Should British Airways Executive Club introduce Lifetime Silver status?

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• TGLoyalty says:

  29 Oct29 October 11:22

  I would personally love to see lifetime Bronze or Silver added.

  I won’t stop flying BA or Oneworld on revenue flights because Gold doesn’t offer more than Silver (First Wing and 1st lounges are actually worth it). But it would mean at some point I wont need to worry about getting those last few TP if its been a high redemption or low travel year as silver is the bare minimum I’d wan’t to maintain.

• ECR says:

  29 Oct29 October 13:11

  Whilst I would like Lifetime Silver, I don’t think it makes sense for BA as many people whilst still fly BA, as it will remove the pressure to make every flight a oneworld flight once that target is acheived, as Gold, although nice doesn’t offer all that much over Silver.

  The only circumstance where it might make sense for BA is if they were to increase Lifetime Gold to say 50,000 tier points (or 70,000 which is broadly in line with Qantas Lifetime Emerald), then introducing Lifetime Silver at say 30,000 (or even 35,000) would be small crumb to be thrown in the direction of those who were getting close to Lifetime Gold only to find the target moved.

  They could even do this in sneaky way by realigning the names of the tiers so that they matched Iberia (i.e. Silver=Ruby, Gold=Sapphire and Platinum=Emerald). They could then promote it as making Lifetime Gold easier to achieve at 30,000 tier points (but effectively reducing its worth).

  Lifetime Bronze (Ruby) would perhaps make sense to BA as it offers little (select a free seat a few days earlier and a few extra avios) so wouldn’t cost a great deal to BA, but might encourage people to fly BA/oneworld to hit the target and lock in a status for life.

• AJA says:

  29 Oct29 October 14:24

  I support the idea of lifetime silver not that I am expecting it to happen. Instead of that however how about silver status for as long as you hold the BAPP Amex card? That would prevent churn which is what Amex have tried to do with the 2 year rule for bonus Avios and would make holding the BAPP over the free BA Amex really worthwhile.

  • Thom says:

    29 Oct29 October 15:24

    I like the logic of BAPP counting towards status. Granting silver might be a bit generous as it’d become a very cheap way to get lounge access and extra baggage when flying one world. Maybe it could grant bronze/ the equivalent of 300TP towards that years status (but not Lifetime) so effectively requiring BAPP holders to just earn 300TP to get silver.

    • AJA says:

      29 Oct29 October 17:58

      I like the compromise idea of Bronze status while you hold the card and reduced TP’s to get or maintain Silver. It would be very cheap to implement and it would give an incentive to the card holder as it would still require the holder to buy flights (using the card) to get to Silver. From BA’s perspective it doesn’t cost very much to offer Bronze status as that doesn’t give lounge access but is still a step up from nothing as it gives Business class check in, choice of seats from 7 days out and it would make attaining Silver easier for those while they hold the card.

      • Aston100 says:

        29 Oct29 October 20:43

        I like this

• Denise Sheard says:

  29 Oct29 October 14:40

  We have our own business In South Africa so pay for our own flights We have been silver carD members for the last 25 years If we had flown SAA We would now have lifetime gold membership But with BA we have only accumulated +- 20,000 points so have nothing Guess what we are now retired and have no loyalty to BA whatsoever We will fly club class on whichever airline is the cheapest These airlines usually have a far better club class as well Last year we bought Emirates first tickets cheaper than BA club

  • Peter K says:

    29 Oct29 October 16:02

    Basically you are saying that BA did it perfectly from a business point of view. They got your business for 25yrs but have no long term liability on their behalf.

• Chris Heyes says:

  29 Oct29 October 20:21

  It’s many many years since i last paid for any flight on BA always use Avios (before that airmiles) 241 and Lloyds vouchers.
  don’t see the point of chasing status on BA, always been on bottom tier (blue i think lol) i book either 1st class or Business class (Or Club)
  I always have more than enough Avios to book wherever wanted to go
  My plan has always been 1st class day flight, Business Class night flight, Club Europe flights, my reasoning being why fly 1st if i’m asleep.
  Mind In the past always been able to accumulate heck of a lot of Avios (mostly from Daughters partner filling all his works vans up at Tesco with my Amex & my Clubcard)

• Jason Lloyd says:

  30 Oct30 October 09:19

  I believe it would make far more sense as an achievable goal to reduce the Lifetime Gold requirement to 30,000 points. This would give a reachable target and an increased loyalty.

• Gareth says:

  31 Oct31 October 11:50

  As you said life time silver is as good as lifetime gold in reality. As a 70000 pt lifetime gold member, it would add to my frustration, that lifetime gold gold is 23 years of gold membership , but life time gold guest list with all the redemption benefits is 33 years of GL renewal.

  Not part of this discussion but expect plenty of redemption available for years to come

• Globetrotter says:

  2 Nov2 November 15:08

  Given the battle for travellers, IMHO it would be a good idea to:
  1) introduce Lifetime Silver at 20k / 25k to encourage spend pre and post retirement.
  AND
  2) to differentiate Lifetime Gold, increase those benefits eg reintroducing free redemption cancellations (perhaps for a 2 week cooling off period as a compromise?)

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