BAEC Bronze members now allowed Priority Boarding

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• Geoggy says:

  25 Jul25 July 07:11

  “These people” . Lol ! Good morning from a BA Bronze!

  • Rob says:

    25 Jul25 July 11:32

    No offence implied!

    🙂

    I will be Bronze myself in 3 months, but I will now claim my Cathay card from Amex!

    I have edited the text, though. I am writing stuff in quick bursts out here in the US – I wrote that piece in the Admirals Club at Logan yesterday – and the usual editing process is not happening.

• Johnny5a says:

  25 Jul25 July 07:19

  lol – we get priority boarding for next 8 years … with children 🙂

• Phillip says:

  25 Jul25 July 07:23

  Maybe the maths is telling them they need to clear some of the non-premium lines! More than anything, though, I assume this is to make up for those tier level changes for non-UK residents, where you could previously attain silver with 400 TPs and receive all the priority perks. It is coming up to two years since the change which means those that managed to renew the first year using the old tiers now have to earn more if they want to maintain the same perks or go down a tier (or two).

  To be quite frank, I’ve always felt BA does a bad job in either having priority lines at all, or when they do, policing them. That said, I was very impressed to see them use a completely separate gate for boarding premium passengers recently at LCA airport.

• FT says:

  25 Jul25 July 07:46

  Cathay lets Marco Polo members (ie BA blue) board first

  There is a fee o join MP though.

  • Sir Stamford says:

    25 Jul25 July 10:44

    CX Marco Polo Green usually cost US$50 to join and you “ordinarily” need 4 sectors just to renew each year. (The renewal criteria isn’t always strictly enforced by CX though, as I understand).

    Given that even the basic level membership cost a small fee and there is a renewal criteria each year, it is understandable that CX will accord some sort of benefit like priority boarding for their own flights.

    Sir Stamford

• Dominic says:

  25 Jul25 July 08:29

  I do agree it’s now a nonsense, already on many of my flights you can see 25% of people with priority. But equally I usually fail to see the issue: boarding rarely takes that much time anyway and you have an assigned seat.

  The only issue is that of hand luggage space in ET flights, but you do have to ask if it’s absolutely the end of the world to be separated from your hand luggage for a few minutes.

  Personally I now always spend a few extra minutes in the lounge and try to be last on, rather than first!

  • Richie says:

    26 Jul26 July 20:05

    Me too, most of the European flights I take are empty anyway, Iv flown lhr-bru 10 or so times this year and Iv never seen more than 50% load. 1 month ago there was 7 of us on an a321

    • Alan says:

      26 Jul26 July 20:08

      Wow – all my EDI/LHR flights and some Euro ones (e.g ATH, PRG) have been rammed to the gunnels! 🙂

• Lady London says:

  25 Jul25 July 08:34

  Reminds me of a time when Ryanair called for priority boarding on a flight to Biarritz to start and 95% of the flight (including familieis with ‘children’ aged about 14 but six feet tall and entire “extended” families” stood up to board.

• ankomonkey says:

  25 Jul25 July 08:39

  I flew EWR-LHR last Sunday – so prior to this announcement – and the priority/fast track boarding queue was already longer than the normal queue. I was invited forward to the empty normal queue as, at one point, there was a queue for fast-track and nobody for normal boarding.

• Dark Horse says:

  25 Jul25 July 08:41

  I have it on good authority that Bronze card-holders will get their “priority” boarding after First and Club pax – and, by implication, Gold and Silver card-holders – which presumably means 3-stage boarding.

  • Rob says:

    25 Jul25 July 11:36

    Don’t think so, because the blue board encourages Bronze members to queue next to it!

    • Alan says:

      25 Jul25 July 12:18

      Precisely. Indeed at LHR there’s no checking of status whatsoever for either priority boarding or fast track security as those aspects are handled by BAA staff, not BA staff – you only see the BA staff member at boarding once you’ve already gone through the photo check element.

      This does seem to be a bit of a devaluation too far, especially with them pushing more hand baggage only fares (and the general slowness of getting checked bags out anyway) – I find that priority boarding is pretty important to be able to get overhead bin space! (it’s not helped by some folk leaving bags in the overhead bins at the front when they’re sitting many rows back!!)

      • Sir Stamford says:

        25 Jul25 July 12:39

        “This does seem to be a bit of a devaluation too far”

        As a BA Gold member, I dread to say this. It is perhaps a devaluation for the higher tier members but certainly an enhancement for the BA Bronze members. Given that there are probably more BA Bronze members travelling in economy, I suspect this is a commercial led decision.

        Sir Stamford

  • AusTraveller says:

    25 Jul25 July 11:38

    Agreed with Dark Horse. Generally BA’s way is to allow Bronze’s to board but only after they’ve made the boarding announcement for F/J and OW Emerald/Sapphire members.

    I wouldn’t really couch this as BA being ridiculously generous – it’s been a long standing OW soft/unpublished benefit that OW Ruby members are allowed priority boarding it was just never announced over the PA… this is especially since, in my experience, most boarding gate attendants just look for the presence of some OW status as a sign to permit you to board in the J queue!

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