Returning from sunny Spain a few days ago. While crossing the Bay of Biscay a certain well know British carrier was talking to one of their franchise operators if they were able to take a higher flight level so they could go up also. This whole conversation lasted approx. 4 minutes because the well known airline was desperately explaining why he wanted to climb from FL340 to FL360. And no, there was no turbulence in the area.
I do appreciate that sometimes you make the wrong selection and therefor transmit on guard. But if you are going to have whole conversations that have nothing to do with flight safety than stay of GUARD. As long as CAT make these non-essential calls on GUARD, i don't think we have a valid reason to deny GA the use of GUARD for a practice pan.
Just my 2p's