This is an open letter from our founder, Michele to Sean Doyle, British Airways CEO.
Dear Sean
We need to talk. After a long and mostly happy relationship with BA as a Gold cardholder and then Gold Guest List for the last 4 years, flying a total of 645,538 miles with you, it’s time we went our separate ways.
I’m sure by now you are getting an idea of how your previously loyal customers are feeling about the changes to the Executive Club. If you look at the ill-timed “Happy New Year” post from British Airways the day after you decimated the Executive Club, there are over 500 comments on Facebook alone, most of which are extremely negative about the changes. But I’m not sure you will really “get it”. After all, I’m sure someone has crunched the numbers and assumed there will be a small amount of members that will use British Airways less as a result. I’m sure on the spreadsheet it assumes the reduced numbers in the lounges etc will compensate for this. However, your spreadsheet is missing one key point. Loyalty is an emotion, not a transaction for your customers. And emotional people make unexpected decisions.
I think David summed it up perfectly with his reply to BA’s post on Instagram,
When you needed us during Covid, we stood by you. IAG shares, buying items from your retired 747 fleet, even the foray into the meal boxes. As soon as the skies reopened we came back, travel was far from simple or even cheap. But we made the effort and kept the ££ coming in to the BA coffers. That is loyalty in action on the part of your most loyal customers. You needed us, we stepped up.
Yet, that loyalty has now been repudiated by BA with what feels like complete disdain for those who flew with you for years, in those darkest times despite all of the challenges. A New Year betrayal from a ten year GCH. #ToflyTonolongerserve
Others summed it up as a loss of a community, and for me personally, this is also a big part of the betrayal. More than many other airline frequent flyer programs, there was a real sense of community among BA Executive Club members. There are several large Facebook groups, (one with nearly 50,000 members) I also run one for Gold cardholders and above. Flyertalk is another such community which has had 400,000 views on the thread about the changes alone, and there are many other avenues online where Club members share their woes and triumphs. Blogs such as this one also created groups of people who loved discussing their experiences in the Executive Club. Many of us made lifelong friends with a shared passion for travel and BA through these groups. From April 2026, those communities will be decimated.
So why are people so angry? You may think it is because you moved to a spend-based system, but this would be completely wrong. The majority of us knew there would be a day when this would come and accepted that, but we never thought that in one swift blow, you would make the new tier levels so unachievable for most of your loyal members that it would be pointless even trying.
People are also extremely upset about how the change was framed. Firstly suggesting that members had requested this, then implying it was a cause for celebration. Your members are not stupid, treating them as such is a risky move. Nobody said, please make the loyalty scheme completely unachievable for most of your members. What many of us have said is that the lounges are too busy.
We all accept the lounges were overcrowded, but what really infuriates us is that it was BA’s decisions that caused the problem. By giving endless extensions after COVID-19, when many of us were making the effort to earn status the hard way and then effectively halving the requirements with the introduction of double tier points on BA holidays, overcrowding was inevitable. Solving it by destroying the Executive Club scheme is very much the definitive of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. As well as removing the double tier point promotion, you could also have been stricter on guesting. You could have restricted guesting to those on the same flight only and perhaps given a couple of extra passes a year to the higher tiers for the occasions when a friend or family member is travelling at the same time. Yes, we would have grumbled, but we would have accepted it as fair.
Trust is also a key element of any successful relationship and I’m afraid you have irreversibly broken ours by effectively announcing an immediate change to the scheme. Many people (including myself) will have already booked flights for their new status year and now feel they have wasted their money since the new tier point levels are so unachievable. Those that were aiming for Gold for Life and were close also feel betrayed. As well as the ridiculous £550,000 spend required for Gold For Life, what’s to say you won’t just change your mind and get rid of it completely at short notice? For example, if you have 85% of the current target, you would require another £80,000 worth of spending under the new scheme to get Gold for Life. That is one hell of a gamble that most people will not take.
Now, I am sure you have heard people saying, I’m never flying British Airways again after one bad experience. We all know that most of those people will at some point, and if it is one or two people, who cares. But, there is a crucial tipping point with customers when you treat them so badly that there is no going back. As an example, Vodafone treated me so badly around 13 years ago I have vowed never to use them even though a lot of the time, they would be the most suitable provider and the cheapest. I am sticking to my word. This is what you have achieved with this change. We have put up with, quite frankly, appalling IT, the changes to Avios, which make it easier to earn Avios shopping online than by flying, and most recently, the hated Brunchgate, which felt like the old cost-cutting days of Alex Cruz. But we stuck by you because of the Executive Club. Until now.
Yes, I am sure at some point I will book flights with BA again, if I absolutely have to, along with most others. However, no longer will I plan my year of travel solely with BA and oneworld to keep my status. Normally, at this time of year, I’d be looking at the sales and planning some trips. Not anymore. You have set me free to explore the world of other loyalty schemes and just picking the best experience and value when picking flights. I have already flown many other airlines due to my job, and I’m sorry to say the vast majority have been as good as or much better than British Airways. I’d estimate my flying with BA will drop by around 80% once I lose my status.
The other issue with the new scheme is that is very difficult to plan ahead to achieve your status since you have no idea exactly how much flights will cost since part of the cost is taxes. Currently you can happily work out how much each flight is worth before you even book it, giving you certainty. Then, if you knew you were short, you would book an extra trip, giving BA more money. Many people talk about tier point runners, but in reality, these are a real minority in the true sense. Most of us would just book a weekend away and discover new places such as Sofia and Tirana that maybe we may not have considered before.
Most loyalty club members are scratching their heads trying to work out who BA think the new scheme will attract. One would assume the idea is to attract and retain customers with the loyalty scheme. The new rules will not achieve this except for a small group of senior-level business travelers who are still allowed to fly business class or always book at the last minute. You may think that perhaps wealthier families and individuals traveling for leisure will still achieve silver. But to do that will require a high level of spending in business and first class. If you only fly in business and first, silver status is pretty useless apart from free seat selection, so why would you bother?
I know several high-spending individuals who are Gold Guest List and have already moved their latest flights to other airlines since the announcement. So, who is it that you are trying to attract? Corporate travellers that have little choice of airline perhaps? These are the customers on corporate contracts that have no choice of airline as their travel policy dictates it. Given that business travel has never recovered from Covid, and that premium leisure travellers have increased since Covid, this seems an odd choice. With the latest budget and employers having to find the extra money for the increase in national insurance, I’m pretty sure business travel will not substantially increase any time soon.
The good news is that it is not too late to rescue this relationship. We don’t even need marriage counselling. Nobody expects you to row back on spend-based tier points; it was always the future. But it isn’t too late to find a way to make status achievable to your current cardholders, even if it requires a small increase from the equivalent amount previously. Delta listened to their customers and adjusted their new proposals, you can too. You may also want to look at the model itself. Did anyone not question the psychological aspect of a purely cash-based system versus other models that are a combination of cash and cabins flown? When you look at Gold status at £20,000, you automatically say, there is no way I would ever spend that, so you lose the customer immediately. If it were a “fictional” tier point value not directly tied to cash, it would have achieved the same result but with much less kickback. Extra tier points should be awarded according to the cabin and fare buckets as well as cash.
So Sean, unless something changes, I’m afraid to say that’s it for me and British Airways, it IS you, it’s not us.
Michele and many of your Executive Club members
170 comments
So well written and captures so.many people’s sentiments. Thankyou for speaking on behalf of many of us who are not as eloquent in writing and expressing ourselves.
So we’ll said! I too have already moved over to Virgin and delta.
The choices for me where less difficult as I work in the middle east, BA DOWNGRADED it’s tlv to all economy seating so I was left with very little choice.
I use British as a way to return to reality when flying but need Buisness seating.
Virgin fulfils the role and to be honest it’s club is way better than the first lounges
Isn’t the whole point that BA can no longer provide champagne travel for a prosecco budget?
Being simple, if BA provided Club Access levels for sale, how much would people be willing to offer? Probably far less than the actual cost of entry and service.
Right now, lounges are packed with travellers not on the relevant ticket. It used to be if you want champagne in first then pay for a first ticket. The current tier system offering lounge access is broken and spend basis was always inevitable, like all the US airlines where BA makes its most money.
Sadly, people who fly the equivalent of two business trips to Malta a year to get free lounge access when they’re flying cheaper for the rest of the year aren’t loyal to BA, they’re just gaming a system.
I know that this change will mean fewer blogs and websites about how to game the system and sell promotional links to credit cards, as some sites do, but this change was always coming. BA is a business and its business is selling tickets, not free bars.
Since when have BA provided champagne travel though? That’s the real issue for me, the producr is mediocre, their IT abysmal, the On- Time performance is shocking, the Soft product is poor…. We have suffered all of this for years and it’s the fact they now want us to pay. Premium for it that really does it for me.
Fair point. Just wish they would sort out their appalling IT. it’s so bad I look to other airlines first.
Yes BA is a business but not the only business in the industry. The whole point of our reaction to this change is that there is no more incentive to book or fly with BA/OneWorld when their competitors have a better offer.
Business and markets work both ways. Businesses want to maximise revenue and reduce costs, but consumers always look for the best deals for themselves too. Other companies offered better single-trip deals than BA before this change, but many stayed loyal to BA because of the status incentive, making BA a better deal for cumulative flying. Now that BA no longer offers themselves as the best cumulative deal, expect travellers to jump on offers for the best single-trip deals instead.
We were never gaming the system, they were setting the rules of the game. Now that they changed the rules of the game, expect us consumers in a market economy to look for the best deal for ourselves.
I am genuinely baffled that some people refuse to acknowledge the role of the consumer when it comes to business transactions.
Agreed! Another family from Canada that travel to Asia regularly will be looking to other airlines in 2025!
His arrogance is so forthright….EasyJet and Virgin rubbing their hands in glee.
Wow what a great post!!!
Absolutely knuckleheads….
Lets see how they get out of this one…
Michelle
You have hit the nail on the head.
Since Covid I have focussed my travel on BA & OneWorld – even when it was more expensive.
There is now no reasonable incentive to continue. That means BA gets compared at every turn to its competitors- and guess what, they are often better choices.
BA used to be choice 1. Now other factors will dictate and price / convenience will be winner, when before the change it wasn’t.
I’m not bitter about losing status, but in reality my £s, will go elsewhere (along with many others that undoubtedly feel the same). That’s on BA – that free money that went your way will no longer.
Perhaps these points need to be directed to the IAG & BA boards.
Michelle, I totally agree with you. BA are only interested in business travellers, and have forsaken everyone else. I have over 650 thousand Avios points, and will start using them instead of spending more money to retain my gold status x
Excellent letter Michele. I really hope he actually reads it! It needs the likes of you and others at your level of club membership and industry knowledge! Thank you 🙏
I am sure Virgin and other airlines are already planning their status match marketing plans as we speak.
This letter made me emotional as it truly reflects how we all feel. Thank you for standing up for avios community!
You nailed this Michele. The points are right. I have been lucky to remain Silver for 10 years from mainly either careful booking or just incidentally gaining the points. Never felt the need for a point run other then year 1 when I realised I needed 10 points so did a Geneva trip. Since then my loyalty meant me flying with them when in reality I could have flown EY and paid for a lounge for a lot of European hops and been in pocket even using the Caviar bar.
I can easily see a move to a revenue model had to come – in the current eco climate doing things based on mileage/volume of trips goes really would risk backlash and surprised they have got away with that model for as long. It is the levels that are mad as you say. I’m ambivalent about loosing status as it was a nice bonus for my loyalty but If I am buying my own loyalty I will likely choose other options!
Thank you Michelle.
The varied emotions that have come with this announcement are something that is difficult to balance with a suitable response. This letter is something I guess, we all wish to be read by Sean and hopefully reflected upon. If, with the current feeling of negativity I feel, he does not care to listen, I hope we can look to find and share airlines that may truly care for their supporting flyers. Tlfl has been a great site and I hope it may continue.
Great article and catches the sentiments perfectly. Ive booked today to try Aer Lingus BC, hard product isn’t as good but clearing in Dublin makes that a lot easier to swallow and the flight duration was better factoring in my flights from Manchester.
Brilliant letter. I truly hoped we had moved on from the Cruz era….but a big NO.
I agree a fare based system can work well but it’s the almost unattainability that really hurts. I’m a retired leisure traveller on silver. I got 3 friends join and on silver. Now ALL of us will not renew and look elsewhere. To retain silver will cost me nearly 5 x what I spent before! Loyalty runs both ways…. So BA management I hope you reflect on the damage you have done as you sit in your old yin Yan seats on your old planes eating brunch at 130!
We apparently told BA we wanted to earn tier points on baggage and seat spend… So that when we achieve Silver we are rewarded with free seats selection and extra baggage allowance… Meaning that to retain Silver we need to spend even more on flights. It’s not a perk if we’re still paying for it.
I think this might be your best post yet! Succinctly saying what the vast majority of us are thinking, especially the looking at £20k to achieve gold and knowing automatically it is actually unachievable! Thanks Michelle!
I’m at a total loss to this. Your letter is perfect. I’m GCH for 15 years. I’ve just got my new gold card for April onwards but I know that this is it. Before, I was 7 years away from Gold Card for life. Now I’m almost double that. Why should I bother? I almost wonder if there is a legal case for challanging this. I’ve invested for so long and now the rules have changed.
Anyway, I guess it’s time to try other airlines. I fly first or club so I don’t suppose I’ll notice any real difference in quality but as you point out, the emotion counts. I’ve essentially been kicked out of the gold club. I’m quite sad about it.
Legal case I sgree im maybe 3 years from lifetime gold and been spending to achieve this Just turns out it was a scam
Thank you Michele, far more polite than I would have put it.
Best wishes,
Stuart & Lynn
Gold for many, many years.
No legal case whatsoever. Check the exec club T’s and C’s.
Michele,
Your letter is eloquent & hits the mood of the BAEC community perfectly.
I agree entirely that BA have brought the lounge overcrowding on themselves. Removing DTP’s would help massively.
My wife & I did a few ‘unnecessary’ trips last year to keep our status, lovely holidays we had, but going forward we won’t be doing that again.
Moreover this change now frees me from pressing the Oneworld button on Google flights, welcome cheaper flights & probably better service than BA.
Finnair did something similar to this. You need to spend many thousands of pounds/euros for benefits that are comparatively trivial. It seems like the aim is to just kill off these programmes other than for a few business travellers. I would guess they found that the previous schemes were not really incentivising loyalty, in relation to their cost.
Couldn’t have written it better myself Michele.
We have 5 days in Athens in March which, should, hold our silver till 31st March 27 ( We’ve already qualified through 26 but I’m waiting for that fight when they go back on their word, yet again) and we’re debating on whether we try out the new scheme for the year looking to maintain our silver and walk away if the proposition isn’t justifiable OR to use the status match I currently hold through December this year with SAS to just maintain that and for ‘She who must be obeyed’ to reach it herself and simply turn out backs on BA, as they’ve done to us, immediately we return from the trip booked & simply using said status for lounge, luggage and not having to pay ludicrous seat fees on economy positioning flights till our status runs out.
If you have five days booked in March to retain Silver from April 2025, that will expire March 2026, not 2027. Soft landings through the tiers are going as well, so if you don’t reach 7.500 TP between April 26-March 27, you’ll be back down to Blue.
Thanks for posting that. Thoughtful and well written.
Hello , a little off topic, by chance do you know anyone who has spare gold status available to gift to a nhs nurse
Thanks
I’ve never heard of padding on status to anyone like that.
Absolutely spot on.
I am lucky to exclusively travel business class on flights longer than 6 hours.
My booking for March was going to be BA via Heathrow to Shanghai. Now I’ll be doing this on Qatar from Edinburgh via Doha.
My US trip in February I am also booking will now be on Virgin (upper class) and this is my first time on Virgin! And the reason I’m doing this is? A DIRECT result of BA “rewarding” my loyalty.
I’m guessing that’s about a £10k loss right there…
I used to be a proud Exec Gold member…. No more ….
Perfect letter. Agree with all your points. And yes we have the freedom to go elsewhere to better airlines
Michele,
The article sums up how I feel, I don’t think I could have done it better. As someone who has been Gold for around 5 years now, you have hit the nail on the head.
1) I completely agree with you, even during COVID and the tentative easing of travel restrictions I was still flying and going away when I could. Partly, as someone who works in the health service, I REALLY need to get away for a bit. As you say, I feel I shouldn’t have bothered as they keep giving extensions and double tiers etc I would have met the criteria to requalify when others are getting it for free.
2) Like you I was treated so badly by ‘Orange’ rather than Vodafone many years ago, I left them, and they have changed to EE since, but I still wouldn’t go near them. So yes I agree if BA continues with this loyalty self destruction will I choose not to fly them hell yes. Eye for an eye, they are not loyal to me and I am not loyal to them.
3) I flew from JFK-LHR the day after ‘Brunch’ was started I looked at the menu on my evening flight thinking about what was going on. I would assume the same spreadsheet beancounter came up with this idea, who on earth would want to try to achieve Gold with such a poor offering, someone has lost their plot. They have rolled back brunch after the backlash. I don’t know if someone in BA is living in a different reality, BA is not Qatar, Cathay etc why do they think people would think they are someone’s first choice, have any actually done that survey given as you say the IT issues, the poor app etc. I flew Virgin for the first time this year to Delhi after a post about an error flight, the lounge in LHR is extremely good way better than BA T5 and the food is excellent.
4) I have explored new places like you said e.g. Brussels, Paris, Oslo, Amsterdam etc flying BA on position flights for ex-EU long haul and Budapest for the last 2 years, the first time around was to go to Hawaii. I certainly don’t chase points for the sake of it. Totally see your point about exploring other places.
5) Like Confun I continued with Oneworld even though at times it is more expensive to continue concentrating on collecting my avios/tier points, but like what you said Michele I am set free from all this. I have already booked with Qatar to fly from CPH-BKK and a separate trip FRA-HKG in 2025. I was planning to book my positioning flights with BA I mean why bother if BA doesn’t care about someone like me.
I have been with BA since 2006 but this might just finish it. I always booked BA transatlantic 2 to 3 times a year without looking elsewhere but that just changed.
Michelle,
Brilliantly worded and so much I can identify with personally.
Michele- well done. You reflect the sentiment of many. I’ve worked in this game for all my career and throughout, BA have made unpalatable decisions. I’d be surprised if they will be bothered, even more so in if he replies (he doesn’t even speak to his own crew).
I’ve just booked £7K worth of travel today, none with BA and it FEELS GOOD!
A great letter, Michelle. The change feels so short sighted. I’ve been Gold for over 10 years. I used to select BA and oneworld because of my status, possibly to retain it, partly for the perks. Often, I would be paying more than necessary to do so. No longer.
And, as you point out, they have created the problem themselves with double tier points, etc. If the problem they are trying to solve is reducing the number of top tier members (an analogue for too busy lounges), there were many better alternatives than this approach. Their approach is akin to attempting to reduce complaints about delays by not flying any planes.
Loyalty is bi-directional. BA have behaved entirely disloyally.
I wonder how the other oneworld airlines feel? They will also, presumably, experience a drop in bookings. I recently flew two trips to Asia with the excellent Finnair, but only because they are members of oneworld.
I’ll be reviewing other loyalty programmes and alliances for options. I’m already silver with *A, maybe that will be my new home.
Revenue-based earning is not inevitable Lufthansa group just moved to tier point model. As a real comparison:
BA Gold – spend £20.000
Miles and More Senator (gold equivalent) – earn 480 tier points for €800-900 xxx-FRA/MUC/VIE/ZRH-TLV/BEY/AMM with Lufthansa, Swiss or Austrian – 4 such trips for less than €4000 pretty well that gold equivalent status. Or for €1200, head to ICN, NRT, ORD via WAW with LOT.
Either way, it’s 80% cheaper to Senator than to BA gold. I voted with my feet when BA announced this and just received my Senator card. Bye bye BA, me and husband have moved on!
7000 Tier Points this year and GGL.
Ultra loyal to BA
But I am done, I will fly again with them if I must but never ever like before, will try to fly with others in fact
The standards on BA have collapsed, my recent experiences have been very poor, it’s disappointing quite honestly. This is my biggest sadness, the low standards.
Good work.
Are you planning to write something similar to show your feelings on this, Rob? You are well-regarded in the BA aviation world; your opinions on this terrible decision by BA would make welcome reading to status holders.
David,
If you get a chance read the article on HfP Rob’s site
Very informative with 1000’s of comments from us, the readers, expressing similar sentiments ta to Michelle.
Simplest thing to do was stop DTPs and numbers would then have dropped in the lounges. And maybe raise the TPs for silver and gold. At least they would maintain loyalty that way, as these targets would be more achievable.
Not everyone can afford BAH, as BA appear to be pushing to achieve status this way.
Let’s see if they listen to you Michele.
A really great post, so well written.
We know BA read these blogs too.
I have flown ba for the last 20 years having gold status earned 1,200,000 miles. New program is very disappointing and not achievable will other airlines if the proposed plan is not changed
Thank you Michelle. Your open letter has articulated my thoughts and feelings on this subject perfectly.
Beautifully written Michele. When I think of how much this awful decision has affected all of us globally, I know it hits those of you in the UK way more and especially those of you who are British and have a bond with the airline.
The only things I might add to your well-written letter are:
1) Not only is £20,000 spend unachievable for most members to attain Gold, but the new thresholds MIGHT give bronze status to those who would otherwise have achieved Gold. I could deal with the threshold for Silver being achievable for what I used to spend to achieve Gold, but not Bronze.
2) What they offer in status benefits is such a reduction in what we earned only a few years ago. Our Avios bonuses have been slashed to a measly one extra Avios per pound from the incentivising bonuses that existed only recently.
3) I love the point you make about TP runs meaning we explored cities we otherwise might not have. But there’s more. Without the incentive for these TP runs, seats would have gone empty instead of being filled, upgrades would not have been purchased, money would have been spent elsewhere instead of with BA and OneWorld partners.
4) Even if they reverse these changes tomorrow, they have shown us their hand. They don’t want our loyalty and they don’t want us to choose them if it means paying more than a competitor offers. Why would anyone of sound mind chase GFL or GGFL now? These lifetime statuses were already harder to achieve than AF/KL or LH Group. Even if they give in now, their management team doesn’t value our business.
And as you stated, there was a much better solution to end the loopholes which “gifted” status too easily. This was a nuclear explosion to demolish a tool shed.
Absolutely perfect and addesses everything 💯. So glad you’ve written (and published) your letter to Sean. Let’s see how he replies!
Thank You!
I think a new CEO is required .
Bang on the point, factual, well written, views shared by many. Well done and I really do hope you get a reply.
Fabian (GCH)
Brilliant piece and you’re so right about boycotting. I Haxby used Starbucks for over a decade, nor TUI – both because of their abysmal customer service response to genuine issues.
If LHR is your home airport and you have a Platinum Amex then BA’s change has just given you every reason to focus on T3 airlines. Choice of lounges, arguably superior to the tired T5 Terraces set up and largely better onboard service from a variety of airlines that actually reward your loyalty.
My recent flights with BA earned me decent amounts of Avios, mostly in the form of service recovery credits. They didn’t even reply to my last complaint!
With close to 500k of Avios my focus going forward will be to spend them (before they devalue them), I will cease to be a revenue passenger for BA.
A recent conversation on a long haul flight also struck me as problematic. With a member of cabin crew chatting to two customers as we waited to take off. Her comments unintentionally summed up the issue “A lot of passengers think we’re here to serve them, we’re not. The role is first a foremost about safety we are not here to serve drinks and food, it’s a big misconception”. It seems the new motto is To Fly Not To Serve!
The whole saga smacks of a plan formulated by a McKinsey intern, mathematically valid, but demonstrating no cognisance of the fact that humans are emotional creatures.
Absolutely spot-on. I’ve been Gold for 12yrs and this is a huge kick in the teeth. They’ve thrown away any loyalty. I have zero incentive to ever fly BA again. The ‘perks’ can easily be attained via cheaper premium cabin tickets on other airlines or through credit card benefits. Bye bye BA.
Thank you Michele for taking the time to write this – I have been a GCH for 14 years now and 12k TP from GFL and I think it is just going to go. Today we were looking at options for the USA and for the the first time ever we unticked the ‘oneworld’ box on Google flights and it felt good. We spend more time in Spain and we have gone out of our way to connect via LHR long haul – it cost us more, but we felt it was worth it.
They could absolutely remove the double tier points with BA holidays – I honestly don’t know why they kept extending it. As you say, we would all understand. We are not stupid.
Thank you for writing this again – and I hope they listen. And the timing of the announcement… terrible!
Incredible letter, Michelle. Thank you!
I’m GGL and feel cheated… the week before the announcement I spent >£10k on travel for later in the year and can’t get a refund now. In future, I’ll be shopping around for sure.
Alas, this is just the last straw… your letter describes the current status of BA beautifully… watching it burn is painful to see!
I’m not loyal at all, in fact I’m just entering the points game. I’ll be flying U.K. – Aus regularly over the next couple of years for work and family. Already have a few fledgling points with BA but will now look to go elsewhere for points/reward schemes for the big spends.
Bravo and thank you Michelle, I could not agree more . My exclusive relationship over the years with British Airways (with the odd affair with Qatar/American Airlines- but all kept in the family!!!) all leisure travel rewarded with gold card status for quite a few years now. With our love affair I would overlook and forgive frequent flight cancellations, occasional but getting my frequent bad service , the endless chocolate mousse for puddings in club Europe and for not warming my nuts like Qatar and American Airways like to do. My unconditional love also forced me to spend my hard earned cash on a flight to Sofia/Bucharest and an extra flight to America to maintain Gold each year (you used to offer me Helsinki but you took that away from me but I forgave you! You also reduced the amount of Avios I receive on each flight. Once again I understood and forgave you. However, with these tier status changes without any warning. I have no choice but to end our relationship. I am devastated but I need to think of my future. Promiscuity is now the answer for me using other airlines such as Etihad/Turkish Airlines and Air France which will often save me money and I am told by friends that I will receive a better service and they so say variety is the spice of life!!
Your ex
Edward.
Ps Can I get a refund for the 3 international business class flights I have booked after April that I booked to maintain Gold for 2026/2027 as you have changed the terms not me?
Replying to Michelle (the paragraph in your excellent letter starting with “Trust”, appropriately) and Rob and Ed, as BA changed the basis of sale after you booked your flights to go towards status for next year, I think their actions do raise a number of questions on Unfair Contract Terms under consumer law. Particularly for anyone who relied on the representations made at the point of sale, which I certainly did.
I am in the process of contacting various UK regulators and will post any responses here if helpful.
So beautifully expressed, well done. Having just gained Silver status I feel gutted, as do my ex air traffic chums, but, on the plus side I can now pick and choose who I fly with.
nail on head, lets hope this gets to Sean and that they take action on this debacle
Well said, Michelle. As you pointed out, most of us would have accepted some changes. We know that BA is a profit-making entity, and either a small increase in the points needed to gain status or a more measured spend-based programme would have been accepted with some grumbling. But this makes continuing to fly BA with the aim of getting silver, let alone gold, very hard.
As a small businessperson, I fly World Traveller Plus across the Atlantic several times a year and occasionally take advantage of well-priced upgrades. Combined with some European flights; this year, that was enough for gold and in a typical year, I easily make silver.
But under the new system, given that taxes don’t count, I will probably be at 3000-4000 points, barely enough for bronze, which I have little desire to get.
I am sure BA’s answer would be, ‘What about the hotels? You can make it up with that’
However, many of my hotels are booked by business partners and clients around events I attend, so that’s out. I suspect it’s the same for many of us who travel on business, we can’t just move that hotel spend onto BA Holidays.
I hope BA listens to you and its loyalty club members. Otherwise, I’ll cash out my Avios, take this as an opportunity to save some money and fly with other airlines.
Norse Atlantic, for example, has a premium economy product with better seats than BA WTP. If I no longer get any benefits from the Executive Club, I may as well just book them in the future—they tend to be cheaper, too.
Thanks Michelle hope they listen.
Great article. It really makes you question what planet they’re living on. I flew with BA over 80 times last year, a mixture of classes, long and short haul (2600+ TP). By my calculations the same year again will only just pass Silver. It will probably be 20 flights with them next year now.
Absolutely spot on.
It’s the cabin crew I feel sorry for – I wonder how long before they stop welcoming golds on the plane.
I will still collect Avios but aim my loyalty somewhere else.
Well said and thank you for giving us a voice. Yes BA have a problem with overcrowded lounges, so kick all the staff out who are flying on ‘jollies’. Last time I flew back from Hong Kong in First there was a young BA staff member in 2K being fawned over by the FAs. Get your house in order Doyle.
Sorry to spoil the narrative but staff on jollies, even firm annual tickets don’t get lounge access. But why let the truth get in the way. Love all this “poor me” under the guise of it being a friendly little club. As always people will threaten to leave but how many will
Hi Michelle. Happy New Year. Do you have the numbers of GCH, GFL, GGL members of the Exec Club? Would help to quantify how many people are affected. Then work out likely average spend per year, and how much this will reduce if X% of members leave the EC. No doubt BA has done the calculations and made a data-driven decision, so having the same info helps make the case for changing the proposals. Also makes it less of an emotive debate. Thanks
And maybe the blog should be renamed “Turning Left for More”!!
And BAEC renamed ‘British Airways Extortionate Club’ for the remainder of that name period!
Yes but it’s always been the BA Entitlement Club 🙂
May I be the lone voice of dissent? I am absolutely delighted with the changes. I’m tired of going to lounges stuffed full of retirees jetting off on their latest Saga-inspired BA holidays. No more boomers clogging up the first wing either. Happy days!
I honestly cannot wait until all the oiks are thrown out. The only regret is that it will have to wait for April 2026. It can’t come soon enough. I’ve easily spent £40k/year with BA and I’m glad that will now be recognised with the riff raff booted out.
Keep up the good work BA!
From your tone I assume your £40k a year spend is from your own pocket and not that of a company.
As I mentioned upthread. You might be delighted now but it will be interesting to hear your thoughts when BA confirm the CCR will be closing and that members can pay to get into other lounges.
What a privileged idiot you are. The very entitled snobs that make this world an unpleasant place.
Us retirees have paid our dues, paid our taxes, invested in pension funds and are the generation that has kept this country afloat. Personally, I have spent the last 43 in uniform serving my country and my community. Now is our time to be rewarded for 100 hour working weeks.
What’s your contribution to society? To look down on those that have done their duty and refer to us as riff raff
What an absolute a…hole!!
Tom, you are an obnoxious pillock. And our pensions typically contribute a humble c.£20k to BA’s coffers. Apologies for being old and affluent … you may be lucky enough to find yourself in the same position.
Wow from your response I can just picture what sort of person you are. You are the type to push your way to the front of the queue wearing brown shoes when group 1s are called to board. Does this resentment come from that you were not that intelligent to get into Oxford or Cambridge and your feeling of self worth now comes from how much your company pays for a flexible fare.
Excellent letter Michelle! I have managed to retain silver status for over 10 years at my own expense, following a work trip that fortuitously got me there. Having recently retired there is no way I could reach the level of spend required under the new scheme. I too sadly will be looking at the best fares going forward rather the airline.
Been flying BA (BOAC!) since 1951
I’m out!
Caroline
What makes this stupid decisions all the more galling is the insinuation that members were consulted.
Thank you for writing this Michelle. You have echoed the strong emotions of many of us. The offering as we came out of COVID was very poor and expensive to what we had been used to but we all kept travelling and 3 years ago I finally (with some tier point runs) became gold. This has become a sort of yearly hobbie, a treat, an adventurous bit of fun. Now BA have taken my toys away and I’m more than a little aggrieved! The dbl TP offering seemed to just be an accepted norm – why not just remove it and return things to how they once were? There was no need for BA to kick sand in our eyes. Very very annoyed I’ve booked flights for post April. It’s not the brilliant service I return for and I think we all know this. A lot of us choose BA BECAUSE of the exec club/status. It’s both disappointing but also freeing now I will not be tied to tier points. £20k for a gold card? Nah. Keep your chocolate mousse and inconsistent greetings onboard, BA. The honeymoon phase is clearly over.
Echo’s so many of my sentiments – BA from Gatwick to Grenada over Christmas. With the touchdown in St Lucia, a 4 leg trip on 2 planes. Both planes old and knackered in CW. Not one of the 4 crew or purser acknowledged me as Gold. From LHR you get that most flights.
Wine choice poor and I have had enough chocolate mousse for a lifetime
I fly business and pleasure long haul always in Club world and use BA holidays too. I saw a Virgin plane on the ground in St Lucia and thought ‘maybe next time’. Now I think definitely.
I have flow Qatar twice – loved it. When I go East again it will be my carrier of choice
As I am now 60, I approach retirement from corporate life and am a whisker off Gold for Life. I was going to chase it down – now I won’t bother. Especially as when retired point to point flying becomes less of a need and a stop over is fun as time is no longer precious
What a destruction of for me a 35 year relationship, most at Gold
What really baffles me in all of this is how can you make such a drastic change without seemingly have consulted with some of the members of the Executive Club especially you then come out to say that this is something that we asked for. Don’t they focus groups with people from this community? Seems crazy to me!
The irony of all this is that I just got an email from BA announcing “even bigger sales!”
Who cares now, why would I fly paying less and therefore not being able to gain status? (For those that say this is a Green measure as it reduces TP runs, have you thought of the situation now with people just doing a £300 return trip somewhere to reach the threshold)
Somebody flying to LA from LHR on a last minute trip will make silver on a single flight (£9,000). Somebody flying there 3 times a year on cheap business class holidays will not (£2,000 without tax x 3).
Who is more loyal you think? The executive or the leisure traveler who has now no incentive to stick to OW as it did until now?
Bravo Michelle
Absolutely spot on. Avios being transferred to Qatar next week and any efforts made to maintain current BA status now abandoned. Goodbye BA.
Started to read this – got bored and so will Sean Doyle. Unfortunately the only constant is change.
Thank you. So well put.
We normally plan our holidays around BA to achieve our status but not any more.
We have two holidays left, after that our loyalty will finish.
For something created to create loyalty you have destroyed it in one email.
To the BA staff, we are sorry for the effect this will have on your futures.
Personally I absolutely agree with the changes – well done BA.
They should indeed focus on a smaller group of profitable, loyal customers not those that are unprofitable or who game the system to get the benefits (and are then typically whinge about them).
It’s somewhat ironic that your site is one of those that encourages these runs with unnecessary, convoluted routes that are worse for the environment.
I hope that respond to your letter “good, we’re glad to see you, and your likes, go”.
Roll on 2026 when this has worked its way through and the maybe the lounges, boarding groups, etc will be a bit quieter.
Two things come to mind.
1) It’s more ironic that someone who clearly has a very large carbon footprint cites environmental reasons for liking the changes…
2) Be careful what you wish for. The CCR will likely be the first lounge closed post April 2026.
There are a lot of people on this site that don’t do silly tier point runs or other nonsense. We use the advise to enjoy those extra little perks. It’s nice to experience FC at least once a year on a special trip.
We spend a lot of money with BA and some of the “so called” loyal high spenders, who are on business trips, are rude, arrogant, a…holes. Rude to fellow passengers but particularly rude to the BA staff. I for one would personally like to see the back of those idiots!
It’s a shame that you and others look down your nose at us and other “riff raff” when in truth the cabin crew enjoy looking after us because we appreciate it. We get really excited about dining in the Concorde Lounge and enjoy the interaction with all of the staff. We have really enjoyed a laugh and banter with our stewards in FC.
I’m sure you’ll be glad to the back of us working class scum
I’m sure that BA were still making money off the seats when people took flights on them rather than a competitor.
I hope you’re glad when customers move to other airlines and routes get shut down as they become unprofitable.
From someone who use to fly 20 domestic return flights a year but will move to a cheaper and better airline now. And from someone who will now, thankfully, not be incentivsed to book their company paid business travel with this airline.
A truly well-written letter, Michelle, that reflects the current level of opinion of you and many status holders at this appalling slap in the face to all loyal members. It is clear by its actions that BA has no sense of reciprocal loyalty to its members and that they care not a fig about anyone apart from corporates! The new levels of tier points for status are beyond belief. I shall change my flying patterns to other airlines as a consequence. I hope Doyle credits you with a response.
Michelle
Thank you! You’ve put into words so powerfully what do many of us feel. We’ll look forward to seeing Sean’s reply!
As you say, it’s not too late for BA to say ‘sorry’ and adapt the new scheme before they lose tens of thousands of loyal customers.
Well said ! Completely agree with this.
BA just made my 2025 much clearer, as I now know I will focus on renewing my Virgin Gold membership rather than chasing BA Gold renewal!
This move by BA , as you said “set me free” .
Well said. We could all go on and on about how it affects us individually but who is interested? I doubt our collective opinions and experiences will change the plotted course for BA, but as with all business if we say goodbye we HAVE to mean it. Only then will CEOs see the error of their ways.
Spot on Michelle
I’ve written to customer relations and the executive club. I’m not sure my letters will have the same clout as yours but if we don’t show our outrage nothing will happen.
Like you, I will boycott companies on principle, mine is Virgin. I was one of the very first frequent virgins, my membership number is in the low hundreds. I used to spend 10’s of thousands with them. Then they cocked up our honeymoon and took no responsibility for that cock up. After taking them to ABTA we did get some compensation. That was 2012 and I haven’t flown, invested, or had anything to do with the brand since. I cashed in all my ISA’s and closed accounts, their behaviour was nothing short of disgusting.
During COVID BA held about £10k of our money in vouchers because they refused to give refunds. I took the double tier point offer as a reward for holding our money hostage for 2 years.
The new offer includes hotel bookings, which would be fine if they didn’t keep cocking up those bookings. On at least two occasions we’ve been given the wrong room. We’ve paid for upgraded rooms and been put in a lower grade. That’s why I’ve started booking flights only and maybe a car to get the DT offer.
We’ve put up with some truly crappy customer service since 2020 and the IT system would be funny if it wasn’t so poor.
Will Sean sit down with his team and review this spiteful announcement as they did with the dog eared bacon sandwiches and over cooked egg brunches? Only time will tell.
We are not particularly wealthy but we do spend circa £25,000 with BA every year. That is not an insignificant sum, so I’m confused why BA now want us to spend over £40k to maintain our status. As you say, what will the figure actually be? How much will not be included in our booking? We could even end up spending £22k or £24k each to get the requisite 20,000 points. Once again, as it was with the tier point year reset, not enough explanation or information for us to plan for future trips.
We’ve already filled our calendar for this year, all with BA. The cost of those trips is just over £23k. We only had to book one more trip to retain our gold status until 2027. Now? God knows what we need to do to retain or gain going forward. If I were one of those poor souls who were very close to GFL I would feel sick. All that “investment” to have the rug pulled from beneath them with only months to go before completing their “mission”.
If I were in their position I’d seriously consider legal action because BA have been pushing us all to gain or retain.
Thank you for supporting us and hopefully we might get somewhere.
Regards
Paul
You articulate my emotions so well That why you are a journalist and I am not A point others have made is the legality of encouraging me to pursue gold for life spending more than prices on other airlines and now dismissing me with BS “you asked for this”
Based near MAN means a connection at BA Now i can fly direct to USA without connecting Friends were always amazed I preferred to waste time connecting Please keep the pressure on
Very well put Michelle. 24 years of status, sometimes easy (JNB commutes), sometimes nudged with non- essential CE. But to BA this was never loyalty, it was, and still is, an annual point scoring competition, other than GFL.
I’ve had enough. From now on it’s rinsing the value from the remaining avios pile and seeking best vfm from wherever – which is unlikely to be BA.
I have been saying for years that British Airways (BA) stands for bloody awful yet the legion of ‘fans’ in the UK have stuck with all they knew and believed the ongoing spin. When you have travelled across the globe for 15 years it doesn’t make one an expert, however the ability to analyze why BA is bloody awful gets easier. The fact it has taken this appalling decision on New Years Eve to finally get people out of their slumber, to some degree is something they didn’t ask for as suggested by BA, but is something you sleep walked into. The politicians in Downing Street would love to get away with policy change as well as this. BA is the worst major airline in the Oneworld alliance on any metric. Virgin is doing its best to get to the same status as BA in the UK with some of their recent decisions, yet there are so many better airlines are on the doorstep. If Avios is the reason to stick with BA then open a Privilege Club account and use Qatar. Sure they don’t have lifetime, but will it matter when you’re retired. Airline status is becoming less and less relevant these days and I have focused my travels on making sure I have hotel status. More value in a hotel room than a crap lay flat bed on BA across the pond!
Well done Michele.
You summed up the points really well, especially…
Why aim for Silver if you travel in Business anyway – you can buy a lot of seat selections for £7.500!
I used to focus on Oneworld in order to keep Gold, but now will take the opportunity to try other Airlines eg ANA and Air France that have a better product.
Well said Michele.
As one very real and live example, I’ve been GGL for ten years which I earned through my employer-mandated travel – but which I’ve worked to keep up over the last five years in retirement through my own personal travel spending being focused on BA.
This travel spending choice was often uneconomic as it could be found cheaper on other airlines with the same safety records and schedules. So this was an emotional decision and is a great example of good marketing (and a good loyalty scheme) at work.
With the proposed changes, not only does the ability to retain GGL or possibly even Gold for my wife (as I’m GFL already) become economically impossible, but it also becomes emotionally impossible as this plus Brunchgate makes me think BA is run by a bean counter somewhere in a BA basement who has absolutely no clue how important the loyalty emotions are of any ticket purchase decision – an emotional loyalty that frankly has kept BA thriving in recent years when the competition offers better service and prices.
As a result of both of the above, my new years flights sales purchases for my 2025 travel has now for the first time in years opened up non-BA flight options – that’s £30k between our family in BA spending that’s just gone as yes, I’m finding there are great options outside BA when you’re not tied by the emotion and rewards of maintaining GGL.
And for those very few naysayers in this chat saying the BA decision is a good one for them, what you’re failing to realise is that BA have taken a hammer to crack a nut and whilst your lounges and cabins maybe be emptier from next year, you’ll soon find fewer lounges, staff and flight options to enjoy a year after that, as BA’s focus on a high margin low volume business in an industry that survives only with volume will come home quickly to roost.
BA you can save this, but you’ve seriously only got a few days to change your mind, as for me it’s already ByeByeBA.
Excellent post. I’m in pretty much the same position – GGL and GFL – and will be heading elsewhere once the former runs out. If the McKinsey team really think that £40k for the CCR and a couple of jokers is good value, they really ought to be sent back to school and told to sit on the naughty step.
Spot on Michele! I was not too far off from reaching GFL but now I will give it up as I’d have to spend a ridiculous amount of money to qualify. I have been GGL for the past 10 years and have booked BAH to the US in F to retain GGL for next year but it is also to see a dear friend so I will go ahead with it and pray they will continue to do soft landings (GGL to Gold, Gold to Silver) at which point it makes no sense to fly with BA any longer unless price/value justifies it (the loyalty concept will be removed entirely if they go ahead as planned as I am not prepared to spend 40K/year).
Thank you Michelle…beautifully written and well said. Living in Jersey, we always have to do the double hop to LHR or LGW to catch our connecting flights so BA has naturally been our airline of choice for many years. With the changes announced, our only other option is EasyJet but at least with them, you get what you pay for. Let’s hope Sean reads your letter and responds favourably.
Totally and wholeheartedly agree with this. Goodbye BA.
Would love some advice on which loyalty schemes to move to moving forward as an alternative.
I am cabin crew at BA. There are a lot of us who commute (not on staff travel but paid for trips and achieve (probably, mainly) silver but a good number of gold. So, there is internal kick back to these changes as well because being booted from current levels affects other aspects of the journey that we all – you and us – need (not just lounges if there is a 4 hour wait for the flight home)
But this like a list of things I can’t be bothered to recite here, is something we are told by beaming smiley management that it’s being done because “customer’s asked for it,”
When? Sean? When did we ask for these and other changes that are not working out. (Like the new pre departure service in First – what a shambles.)
Let’s be honest that the surprise was that BA took longer than others to make these changes. Finding a better program might not be possible but I will be like a hawk on this site looking for advice. My commute is jointly Madrid and Copenhagen depending on the husband and the season.
I do disagree with Michele’s statement that (we) stood by BA during covid. That was not out of loyalty but because BA was the only one going to those Greek islands all day every day 200 people out 200 people back for weeks and months on end. (Let’s not fight about that and what is and what is not loyalty.) Loyalty only counts when there are 100 reasons not to be.
BA is a mess of a place and this is just this week’s drama. It isn’t the right thread to talk about all of those issues but it is enough to say that BA is incapable of achieving A Better BA because what is required to really get to that stage is just not in the corporate genes. BA makes money for IAG that is apparently spent on Iberia. I haven’t got specific facts to back that up but Madrid is my commute and just from crew perspective I can see what they have to work with, their equipment and their set up and lots of small things crew might notice ahead of others and they have it. We don’t and we won’t get it either.
Now we have all lost out again.
Great email Michelle!
BA have become tone deaf to the wants of it’s customers since Cruz started competing with Easyjet.
I have recently qualified for GGL through a 50/50 mixture of business and leisure trips. My wife also qualified for Gold through booking her own flights to travel with me on some of the business flights as well as the leisure ones.
In principal, I have no issue with the spend based system!
What I do have an issue with is the unfairness being applied. I also am concerned that there will be no improvement in any of their mediocre services, either on the ground or in the air?
I have been on over 80 flights this year, some weeks as many as 8 flights across the globe. My GGL status has never been recognised by anyone, my Group 0 has never been beneficial as they always shout 0 & 1 at the same time, if they every shout it at all. Concorde Room is great, but not exceptional.
But after 80 flights, 6500 Tier Points in the year and multiple £10’000s of spend, I just don’t think its value for money.
1) I had my travel booked to retain my GGL for this year, but some after June so this now falls under the new system so won’t be measured in the same way.
2) We have some very big family holidays coming up this year, but 3 main international trips. Given my personal travel outside of these holidays I would have retained my GGL, my wife would have retained her Gold and my daughter retained her Silver. Under the new rules (bearing in my no decision made about soft landing) even spending the £35k budget, I will drop to Silver as will my wife and my daughter will retain hers as it only equates to 11500 points each because of the equal sharing of spend across all travellers.
3) There have been lots comments about this being a result of the popularity of tier point runs, and gaming the system, however they have created a new game with the BA Holidays which will result in how much can you spend on a holiday as a single traveller and then get the other holidaymakers to book their own flights as cheap as they can.
I think they have deliberately dropped this when they did to ascertain the fallout whilst senior management were unavailable to comment. This should give them some wiggle room to adjust/correct course. I hope they take it!
Heaven help them if we have another pandemic, because I won’t be there to help them out the hole they were in this time around!
Thank you Michele. A brilliant letter. Let’s hope Sean Doyle reads it and takes some action. Unless there is any change to the proposed scheme, I will not even try to achieve any status after being a GCH for the last ten years. Good luck
Thank you so much for eloquently capturing my feelings of incredulity, dismay and betrayal.
It’s very amusing how for some people this has evolved into a full blown class war. The same people who regret working class people and women being given the vote seem to think the BA club ( great name btw -must have taken a lot of thought) is an extension of the Bullingdon Club.
Oh boo hoo
What’s that supposed to mean? Are you 6 years old?
An excellent letter but do you think they will listen?
The brand and the reputation of the company has taken a battering over recent years under various CEOs, with their behaviour during Covid even being questioned in parliament! As I see it, one of the biggest problems in BA is that no one ever seems to take responsibility, or is prepared to be accountable for things that go wrong or could be better; it’s always someone else’s fault and is a culture that seems to permeate through every level of the organisation. They think they’re doing a good job when every else can see they’re not.
In this case, it seems to be the fault of the customers for wanting to use the facilities they’re entitled to. The arrogance towards the paying customer that is creeping in is astounding. e.g. The majority of regular travellers appreciate the role of crew is far more than serving tea & coffee, but this ‘I’m here to save your ass, not kiss it’ attitude that is appearing is a nonsense and has to stop! If someone is paying a premium for premium service – and in the meantime bankrolling the company – why should they not expect it?
It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion.
Brilliant article, I don’t agree it should be fare based. As you say it’s beyond unachievable now for 90% of current members. BA have been beyond stupid once again. They should have stopped the double tier points on holidays a year ago, many of those people don’t actually fly much and still achieved status clogging up lounges with their guests!
I’m angry I already booked flights to Tirana, Madrid and Guatemala with Iberia all in business this year. I had a plan, that no longer exists. I would have been well on my way to silver. I would normally have then booked at least another 4 club flights. The food has been inedible on my last club flights, the drinks you can buy in economy are better quality than club. So what’s the point.
At least I get to try new airlines now 🙂
I’ve had a Gold card since 2022 as after retirement the wife and I started travel in style, we stuck with BA partly due to the loyalty perks but also for convenience. So far we probably have that £20k of travel booked but if I’d knew about the proposed changes maybe we would have looked elsewhere. Living in Norwich it would be far more convenient to take a KLM positioning flight to Schiphol and pick an airline from there. In the future that will no doubt be the case.
I hope it bites BA in the bum.
Hi Rob,
I suspect you will retain gold with BA for less spend under the new scheme if you book a few holidays through BA. You have not mentioned what you do not like about the new changes – can you be specific?
Regards, Shane
Well said Michelle, there customer service has been appalling, I’m still chasing tier points for a paid upgrade which happened in August but we have put up with this and continued to travel BA, 22 flight 2024, some business class, some economy, some long haul and some short hall. We are leisure and family travellers and enjoy travelling, over looking other cheaper airlines or holiday companies. We are both silver but unfortunately our relationship has come to an end with BA, we will use our companion tickets in 2025 and no longer travel BA or pay for Avois points. Hello world, it actually opens the door to other more respectful airlines.
Thank you Michelle! I’d like to add my name to the list of many Silver disgruntled BA customers and one that will stop favouring BA over other airlines. Thankfully I also have high elite status with ITA until the end of next year that gives me very similar perks with Sky team same sin Star Alliance.
Absolutely brilliant Michelle, you’ve put into writing what I’ve been thinking.
BA executives clearly live in another world if they think we’ve been loyal customers due to the product quality.
Other airlines with a better product are often cheaper. The only thing I will miss is First Wing security at T5. Otherwise, I feel liberated to no longer be chasing gold, and can actually enjoy deciding which flight to book based merely on OW and tier points.
I think this letter largely misses the point.
BA has recognised that it needs to round out its supply of services to stay competitive. It has to drive business to its BA holidays business and to other services it may offer. The Tier point system was simply not helping them in this regard. Now it does. Instead of equating apples with oranges, consider how you might get to gold by booking holidays with BA holidays. I will get to gold with about the same spend as I have done in the past and actually I now have more flexibility. For example I can go economy where I went business of first in the past and upgrade my hotel to something really special and collect the same points (or more) than had I spend all the cash on the First/Business class seat.
I now collect Tier points for Amex spends – Are you telling me you cannot force a few big spends onto Amex each year (car, house etc etc)?
BA is giving reward to those who spend most with BA. Where is the lack of fairness in this?
I’m not sure you entirely understand the revised T&C’s wrt bookings with BA Holidays. You, individually, will NOT receive the entire value (thence tier points) of the booking; you will receive just 1/x, where x is the number of passengers in the booking.
Brilliantly written Michelle.
Spot-on, Michelle! I have been a member of the Executive Club since 1981, have flown 620,222+ miles with BA, and am 1,825 Tiers Points short of Gold for Life.
I was expecting to qualify within the next 3 or so long-haul trips, and now I find that I have to spend another £28,000+ to reach the ridiculous target of 550,000 Tier Points.
Like you and most of us commenting, I have no issue with spend-based Avios and Tier-Point collection, but the earning and tier thresholds are now set way too high to encourage us to travel BA in future when the quality of service on other carriers is way ahead of BA.
For my personal travel in my retirement, which is still quite significant, I now have no incentive to choose BA and intend to spend my money on the best carrier on each route. These changes are an affront to the loyalty that we have shown BA when we, personally not our employer, have supported them through good times and bad.
A quick about-face on the thresholds and earning rates, acknowledging their mistake, would save the day for BA, but obfuscation will make matters worse until an inevitable adjustment when profits slide in the years ahead.
A bit harsh to blame double points collectors for jamming up the lounges. Some of us do spend quite a bit with BA but not on flight only deals.
£15k plus for a recent BA long haul holiday to Mauritius. It would have been cheaper to do it myself ex-EU with Qatar and dog-legged the journeys in and out to get the double points. Perversely, I will probably benefit. At least I won’t have to complain to BA about missing points anymore.
P.S. It was tired ‘ying-yang’ seats and the flight home was the crappy scaled down meals. They should have paid me! I have never seen a crew more embarrassed. At least the wife and I got £100 each in compensation when we complained…which we do a lot.
Whilst I understand there is some upset here, I also think there needs to be a bit of balance.
BA is ultimately a commercial company, and they must have decided to target more profitable, higher spending business customers and reward them for their loyalty rather than less profitable, lower spending business customers or leisure customers. It really is their decision, and from my understanding they are not taking anything away now that they promised, just making it harder to get the same benefits in the future. We might not like it, but there we go.
Let’s also be honest and accept that there are some that do try to exploit the system and take advantage of circuitous routings, partner carriers, etc. to get benefits that BA was perhaps not perhaps intending – maybe even highlighted on this very site? So can we really blame them for some of this?
Really? What’s an acknowledged fact is that high-end corporate travel has declined substantially since the C-19 epidemic. And then much of this is going to be via corporate deals involving substantial year-end rebates. The notion that corporates are paying the full fully flexible fare is entirely wishful thinking.
What has grated with me is being told (by Colm Lacey (with no supporting evidence) that “this is what BAEC members wanted…”
Dream on Mr Lacey; you’re about to discover just what tens of thousands of previously loyal (possibly to the point of indulging BA’s under performance) erstwhile BAEC members now think. Such as my decision to book with Swiss for upcoming sectors – notwithstanding my BAEC Silver status.
Thank you Michele, you have summed up our feelings so well and so clearly and calmly.
Michelle, thank you for writing this eloquent and thoughtful letter (on our behalf). I feel that you have summarised everything that needs to be said in a polite, rational and factual way. Thank you.
Bring back Lord King and Sir Colin Marshall who recognized the value of a loyal customer and would never have tolerated this sort of behavior from their lieutenants !
Excellent letter, thank you!
I’m a non-UK-based continuous GCH for over 20 years, flew Concorde back then and went through most of the highs and lows with BA. It’s an outrageous move by BA and destroys trust into the brand completely!
a) the FAQ for the collection period adjustment still reads: “The way Members earn Tier Points through flying with British Airways, our oneworld partners and the Tier Points required to reach each Tier are not impacted by this change.” – turns out to be a blunt lie! (see https://www.britishairways.com/content/executive-club/faqs/tier-point-collection-changes)
b) Many C customers with a short-haul heavy pattern will just achieve Silver, despite exclusively booking premium cabins; basically, BA tells them “sorry, your money is no good here [move on to another Alliance]”…
c) I have a good mix of Cathay in C in my profile – now worth almost nothing; I guess I must be grateful I can still use the First lounges in HKG with BA’s card then!
d) by end of March I’m 2840 points short on Gold for Life -Suddenly I’m asked to spend an additional GBP 45k for this!? Like you write, it’s a risky gamble, as BA might just raise the threshold at will on a 3 month’s notice, or cancel it completely within 6 months (see T&Cs).
e) the soft product, incl. lounge and exec club call centre is on a constant decline – at the moment there is just hope it will improve, yet zero assurance. If BA had a service level like CX or JL, I could better understand a 20k spending threshold – but like this?!
Gosh Michele, I wish I could write as eloquently as that. I feel Sean really has to reply: to not do so would be a real insult. And hopefully, not with more ChatGPT generated guff.
This is actually the first time I post here, and that is because this really bothers me.
I am in the small minority of people who would likely be able to retain Gold even with the £20k spend requirement, as I travel a lot for business.
I am, however, eminently pissed off at this. The new thresholds are an insult, and the manner and timing of the communication was callous and superbly uncaring.
My wife, and many friends, would now struggle to even qualify for Silver.
Flying regularly with other airlines (I have Star Alliance Gold as well), I have come to understand how poor the BA experience has become over the years. Now I really have no reason to keep using them. I am taking my £20k elsewhere and will gladly go out of my way to avoid BA and Heathrow. And as I have control over how other people fly, I will also do my very best to make them avoid BA and LHR (not that they will mind, as that airport has caused most of us a lot of grief over the years) so kiss goodbye to an additional couple of tens of thousands of pounds in revenue from that too. I am a stubborn man, and I don’t take being messed with like this lightly.
Oh, and by the way, do not underestimate the fallout on the wider UK economy. I am not UK-based, and using BA also meant additional thousands of pounds flowing into the country (hotels, restaurants, taxis, goods, etc.). That’s quite a bit of money.
God I am pissed.
A well written letter that explains the difference between a Reward scheme and a Loyalty scheme.
I’ve always been aware I’m not the best earning customer for BA – I get Gold each year, but that’s mostly by choosing carefully planned trips and crediting non-BA flights. I’d have accepted revenue based earnings if it was reasonable. But the way this is done turns me from an active promoter to an active hater.
There were two questions in the regular BA customer surveys you used to get that really are stuck in my head at the moment – “BA is an airline I’m proud to say I fly” and ” BA is an airline for people like me”. I don’t think I could answer with a more resounding NO to those and it leads to real customer anger.
I’ve just booked my first United Airlines flight today. Yes, it probably would have made more sense to use my status whilst I’ve got it to get free seat booking on BA, but I’m truly far more interested in making a point and trying something new.
PS. IS there any way to write to Exec Club direct? All the contact options seem to require you to be complaining about a specific flight in order to contact them. I could have sworn there was a general feedback option that seems to have vanished…..
So well said! It is not the fact that they have moved to revenue based tier levels but the fact it is unachievable especially if you are mainly flying short haul economy. (and why would you book club to get the same seat?) For me flying from a regional airport there are better options so i will be looking a these options more actively now especially when i loose silver and have to pay for seat selection for 4 flights each in club which can cost over £400 per person on top of the expensive ticket. I can get this for free ot a lot cheaper with other airlines. I really dont think they realise how much they have shot themselves in the foot,
Thanks for this. It echos my thoughts. We flew Emirates first class to Australia, loved it TBH, but said next time we’d fly BA to retain tier points. That’s gone now, Emirates was WAY better than BA and now the choice for us has been removed.
So well written Michelle, it’s no longer a loyalty program is a paid for status program. I chose BA many times for work trips knowing that the service was far inferior to other airlines but still made the effort. The challenge is that in the UK the offer is limited from other airlines. BA’s message was tone deaf and with terrible timing. I am just hope soft landing doesn’t go away, as this will be the nail on the coffin.
Thank you Michelle! A brilliant letter.
Well said . excellent summary of how to destroy Loyalty . Are BA using the same insane advisors as Jaguar. How to dump the many customers who have stuck with you despite your many mistakes in the product.
Perhaps BA like Jaguar only want the upper tier customers, but then as with Jaguar there are many other competitors who dominate that space.
A Gerald Ratner moment I think.
thank you ! this letter encapsualtes everything perfectly. as a BAEC member since 2000, and Gold Card Holder consistantly since 2008, i am beyond appalled. but this was not totally un-expected. i have begun flying on Qatar Airways, that offers actual value for the money for their service. BA is now a cartoon version of itself. From cost-cutting, to appaling service, over crowded lounges and quite frankly crap seats on the dreamliners, for which i pay £2700+ every time i have to fly from India and served a cold roll on a 9hr overnight flight, since one one wants a frickin’ curry at 3 am… BA’s slide down the ladder has finally reached rock bottom. Im most curious to see how the passengers “who wanted this” actually spend …
Excellent article. So well articulated and our sentiments conveyed brutally and honestly. BA has messed up big time and needs to review its policy changes. Loyalty ought to be rewarded not discarded. I for one will be less inclined to travel on BA. Hello Emirates, care to step up an improve your loyalty card offering? I’d be happy to change my loyalty to you.
I was annoyed at first when i saw this news, but over the recent years being a GCH almost means nothing.
Lounges are over crowded, half the flight is group 1 when boarding and you’re just another person on the plane. I’m one of many that does multiple legs to boost my tier points and i always knew i was cheating the system.
Gold should be an elite status and should i be able to retain again by next April then I know i’ll be part of an elite club. Let’s not forget that Silver is easily achievable and has about 90% of the same perks as Gold
While I share the sentiment, it was BA who made the choice to de-value BAEC Gold further with double tier points. I am not happy with the lounge situation, nor am I happy with prio boarding, like you. Still, there is a big difference between evolving the system to close loopholes and announcing such a fundamental change on December 30th with a 3-month notice! As Michele stated, it’s now very difficult knowing if you make Gold or not in advance. With a GBP 20k spend on flights alone – forget about BA holidays, most cannot book hotels over BA for business related travel – the programme is now in a completely different league than it ever was. And what do you get in return for your membership in an “elite club” – watching the mice running in the First Lounge at T5, as they certainly feel more comfortable with less PAX present? BA should have shown, or at least announced a massive quality initiative prior raising the bar that high. Throwing 20k at BA is like buying a pig in a poke – you hope it will turn out good, but it might be just the same you had for considerably less after all…
Absolute disgust. Thank you for compiling an excellent statement.
A big decision now !!
Close BA LGW….might as well, nil respect for leisure ….or call it BA Bucket & Shove it
Even Danair were better than the outfit called BA….older enough to remember Danair !!
An eloquent message but will it change anything, I hope so
One issue that led to many retaining Gold and the reported ‘Over Crowding’ was double tier points from BAH
The British Airways Holidays twist on this should not be under estimated.
How may of us have elected to book a flight with a car or Hotel to visit a NEW destination, and occasionally benefited from the Double Tier points and associated Avios, BUT we should NOT overlook the buy Now and Pay 30 days before benefit
We were looking at a Easter break and BAH was the obvious option, as a result our options are different with Hotel loyalty offering interesting rates and we may fly BA ‘IF’ the timings suit BUT would NO longer work around BA as we always did
BAH have lost an edge as a result of this change… Unfortunately BAH like the “Executive” in the Club name will become a thing of the past as the core will No Longer value it..
Hello,
I’m a “NON-UK-Member”.
As such, you never received DTP on BAH (I had quiet a conversation abt that with BAEC!) and we don’t profit of any CC’s- Avios either, as we don’t receive their Cards or Vouchers.
I have been a GCH since 2013, now.
Now they tell me, abt. “how easy it is to earn more TP’s”.
This is absolutely ridiculous!
And by the way… they just LIED abt. the fact, that EVERYTHING will change, when they told us, the new “Tier Point Year will be adjusted” for all members.
I found it suspicious already, back then.
I mean… not everybody did some “TP- Runs”, so it was given already, that a few Ppl would drop down in the Status.
But cutting the Avios earned on each Flight wasn’t enough!
No, let’s drop the Status for All, or at least rise the Borders!
Thank you VERY MUCH, BA….DON’T.
As a Non-UK- but EU- RESIDENT, I will fly now the cheapest and BEST Airline, availabe.
This is what you get by being loyal to an Airline for years.
Thanks God, I don’t have to go via LHR anymore, now and am not bonded to ONE Airline, anymore.
It has been nice (especially with your Crews), but that’s past.
Thankfully, we didn’t book our (“Real”-) First Class Flights to Asia already, when the Announcement came, but we did meanwhile.
And NO, it is NO OW-Airline, anymore, even if it was more pricey.
Yes BA- even “other Mother’s have pretty daughters”!
Chapter BA and OW is now history, as I’ve been disappointed Years ago, AY didn’t. service my Home Airport after a very short Period, anymore.
Then Covid came, I booked a lot of Flights with BA (always First), just to find out, the Flights to/from my Home Airport always got canxt a frew days after Booking.
I supported BA by accepting those Vouchers and had a huge Amount of Credit with them.
I used the last Credit for a Flight in First with my wife.
And as a “Thank you” as BAEC GHC over years, they want me to be a Bronze or whatever.
Thank you, but NO thank you, BA!
I really hope for you and all “more important” and remainig Members of the “New CBA”, that your Lounges will get and remain EMPTY, your Airline won’t be “bothered” by too may umimportant Customers and that you won’t need so much Staff, anymore who wants to be paid.
Maybe, you better close down some Routes already?
This will be the Result very soon, anyways.
Good Luck, BA. A pitty for your Staff, but a final relief for some “unimportant and disturbing Mainland-Crap (formerly known as loyal Customers)”.
Needless to say, that I won’t step on British Ground, again.
This action by BA further reinforces my view that British Airways is the least customer-focused business of any I know. Indeed they seem to have a cynical and disparaging attitude to their customers. A simply appalling company that none of us should have any dealings with going forward. Shame on you Sean Doyle.
Brilliantly written and at the risk of redundancy…… I agree Michelle’s letter hits it out of the park AND DEFINITELY SPEAKS FOR ME, so listen up BA!!
I am a BA gold member who has lost all hope and need for BA all within 24 hours of reading their article. I live in the United States and believe me keeping BA status is not easy here especially the four segment requirements. I realize that’s not the major changes but moving to Spend based levels at such outrageous requirements will not be happening. ESPECIALLY when I can and will fly my much preferred airlines of Qatar or emirates or even the lowly Delta, all serving the international routes I fly.
I suppose it’s been a decent run for many years at British Airways gold, but no more!! You have truly shafted your customers with this one
GGL here. Exec Club for 15 years. Both living in London and now Los Angeles.
Done with BA. Been loyal for years. Better airlines. Better programs that will reward my CC spend – my US BA card spend is massive – and my flying. Scrapping the lot.
Bye BA, was fun whilst it lasted
Excellent article Michele. I’m looking forward to hearing which airline programme you recommend for the future as I have always struggled to keep silver, being retired, but always managed it. With the current changes I won’t be able to.
As an American who kept my status for international travel, flying BA or its partners, albeit even if it were inconvenient, thank you for liberating my need to fly on your airline. Switching to Delta will involve a few entanglements to effect the switchover though it will be easier in the long run.
Don’t confuse me with the BA CEO as I have the same listname & suname as him.
This is a great open letter with which I wholeheartedly agree. My incentive to still go with BA, despite their gradual slimming down of in-flight perks over the years, has now diminished. Unless I get the odd cheap flight from London City Airport, I will opt for other airlines.
Brilliantly written. “When is a LOYALTY scheme not a loyalty scheme?”. As a leisure traveller with my OH/son, it’s not £7.5k spend to get to Silver – it’s x3 so £22.5k. I’m not prepared to commit to chasing that at the start of the year, so my loyalty is gone!
If the only people left that can achieve status are the ones that spend huge amounts (so get all the benefits as part of their paid ticket anyway) what exactly is the point??
Ah, chasing status, so pointless (pun intended)
This decision sums up BA Management. Lamming, Doyle and Tremble (Comms and HR) are ruining the business.
In the same way that they try and sell this new Executive ‘Club’ as a benefit,they write emails to the staff internally the same way – staff feel hated by BA, why wouldn’t the same treatment come to customers ?
During COVID BA took significant ££££ from the staff, especially the pilots. now the company is making £2bn, they don’t even want to pay a bonus. The company has totally demotivated its front line staff to make profit for shareholders, this is so true and BA appears to have no interest in it :-
“Employee experience and customer experience are deeply connected. Engaged, satisfied employees directly impact customer satisfaction in numerous ways through their interactions, effort, emotions, values alignment, problem-solving skills, team dynamics, tools, and a continuous learning mindset.“
I haven’t read all the comments above but, even though it doesn’t really affect me as I have a lifetime Lufthansa Senator status, Mes & More only last year did the opposite to BA: They moved to a tier point system based on class of travel and distance (continental vs intercontinental). Very simple and, while more difficult to achieve Gold (let alone HON) status, simple, predictable and honest. And status would still be achievable.
I just got BA Gold status after moving to the UK and wanted to at least keep silver, but will not consider status any more. I always fly at least Business Class so the status isn’t really of any huge importance.
So at least my (new) loyalty has already been lost again. Strange result for a loyalty program…
Michelle
as all have said – you hit it spot on!
I was gobsmacked when I saw that out of the blue my years invested and loyalty were binned!
Although GGL for 7 odd years – and yes BA did renew me without achieving tier points level required – I wouldnt make it anyway as my flying is less than the weekly commute I was doing in the TLV route and as we know since last September they cancelled my flights and even if I wanted to rebook theres no telling if and when they will reinstate and if they do if I can rely on them . Even if they do it stops in Lanarca and is now Euroclub with much reduced tier points
However its the end of the road with BA and time to burn my large Avios balance
During Covid, many flights were cancelled.. flights that I have paid in advance, at least 6 return airtix. As a loyal BA customer, I have decided to sit on it, not asking for refunds, for more than 2 years… it got so late that their system deleted my bookings, and the staffs had to use a different system to check and refund my airtix. Now with this announcement, you’re right, I will no longer try to stick with BA and gold… it’ll be whatever airlines that can offer the best price in biz for me. I fly a fair bit to the Far East..
I joined the BAEC after AirBerlin went bankrupt in 2017. Achieved Gold ever since and luckily they announced the changes early so I can adjust my 2025 bookings which will be done next week accordingly. I will shift to Qatars Privilege Club and will reach One World Emerald by September at the latest. The requalification with BA till April 26 is basically useless now, so i will transfer my Avios to Qatar as well. I am flying 8 to 10 times a year from Europe to Africa, the Middle East and Asia (plus sometimes Australia) all in biz and wasn´t really happy with the completely overpriced BA Avio redemptions (taxes are way too expensive and points needed were increasing constantly). My other experiences with BA were predominantly good ( I encountered really nice flight attendants and I like the Club Suite) but changing a rewards program so massively deserves no loyalty. Bye, bye BA, it was a good time!
Well written, thanks. You might underestimate the antipathy towards BA that this will create. I live overseas and there are only two airlines that fly direct from here to the UK. One is the national carrier, which is always overpriced, and the other is BA for whose dreadful service, poor cabins, and packaged brunches I’m not willing to pay. Instead, I’ll fly the ME3 and have a nice shower during the layover. In over 4.5 years I’ve not flown BA back to the UK once. With the gutting of BAEC, I don’t see that changing ever.
I think that’s the last BA press junket you’ll be attending for a while, Michelle!
I’m just speechless about the arrogance shown by BA towards their most loyal base of customers. LHG just moved away from a spent-based program – where I hold Senator for many years – while raising the bar slightly, like getting rid of the two-year validity (to be transparent, in my “dead year” I moved quite a bit of flights to BA to collect the GUF vouchers). Not everyone was amused, but the changes were announced a year prior, so everyone could take time and decide what to do. What does BA? In violation of their terms giving a 3 month’s notice on December 30th!
I got to like BA because they had a superior C product in the early 2000s, so I did countless segments in the 747 upper deck, even if it meant changing at dreadful LHR, especially prior T5. But back then, the program was indeed stellar, like “Open Doors”! I could use the lounge despite not travelling on BA. And they had excellent customer service: I remember when my meeting got cancelled and I wanted to return early, calling exec club to both change and try to apply a 24h upgrade to F prior going to bed. When I woke up, I sat in F on the next available flight! A “Golden Ticket” for that agent was given by me. But if I recall the recent years though, I have only negative stories to share – the outsourced customer service agents just don’t care any more, and the “general feedback” form magically disappeared as well from their webpage, being replaced by a postal address, to which a wrote, but never got any reply.
Not only are they still having the utterly outdated Club World on the B789, but are even lowering the quality of their “soft product” further and further, so the new Club Suite is no joy from that aspect. Why should I spend 6k for a C ticket, if I get much better service with other carriers? And why should I book discounted C with BA, if the company doesn’t honour the loyalty, unless I spent 20k p.a. net with them overall? To hit the 20k with BA for sure, I could throw in a paid F flight, but compared to other carriers the experience is so utterly bad, I certainly won’t do that. Hotels through BA Holidays? Sorry, no again, I would need to give up my other perks.
I just checked how much I spent for travelling over all carriers in 2024, and it was well more than double of the new spending threshold for Gold. But will BA get my business going forward? Hell no! But I’ll make Emerald with another carrier, just to check if the lounge situation does improve after all…
Thanks for articulating the general feelings so well! Interested on an article re your recommendations for alternative airlines/loyalty schemes.
One change I expected was a review if the tier points. Travelling long haul in business I always considered 140TP a joke. With some smart routing, you could get these for about £10 / TP. On short haul and medium haul routes you would pay £200 for 40TP or sometimes 80TP, making the cost £5 / TP. Sadly, my history of long haul travel with expensive Tier points don’t give me any advantage transitioning to the new system. I think cutting short and medium business TP to 20 and 40 respectively would have been a reasonable move and leaving the overall targets in place. The crazy thing now is, the equivalent cost has gone up to about £15 by my estimates with the oversll needed for gold increased by 20% and GGL by 30%.
Am I mistaken or could one expensive holiday in the maledives basically land you gold, where £2000 is your flight and £18000 is your hotel?
I am considering if giving up marriott and IHG status privileges might be an option, shifting my hotel spending to BA holidays so I can keep my GGL. If it’s not enough, I got Gold for life so… If I can’t retain GGL there is no incentive left to pick BA. GGL for life seems out of reach now, I was expecting to hit that within the next 5-8 years. But screw it. I rather buy a holiday home on a lake with that money and fly easyjet.
Spot on! I just hope Sean will see this letter.
Many of BA’s cabin crew and pilots also regularly commute to work on the BA planes, achieving silver and maybe Gold status.
That’s going to end for many of them now, choosing cheaper airlines or using the cheaper standby fares. Is such a badly designed scheme.
The anger against BA is immense both inside the company, as well as outside.
Firstly Michele, thank you for writing such a heart felt, imposing and completely honest piece.
I do hope for the benefit of BA that Sean reads this and that you get the response you and the rest of us deserve.
As someone who joined the travel industry in 1985 at aged 15, I get the impression that Sean is surrounded and cushioned by his top team, many led by spreadsheets and algorithms without a true understanding of customer service or loyalty other than what has been learnt in a text book or in a lecture at Uni. I would love to know how many senior execs at BA over the age of 35/40 signed this off. I guess, not many!
BA obviously had to do something, but OMG this is way over the top. As you say Michele BA customers are not idiots and should not be treated as so. Do they realise this is not a simple supermarket loyalty scheme and the aviation and travel industry is quite complex, BUT there are many experts, like yourself and many others, not just employed in the top team at Waterside (BA).
BA, please, please take a long hard look at yourselves. Listen to your real customers and industry experts, like Michele, you are so close to having it right but sadly miss on a few things, as well as the Exec Club now.
Please recruit Michele or someone similar on your top team, along with a small random selection of bloggers, it might refocus your direction away from what feels like a very closed blinkered and negative corporate spreadsheet culture. I don’t know but it just feels like a load of inexperienced and highly academic board members ‘computer says no’.
BA, I urge you to bring the life back to all cabins, especially a little protein to the starter on long haul economy flights. Bring back the protein! Vege’s will order vege meals! Add £5 a ticket to sort the dire long haul food offering.
Thank you Kevin. BA did actually used to employ some very frequent flyers as consultants but I don’t believe they do that now. I honestly don’t know why they just rely on surveys as you can lead people into saying anything you want but it won’t warn you when you get it dreadfully wrong.
Very well said Kevin 🙂 Let’s all ask BA to do what he suggests !
WHERE’S SEAN ?
Did he reply?
(Scouring Heathrow for a red & white stripey top)
It was emailed directly to Sean and the relevant senior managers. So far deafening silence despite it also being featured in the national press.
The opportunity to earn on BA holidays is a complete gimmick. Unless you live in London, most of us prefer to travel direct from our local airport, and it is pretty useless to those not living in the UK (but perhaps they want to remind everyone that they are London’s airline, not Britain’s). I think this decision highlights the problems of modellers sitting in an office calculating revenue flows etc. It is short-termist fails to reflect the fact that loyalty is more than just how much one spends in a particular year, and can be built up over years and years, but destroyed overnight. Also, the way it has been introduced, including absurd thresholds, fails to read the room at a time when the airline industry is already raking in record profits, and customer satisfaction is at an all time low.
I’d say BA is just tired of it’s Customers.
Pretty sure, they won’t step back.
I just a received a mail of their “January Offers”, a few Minutes ago for my Country of Residence.
I stopped their Email- Offers.
BA is a huge Disappointment meanwhile, but nothing more.
As they don’t honour Members of their BAEC (and they “rebrand” it’s Program), I won’t honour BA anymore when it comes to Flight Bookings.
Maybe I’d have another POV, if I’d live in the UK, but I don’t, so at the Mainland, the Choice is plenty- and it became wonderful w/o any Strings.