Crepello,
Discretion is the key to the tension that exists between financial discipline and customer satisfaction. This is seldom succesfully exercised in a process driven environment where it is not possible to legislate for every eventuality and where the default stance is no change.
The advantage of a 'loyalty' programme is that it is meant to develop a bond between service provider and service user. "If you give me repeat business, then you can expect a 'reward'." Such rewards may be free flights or service enhancements - lounge access etc.
Those whingers, myself included, have come to expect levels of customer satisfaction which were never contemplated in the T&C of the contract between airline and passnger - indeed, T&C which I have only ever had cause to seriously examine once in 20 years. As a Gold member I appreciated these ehnacements and saw at first hand that they staff were willing to help out when things didn't go quite to plan. Unfortunately, the process doesn't now appear to permit initiative and effort in the name of customer service.
If I or any of my staff are faced with customer who wants to change something that isn't contemplated in our 'contract' then I expect the following analysis ' Is this practical?' 'what is the cost - to us?' If the cost is low then, is there any value to me in bearing that cost? ( i.e. what amount of goodwill do I need / am I willing to extend to this particular customer). If there is no goodwill relationship - then 'what value can I extract by making a charge? ( can I make a profit on this transaction?)
I suspect the beancounters at BA have identified 'foregone' revenue from BA exec club members who were getting 'soft' changes etc to tickets etc. free. However, by applying more rigid rules they may have captured some of that 'lost' revenue only at the expense of the long term relationship with the customer. Only time will tell if this is good business or bad.