How do you get a British Airways Executive Club Premier card?

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• The Original David says:

  19 Aug19 August 05:29

  “British Airways will remove paying passengers from a flight if a Premier member wishes to travel on it”

  I like to imagine that this is a United-style ‘drag them kicking and screaming down tha aisle, but I assume it’s actually less dramatic…

  • Cheshire Pete says:

    19 Aug19 August 07:03

    Indeed. I uncovered this a couple of years ago when we lost our Row 1 seats. And it’s shrouded in mystery, which creates the need to investigate it.

    You mysteriously get a seat change notification, ours arrived just before OLCI. When querying it with the Gold line they tell you it’s an operation change made by the departing airport dispatcher. Then at the airport they deny this and checking the records it’s was done by a ‘staff member from London’.

    Then on the plane the CSMs iPad shows the person with a Black icon. It’s very clandestine!

• Nick says:

  19 Aug19 August 06:38

  I’ve always wondered why this form of ‘incentive’ isn’t covered by the Bribery Act 2010, which, clearly, covers bribery, generally defined as giving someone a financial or other advantage to encourage that person to perform their functions or activities improperly or to reward that person for having already done so.

  If it’s still continuing then also, clearly, one would imagine that it’s been fully investigated by BA’s legal team and/or their clients.

  That doesn’t mean that i don’t quite understand why it’s still allowed by some companies?

  I’d appreciate any views from anyone with more legal knowledge than me…

  • Andrew says:

    19 Aug19 August 07:01

    I think because it has little material value – rather than a brown envelope of cash, it’s probably ok. If one was awarded as part of a procurement process that would still be problematic, but following a successful tender, then it could probably be just seen as a CRM tool.

    • Jil says:

      19 Aug19 August 07:10

      The upgrade voucher and grand gold status to friend, accessing Concorde room tjese have material cash value, I see this is a definitely a conflict of interest for people controlling travel budget for large enterprise

      • Lady London says:

        20 Aug20 August 14:17

        This is why large rich companies have Gift Registers, where all offers that could be construed as a gift are tracked and noted whether accepted or not and by whom.

        For example if a business meeting is proposed to take place at an amazingly luxurious venue that is not particularly related to the product in question the invitation will be registered and, likely in a highly regulated industry, declined.

        Invitations to boxes at Wimbledon were received from multiple suppliers most years in one company I worked at. These could only be accepted with a few years interval from the same supplier.

  • David says:

    19 Aug19 August 07:49

    If anything, I think you could say this more for loyalty schemes in general: individuals travelling for business collect points when spending the company’s money which they then redeem for their own leisure travel; and in general more points are awarded if for choosing more expensive options (e.g. higher class of travel or more flexible ticket) – so individuals are being directly rewarded for making decisions which cost their company more.

    If no-one bats an eyelid about those points-based rewards falling the wrong side of any anti-bribery law, I doubt anyone would for the Premier card.

    • Bagoly says:

      19 Aug19 August 09:10

      That’s a reasonable observation, although the explicit mention of “ability to influence travel policy” does make it more blatant.
      Putting myself in the position of an owner of a business with a travel manager being offered a Premier Card, I would say “Take it, and so enjoy our share of BA’s marketing budget, but remember that your loyalty is to your employer, and any steering of business to BA is misconduct”

  • Simon D says:

    19 Aug19 August 08:05

    Certainly within my employer (global engineering firm) this would be a very clear breach of our code of conduct and I believe that to be the industry norm. Although I understand that the rules in finance/marketing are probably more lax. Interestingly on a trip with full EC member a few years ago I found that they have to follow the same rules regarding booking travel as we do.

    Beyond that the optics of bumping a paying passenger for someone BA are trying to influence are terrible. I’m amazed we haven’t seen some headlines about couple on honeymoon downgraded etc…

    • Jonathan says:

      19 Aug19 August 08:43

      The same arguments can be made for gold cards right? This doesn’t meet the threshold of inducement, frankly given you get lounge access without flying BA it could be construed as weaker.

    • Gary Colclough says:

      20 Aug20 August 09:01

      Yes, my employer would regard this as a disciplinary matter, you can have a personal card from business travel but the people that book would not be allowed to have one of thse

• Jonathan says:

  19 Aug19 August 08:45

  By the way finance firms are way stricter than engineering for perceptions of inducement. I need to log a £5 coffee.

  Family member who was senior at an global engineering firm I know got tickets to London opening, closing and 100 finals in 2012.

  • Andrew says:

    19 Aug19 August 10:43

    That’s a good policy.

    You end up with thousands of lines of noisy low value data which makes it easier to hide poor behaviours.

    Coffee – £1.50
    Sugar – £0.05
    Milk – £0.10
    Bourboun – £0.25
    Custard Cream – £0.30
    Travel sweetie – £0.05

    • Lady London says:

      20 Aug20 August 14:26

      You had *two* biscuits? The Bourbon *and* the custard cream? that’s excessive corporate entertainment right there.

  • Rob says:

    19 Aug19 August 11:05

    Yes, it’s got rubbish. My wife had to get clearance to accept some circus tickets last year. Luckily such restrictions don’t exist at HFP.

    • Nick G says:

      19 Aug19 August 12:36

      My brother in law is a GP and can accept gifts upto the value of £50 I believe including alcohol with no declaration required yet other jobs don’t!

      • The Savage Squirrel says:

        19 Aug19 August 13:30

        Good. Last thing we want GPs to do is have to spend time filling in forms or cause offence by refusal just because Mrs Scoggins brought them in a bottle of wine after clearing up her constipation.

      • Jonathan says:

        19 Aug19 August 15:04

        Not the case. Not allowed to receive any gifts from drug reps these days. They’re allowed to provide basic refreshments up to ~£5 value if you’re attending an educational event. Otherwise it’s a biro at best.

        Not really supposed to accept gifts off patients either, advice is to suggest a donation to the hospital charity although I can see why it’s slightly different in GP.

        • Andrew says:

          19 Aug19 August 15:50

          It’s gradually changing with an increasing number of salaried GPs, but there’s still a high proportion of GPs who are either partners or self-employed.

  • the_real_a says:

    19 Aug19 August 12:59

    You get a £5 coffee approved? Outrageous. That’s above my beverage item limit… (Top three tech firm)

• Graeme says:

  19 Aug19 August 09:46

  As has been said, a clear breach of most company ethical policies for any employee to accept such a benefit. Very surprised BA are so blatant in promoting this for the purposes of “influencing travel policy”

• Nick says:

  19 Aug19 August 10:06

  Some clarifications…

  Gold Guest List DOES get a different card. It’s the Gold one with a ‘GL’ logo in the corner. Plenty on google images if you want to check!

  And while a Premier can indeed cause someone to be offloaded from a full flight, this is very rare. It’s also available to everyone – if you buy a Y class ticket, for example, they’ll always kick off an O-class customer if required, simple business economics.

  What a Prem CAN’T do is remove someone else from a seat – at least not by checking in themselves. What sometimes happens is special services decide to ‘be nice’ and put them in 1K (for example), but they’ve been asked to do this sparingly to avoid annoying Golds, etc.

  Finally, Prem cards are no longer given to celebs and sports stars, that was part of the ‘cull’ you mentioned. It’s important people only now.

  • J says:

    19 Aug19 August 10:21

    Interesting. I was once kicked out of my pre booked seat for a Premier (well known sportsman), I asked him on board if he’d swap back and he was more than happy too – said he preferred my seat anyway. It didn’t seem like he’d had any knowledge of the booting.

    • michael says:

      19 Aug19 August 12:05

      any chance we can know who?

  • Rob says:

    19 Aug19 August 10:22

    I didn’t count the ‘GGL’ letters as being a different card!

    Thanks for the rest of the feedback. I will amend the text.

• John says:

  19 Aug19 August 11:54

  “Christopher Wilkinson” is the closest a certain Chris will ever see his name on a Premier card!

• David says:

  19 Aug19 August 14:08

  I’m not sure the upper echelons of status is worth didly squat with such a miserable outfit as BA. Whatever your status, the aircraft will still be dirty, the cabin clapped out and the staff demoralised.

• tical says:

  19 Aug19 August 14:51

  Was bumped off my selected seat (1C) on a flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh by David Cameron while still PM. Row 2 was security and the only 2 other passengers in club were moved to row 4… no need for the premier card if one is a VIP already

  • Andrew says:

    19 Aug19 August 16:03

    Sounds like a typical Friday night on the 18:xx when Gordon was in No10/11 and/or when Alistair was in No 11.

    Although they usually went BMI

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