What happens to your airline status when you (or your partner) have a baby?

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• JB says:

  7 Apr7 April 08:59

  I quite like BA’s discouragement of under-12s from F. For most, it’s a rare privilige to travel in that class and even the best brought up children can be unpredicatable and risk spoiling the peace and tranquility that you would hope for in that cabin.

  As for the general policy towards new parents, it does seem unfair not to allow any flexibility in the tier point year. Maybe one for BA to have a look at.

  • Rob says:

    7 Apr7 April 09:24

    I have never taken my kids in F because I don’t want to feel guilty every time they make a noise. However, youngest is 4 soon and is now old enough to behave.

    • ncik says:

      7 Apr7 April 09:44

      Hi Raffles, I appreciate your point here – but it simply doesn’t make sense if you think about it

      Is it only that “rich people” should not be disturbed or subjected to child noise? but no guilt for those in other cabins?

      After all, passengers in F cant be protected against talkative fellow passengers or drunks?

      • The_Real_A says:

        7 Apr7 April 12:48

        Its hardly about class. This whole website is about upgrading for free. “First” should be about premium travel, and screaming kids is not premium.

      • Rob says:

        7 Apr7 April 13:21

        There were 20 kids in business when we flew to Dubai last week. Kids only fly in school holidays when other kids fly. Rare they appear in a business class cabin at other times.

    • JB says:

      7 Apr7 April 10:00

      Fair point Rob, age 12 may be a little high.

      I am with you on the guilt front. I wouldn’t want to feel on edge by risking young children in F either!

• oyster says:

  7 Apr7 April 09:20

  To those against children in F – when I took my then 18 month old in F, he was quiet as a mouse. He was woken however by a very loud snoring man in the cabin.

  Just saying.

  • Matthew says:

    7 Apr7 April 13:59

    Same here. I took our 18 month old in Cathay F last year and he was quiet as a mouse for the 6hr flight. The air stewardess said he was an absolute pleasure to look after, far nicer than most loud businessmen who are rude and demanding. We were all woken up by some chap snoring too! Don’t get me wrong, I was nervous and did wonder if I was being selfish but I don’t get many opportunities like this so I though why not! I’ve always said with these sorts of things, it’s the parents who often let themselves down by not looking after their child properly rather than the child being naughty. I would never let my son run riot up and down a plane but some parents think it’s acceptable.

    • YL says:

      7 Apr7 April 17:58

      Only once I had experience a naughty child running around on a J cabin…but this was because the parents decided to enjoy their wine and movies and neglected the child …the poor FAs had to run around cleaning up the mess.
      However, I have suffering many times with loud snoring men on premium cabins…also once on a CX F, it was so bad that I could not sleep at all.

  • Fenny says:

    7 Apr7 April 17:29

    As someone who doesn’t have kids, I’ve been on flights with adorably well behaved children and utter horrors. Age has nothing to do with it. The 18 yr old who constantly kicked the back of my seat through a 9 hour overnight flight was far more of a disturbance than the small child who barely made a sound all the way from LHR to San Diego.

• Brian says:

  7 Apr7 April 09:54

  To be honest, I really don’t see what the problem with BA is here – why should parents get an extension? Why shouldn’t the same rules apply to them – i.e. you have to earn a certain number of tier points within a certain time to gain or regain status?? As others have posted, what about people who are hospitalised or otherwise unable to fly? In some respects, you could argue that parents should be LESS entitled to a status extension, given that it is generally a CHOICE – if I am hospitalised because I have an accident, I don’t have that choice.

• Quark999 says:

  7 Apr7 April 11:25

  I think this is another twist on something that rubs me the wrong way, which is “I am entitled to XYZ status because I happen to work for an employer that throws money at travel” vs. “I am entitled to XYZ status because I pay for it out of my own pocket”.

  Some people are fine with the latest BA changes because it gets rid of the “riff-raff”, yet they feel entitled to a paternity/maternity freeze because that is the ONE time their employer doesn’t pay for their travel.

  I say – deal with it. Change jobs to somewhere with a mandatory “Economy-only” policy or, god forbid, a job that doesn’t involve work travel, and then losing status due to maternity leave might sound a bit like a first world problem…

• ScotlishZander says:

  7 Apr7 April 11:54

  I agree with BA’s policy of no under 12’s in first, when I have children and I’ll no doubt be flying with family, I’ll put them in economy with the wife! :p

• JB says:

  7 Apr7 April 12:42

  Full disclosure – I was taken on Concorde aged 6 by my father and I was treated like royalty (fussed over by the crew, taken to the flight deck etc). Although the days of allowing passengers on the flight deck are long gone, I imagine a trip in F would create a special memory for most kids.

• danksy says:

  7 Apr7 April 13:50

  At the risk of sounding overly critical I think the article title is a little bit misleading… in reality I ‘get’ the sentiment of the article, however it’s not just because someone has a baby that they stop travelling; what if they had a car accident or major illness.

  At the end of the day Frequent Flyer programmes are designed to reward Frequent Flyers thus, if someone ceases to fly frequently I don’t agree programmes should feel obliged to make adjustments.

  I can however understand the personal impact it has on people and as a father of 4 kids I know this very well. Without a corporately funded travel budget all of our FF has to be paid for by ourselves in order to accrue points; if I didn’t have 4 kids I’d probably travel more than I do right now; I accept that it’s just part of the package of the happy burden of fatherhood!

  😀

• Werner says:

  7 Apr7 April 16:40

  I have been unable to maintain status due to having been made redundant and therefore not being able to travel as much because I can’t afford it. Shouldn’t there be a status extension for people like me? Why should only parents get this?

  Can’t see the point of this article – it reads a bit like one of those whining pieces on Loyalty Lobby, really, though I concede it’s better written…

  • Rob says:

    7 Apr7 April 18:56

    a) makes a point to BA and gives credit to VS where its due
    b) is not time sensitive so can be pre-written for when I am sitting on a beach ….

    • Adam W says:

      8 Apr8 April 03:41

      “a) makes a point to BA….”

      Well, that’s backfired then – if anybody that matters at BA actually read the article and the comments section!

      • Werner says:

        8 Apr8 April 08:22

        Quite. Presumably giving status to people has an actual cost for BA and other airlines, given that one gets services. If BA are reading this, hopefully they will realise that there is no need to subsidise people who decide to have children and are thus no longer frequent travellers, but just happen to want to keep frequent traveller status. Either that, or they apply the rule to all the other people who want to have status but don’t travel enough to EARN it.

      • Rob says:

        8 Apr8 April 08:32

        Pretty much everyone in the business reads HFP – I know, because I meet these people at the occasional loyalty industry drinks party I attend. I also know how many people on our email list, for example, have avios.com email addresses – the answer being ‘a lot’.

        • Alan says:

          8 Apr8 April 11:36

          Haha love that factoid – a big ‘hello’ to all BA/Avios/Amex/MBNA employees out there 😀

    • Werner says:

      8 Apr8 April 11:08

      a) I can (sort of) understand Virgin doing it for cases where you’d lose your chance of Lifetime Gold, due to the consecutive years rule. However, I do think it shouldn’t be limited to mothers – and perhaps the Marriott route of being able to buy status is the way to go for these cases. But otherwise I really do not see why your wife, or any other (expectant) mother should be entitled to a benefit that is specifically aimed at frequent travellers who EARN that status by flying. Does she expect the hotel programmes to give her a free extension too?

      Don’t get me wrong – I’m a huge fan of HFP, but this article is very much in the camp of the people who sometimes post on here, and more frequently on Loyalty Lobby, the people who believe that they have a god-given right to the benefits of frequent traveller programmes, both hotel and airline, and are indignant when they don’t get them in cases where they aren’t fulfilling their part of the bargain. I would have thought flying enough to gain the tier points falls in the latter category.

      b) What happened to the idea put forward in the comments section at the New Year of having trip reports for good redemption deals from readers? I would have thought such reports would be more useful to the HFP community and would also not be time-sensitive and therefore ideal for times when you’re sitting on the beach. 🙂

      • Rob says:

        8 Apr8 April 11:48

        I am away a lot this year, the idea may still run. However, it takes far longer to edit an article by someone else than write one scratch, esp with lots of images, so it is not a time saver! It is a good topic for holiday cover though.

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