British Airways Executive Club > Reviews > Up and down the Golden ladder

Author's product rating:   

Food Quality
Customer Service
Punctuality
Space
Value for Money

Advantages:	Good lounge at Heathrow
Disadvantages:	No real benefits for Economy class passengers

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

The BA system gives you two sorts of points for each flight - "miles" which can be coverted into free flights and "tier" points which are used to move you up to a higher level. The levels start at Blue then go through Silver to Gold. Each year you have to get enough tier points to maintain your level or you drop back one level. The Blue level has no advantages other than you can save up points for free flights, while the Silver and Gold levels allow, amongst other advantages, access to the BA lounges.

The number of miles for a flight that you get depends on the distance flown AND the class that you fly in. The last is crucial because if you fly in the "wrong" class then you only gain a fraction of the miles that you expect. For example, if you fly London to Stockholn in Economy, a distance of 890 miles, you only get 223 miles added to you account - at that rate it will take 90 paid for flights to accumalate the 20,000 miles need to get a free return flight for the same route.

Similarly, tier points are also dependent on distance flown and class. If you are in the cheapest seats then you don't get any tier points and can never progress to the silver and gold levels.

I fly at least twice a month between the UK and Sweden and used to be able to do this in Club class. This meant that within a year I had reached BA Gold level and could use the lounges - a very useful benefit as the BA lounges I used had food, drink and internet connections which all helped to pass the time usefully while waiting to depart.

Unfortunately (for me, but for entirely sensible cost-cutting reasons) my company changed travel policy and now no longer allows me to fly Club. I still do the same number of trips and still earn miles (at the fractional rate mentioned above) which I can trade for flights but in Economy I no longer get the all important "tier" miles which are necessary to gain or maintain Silver or Gold member status.

One result is that each year for the last two years I have slipped down a level and now no longer have access to BA lounges.
I also no longer travel BA if I can avoid it as one of the competing airlines frequent flyer award systems gives full miles and tier points for all my Economy flights and I now have enough to use their lounges.