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BA reduced tier point update
I wrote a lot prior to Christmas about the 25% reduction for tier points provided you completed the reduced points threshold by 31 December 2022. British Airways said that they would not be updating the status of those that gained a renewal this way until after 31 December 2022. If you gained an upgrade to a new tier then it should have shown at the time.
For those that are panicking that the renewal is still not showing, it would appear from all the comments I have seen that BA has either not started updating people’s renewals yet or has only got a small way through. So patience may be needed!
If you HAVE received a renewal to your status based on the reduced threshold in 2022, let us know in the comments below.
Three “re-considering roaming”
I had already heard from an inside source that Three were looking at bringing back free roaming. I’m not surprised as virtually everyone I know that had the roaming contract with Three has left as their contract ended. Even if you were on the old contract and just switched over to monthly, they will contact you to say they can no longer provide that contract. I got the email just before Christmas, and unsurprisingly I have just cancelled my contract with them. I’m guessing that 02 has picked up a lot of new customers recently…
On the chat, the agent also confirmed that they are reviewing what they do about roaming as well, so for those that have stuck with Three, you may soon be getting roaming back.
If you are looking for a new provider with roaming, you can read Sylvie’s summary here.
I went for O2 since they had better coverage in my local area. They have some good 24 month deals in the sale if you are in the market for a contract. I got 75GB a month for £18 a month with the first 3 months half price. I also should be getting £30 cashback on top from Topcashback (premium member).
I have also been using Airalo for countries that Three doesn’t cover which you can read about in Callum’s article here. It is definitely much cheaper than paying per day through your mobile. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s an e-sim that can be used with most modern phones (you use it in addition to your current sim). You simply choose the country you are visiting and select a set amount of data that you want.
Here we go again – Malaysia reintroduces Covid checks
While many countries are introducing Covid testing for arrivals from China, Malaysia has gone one step further. They have introduced temperature checks on all travellers, not just those from China. I’d suspect that this is because it would be complicated to just screen those on Chinese flights. However, given that medical experts have said all along that temperature screenings have very limited uses given how many people are asymptomatic or may not have a fever, it seems pointless.
Travellers with a fever, or who are otherwise symptomatic, or who have travelled to China within the previous 14 days must take a rapid antigen test at the airport. Those testing positive will be required to isolate at home or, in moderate to severe cases, may be referred to a local health facility. The FCDO page has been updated with the information.
So if you are considering Malaysia for a trip, you may want to bear that in mind.
50 comments
The roaming one is interesting as I too had the same. I gained an O2 sim via my Virgin broadband but found that the speed limiting it does when abroad, especially in the US make it pretty unusable so it will be going when the year is up. It can be better sometimes to buy the monthly travel data packs depending on how often you are away or the e-sim if your phone can take it.
Yes I have seen about the speed throttling but to be honest the sort of thing I use it for is normally maps and messaging so not to bothered. But it’s a good point. All depends what you use it for.
My silver was renewed on 1/1.
I use airalo too – and my current contract on phone is with ID
Mobile (3 network) and I get 80Gb with EU roaming for £10 a month – on a 1 month contract.
That’s a good deal. The 02 ones I mentioned include the US and various other countries but they do cheaper deals for EU roaming. I kind of feel I don’t want to use anything to do with 3!
Just back from the US. I used airalo for the first time this trip. I had seen it briefly mentioned on other sites with little detail. After I saw your article, I decided to give it a try as it was on my list of potential kit anyway. Worked well. My only nitpick is that when setting it up before I left, it wasnt *exactly* clear the esim was installed as it was labelled Çellular Data’by default. It did work well for the data I needed, if a little slow at times. All in all, happy with the product for the sum I paid.
That’s good to hear!
I too left three after 18 years with them and joined O2. I have a 20GB deal which includes roaming in Europe for £8. I am finding though that I am using a lot more data with O2 despite the fact that I do not use it as much as I did with three? I would happily go back to three if they reintroduce free roaming!
I wonder if it’s to do with speed throttling? How have you found the speed abroad?
I was awarded gold as soon as I hit the threshold. Was painless
Ditto
i recieved an email telling me i had another year of gold to look forward to earlier today. i finished on exactly 1125 tp’s so qualified through the lowered threshold offer.
Hi Michele, flew back to U.K. on 28th, tier points and u/g to silver posted on the 1st – just waiting for the bonus TP’s to come through.
Ditto.
Got my GGL as soon as I hit the threshold, delighted as it’s the first time I’ve managed this!
I received gold notification in early November (cut off 8/11) at 1080 plus 80 extra in the double points offer ascribed to the following year.
PS I did this to be helpful but you have still not saved my email address and it has been that way since the redesign!
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I know you are frustrated but the tech guys can’t see a reason why it’s happening and so far you are the only person to have the issue that I’m aware of. I don’t know what else to try at the moment. Have you tried using a different browser in case that’s part of the issue?
Got my silver upgrade mid December on the same day I hit the tier threshold
I reached the reduced gold threshold in October and was notified by email immediately. For once a smooth and painless experience with BA.
I’ve told Three that I’m out if they change mine because I refuse to be lied to by any company I patronise. We shall see…
That was my rationale to leave. They said they were keeping roaming and then didn’t. Very foolish move. They could have just kept EU roaming and that probably would have retrained most people
As ever my account is a mess. My friends silver to gold promotion was seamless. My gold renewal is still pending. My last BA holiday has been posted as 2 flights and an avios for an Avis car hire (the 160 bonus TP have not been applied and I’ve been back for over a week. I still crossed the 1125 threshold without them but still not renewed
Our gold status was done within a week or so mid December.
I have 580 points and a 8th Jan tier collection year end. I had all tier points by end of 2022 and am still waiting on my silver renewal to happen. I’m actually a little worried given I only have 4 days to go, and no real opportunity to collect the extra 20 if they are needed. I may ring BA and see what they say.
Your card is valid until 28 Feb so you have some time to sort it out. You are not alone. Lots of people have not had the renewal come through.
I wouldn’t put too much faith in something a Three CS advisor states – it’s unlikely they will know much about corporate decisions and is just trying to stop people leaving (which is the prime function of the retentions team)
I’ve heard that from someone else that works at Three as I mentioned in the article. Given the amount of people I know that have left Three it’s not surprising.
Surprising that bo one has commented on the Malaysia news as evidence of a slippery slope back into the ‘air travel is the bogeyman’ situation of the lockdown years. It’s the same schtick that sees air teavel demonised from an emissions perspective despite making up a relatively tiny proportion of overall emissions. And of course, there’s no viable current alternative to jet fuel whereas the same can’t be said for say the vast emissions created from road haulage, the production of ‘fast fashion’, the forever-on lights of city office blocks, etc.
It is worrying as you’d hope that countries would have learned the lessons from the pandemic. I do think the whole China action is very political and primarily based on the fact they are blatantly lying about their Covid cases.
And I totally agree about air travel being demonised by the climate change lobby. It’s a very easy target as it’s seen as elite which ignores the effect that low cost airlines have had on people taking more short breaks due to cheap flights and that’s definitely not the elite flying Ryanair!
It’s not one individual thing that a person does, it’s the sum of things from how many children you have, your car, your diet, what you buy for your home and clothes plus many many more things. Plus how companies behave. Even if the whole planet stopped flying now, it would do virtually nothing to stop the climate crisis.
Well said! And planes are only getting cleaner and more efficient. Same can’t be said for production of disposable goods forever shifting onwards to the lowest common denominator jurisdiction in terms of environmental laws, labour laws, health and safety, etc.
A shame I am abroad for the January party as I could bore everyone there with my strident views 🙂
You’ll have to bore them next time 😉
Oops, just booked our intra Asia flights from hkt to dps to hkt via kul… hopefully, it will remain at temperatures checks only… or we might be cancelling the whole Asia trip a day before. They should be demanding negative PCRs from all Chinese flights anyway… let’s see what develops over the next few days…
Take a thermometer with you!
I have had a subscription with Vodafone for years. I pay £22.47 per month for 20GB which I can use freely in the EU and for in the rest fo the world for £6 a day. I never ever seem to get even close to using the full 20GB. I thought that was an OK deal. Having said this reading various comments I may not be having a good deal after all. Is this the case? Would love feedback from the readers.
My Gold was renewed well before 31 Dec when I had achieved 1125 Tier Points.
I have just tried Airalo for the first time in Antigua. They claim that I used my 1 Gb allowance in 10 hours, when I only picked up e-mails, looked at the BBC website and used Waze for 30 minutes: no streaming, no videos, no documents. I am afraid that I cannot believe their claim. I bought a local simcard and won’t use Airalo again. In Asia particularly I recommend the data cards offered by Simcorner UK. When I had difficulty in Nepal they provided a full refund, even though I had some service. In India and Bangladesh it worked perfectly last month.
But I agree about 3; I really missed it passing through New York last week.
Having not flown in a long time I took a BA holiday at the end of November and a couple of local tier points runs in mid November and December to amass 450 points including the holiday bonus, which was awarded about 2 weeks after I flew.
I am pleased to say it all went to plan and I recovered my long gone silver status in mid December. Thanks BA 🙂
My silver was upgraded in late December
My gold renewed on 9th Dec (8th Dec earning year end) with 1145 tier points.
My Gold was confirmed end of November @1125pts, renewal date Feb 23, so it was well in time.
I use Vodafone business, with a £5 a day whilst traveling bundle. Now I have started using e-sim from Maya, all good so far.
Alan
I upgraded from silver to gold executive club early December after I did a tier point run to Edinburgh as I only needed 50 points. The reduction was super helpful!
Also upgraded to Silver with no fuss. Flew Porto > Madrid on Iberia on 27/12, TP arrived on 30/12 and upgrade processed right away with BA email in inbox on 30/12.
My family of three are going to leave three network. Because the no free roaming any more. Especially, we are using roaming USA, Europe and Asia and Australia. There were very good free roaming in there. Now , we are no point stay with Three network.
I just got an e-mail saying I have renewed under the reduced threshold. App not showing this update but I suspect a large number of e-mails may have gone out as I cannot log into ba.com and it tells me the site is very busy at the moment…
Just received (05-Jan @16:08) an email from BA confirming my status retention for another year, my online account doesn’t yet reflect the extension of my status. My last flight was 06-Dec….
« Good news. In recognition of your recent flights with us, you have successfully earned the required Tier Points to renew, at our temporarily reduced threshold. »
My online account is now updated with a 2024 expiry 👍✈️
Good news!
Yes it looks like most people that are renewals have received it today.
I got me Gold renewal email today after earning the points needed a few months ago so all good now.
I received notice yesterday (5.1.23) notification of extended GGL to July 2024 with reduced tier point threshold.
I just received an email telling me I’ve just got Silver for another year on reduced tier points, but my expiry doesn’t actually go through until June, so I’m quite happy nice to achieve it.
The massive irony to using Three UK for roaming (which I lost on renewal) is I’m now using a local Three Austria SIM (only when abroad) – which is also superb signal coverage and data speeds to it’s UK counterpart when I’m roaming.
02 for me, being in and around London is slow, even on 5G, and I’ve often found the network to be overloaded, but that’s due to massive underinvestment by them (but I believe Vodafone manage part of the network in London and the East of the UK as part of an agreement)
Useful information on O2 thanks.
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