, if you give it a good swift yank you can often dislodge the cork and the foil in one movement.
@ChrisBCN the ejection followed the rejection as they were eased out.
@bthere79 status on boarding card too lowly for access and sufficiently high status in another programme confirmed with member insufficient to allow access
@NorthernLass – I don’t know which programme. Just boarding card status doesn’t allow entry. End of story. Quite right. A bit of decorum is required if someone wants to have their cake and eat it.@bthere79 status on boarding card too lowly for access and sufficiently high status in another programme confirmed with member insufficient to allow access
that’s exactly what i was talking about? Crediting a flight to IB or AY or whichever other program having no status there, while accessing the lounge using a BA gold/silver card
your anecdotal experience of seeing someone being denied access leaves me completely indifferent, with all due respect you can’t even know exactly what their exact situation was (were they even flying OW? or there could have been whichever other reason for being denied access)
I’d take it a bit more seriously if it had happened to you personally, even so, since I’ve been able to access lounges several times just by proving status showing my BAC membership card very recently, I reiterate that all this talk of a generalised enforcement of a non-existent rule is complete nonsense
the ejection followed the rejection as they were eased out
No, come on, you can’t be ejected from somewhere you were never granted access to.
the ejection followed the rejection as they were eased out
No, come on, you can’t be ejected from somewhere you were never granted access to.
I was wondering, where did the ejection/rejection occur? Gold cardholders originating in LHR T5 would use the F Wing, where the first point of ejection would be the check in desk or if HBO then the pre-security BP checks of 2-3 manned desks. And if connecting, the Gold cardholder would enter the Galleries F lounge from the airside-facing entry with typically 3 manned desks. Perhaps it was a different terminal because I personally have never experienced queueing at either set of desks. Though that is of course just my own anecdotal experience.
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