British Airways Executive Club > Reviews > Businessperson's feather-bed

Author's product rating:   

Food Quality
Customer Service
Punctuality
Space
Value for Money

Advantages:	Excellent service and a recognition of the number of times you fly if it is business
Disadvantages:	not good for the economy traveller

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Okay so I am particularly sad - accrued over 1,000,000 BA miles in only 2.0 years, got my Gold card in just 5 months! I also have flight attendant girlfirend so I guess you could say I have some experince(!) with comercial airline travel.

So BA does offer a lot to the BUSINESS traveller including being top of the list for upgrades if you have the Gold (Emmerald Card in "oneworld" speak). Sure you get to go into First lounges etc but the real difference is that you feel valued as a customer when you travel with oneworld airlines and you have access to dedicated booking lines, prefferencial waitlisting etc which really does make a difference if you have to be somewhere for an important business meeting. I should say though that Qantas will spend more time "rubbing you up the right way" than BA will if they can see Emmerald next to your name on the passenger list. I have been offered papers amd Club Class wines etc with Qantas when bookings were referenced to my Gold card, whereas with BA it usually makes no difference. I think it is important that airlines understand that it is often the individual business traveller that has the choice of airline or route and this should be recognised when we opt to utilise our "air miles" for holidays.

Silver seems to offer nothing more than lounge access and luggage tags and Blue really is just a means of opening an account.

That's it but remmember, in my experience, conspiring for an upgraded on the plane is a waste of limited cabin oxygen - speak to the ground staff and have a good story - the cabin crew really will not be interested...