"Lifetime" Tier points. Another BA lie?

[Ancient Observer]

Some years ago, BA offered its Gold card holders "lifetime" Silver membership if members retained Gold level for a time.

It was a marketting con, as before members qualified for it, they withdrew it.

I see they are now offering "lifetime" Gold membership if a member has lots of tier points.

There is, of course, NO WAY of checking their version of history. So an individual cannot find out if their version of your flight history is true. Back in the late 90's I was told by BA that their historic records were "useless".

No doubt it will be withdrawn shortly. They are a bunch of c**-artists.

[strake]

Thank you for this info. I've just checked mine and apparently, since Mar 1992, I have gained 31,590 lifetime points.
However, I think its unlikely I will make the other 3,400 or so to become a lifetime Gold member.
So here I will remain - a Blue pleb. :ok:

[Captivep]

Ancient Observer - did you get out of bed the wrong side this morning?

Why on earth would they lie about it? T&Cs of all sorts of agreements change with varying degrees of regularity - to suggest that BA deliberately withdrew a benefit just before anybody could benefit from it suggests either some extraordinary inside info or an unhealthy belief in conspiracy theories, it seems to me!

For what it's worth, I've had the email from BA too. I'm the sort of sad person who keeps records of all my travels (which, of course, would be the best way of checking these things) and I can tell you that my lifetime tier points score is absolutely accurate, dating back to 1995.

[ExXB]

According to BA I've got 3,500 lifetime tier points. I was gold for over 10 years before I dropped them over their appalling customer (non) service.

350 tier points per year doesn't get you silver. Not saying they are lying, but agree they don't know the {expletive deleted} they are doing.

The e-mail I got today somehow omitted the text of their offer, just giving me three footnotes. Took me a while to figure out what they were on about. what happened to the search function in the BA web-site?

No matter, they haven't changed my view. They are a mediocre airline with crap customer service. I won't use them again.

[mixture]

Ancient Observer - did you get out of bed the wrong side this morning?


I concurr. I reckon someone's had a bad day.

I'm no BA loyalist, but there's so much wrong with AO's post I don't know where to start.

Wrong end of the stick AO .....

[Captivep]

exXB

Did you have a bad night's sleep too?

What's 350 points a year got to do with anything? It's 600 per year for silver and has been for quite some time.

What do you think they are lying about?

[TSR2]

It would appear that BA's customer service has not improved in the last ten years.

In 2002 my daughter who is a serving Police Officer together with her husband who is a serving Firefighter felt an overwhelming desire to support their colleagues in New York on the first anniversary of 9-11. They joined an organised party of around 250 officers from around the country for the rememberance services. My daughter was particularly honoured to be chosen as one of 67 Police Officers to attend a special service of rememberance for the 67 British people who lost their lives in the disaster, whilst her husband joined the New York Firefighters in their special services.
The cost of this trip was not subsidised in any way and annual holidays had to be used.

At that time, I had been a Gold Card holder with BA for 16 consecutive years and wrote to BA asking if I could pay for my daughter and her husband to sample the Exec Lounge at Manchester prior to their outbound flight as I thought this may be a good start to a somewhat sombre visit. They were the only members of the party on that flight.

I received a three line rather curt reply stating that the Exec Lounge was for the use of Exec Card holders and Business Class pax only.

Now I can understand BA wishing to maintain the Exec Lounge eclusively for Exec Members but the manner in which they declined my request, which would have cost them nothing, was most disappointing.

[ExXB]

BA gave me nightmares. I'm not interested in their offer and will not be using them.

I just question how they can calculate that I earned only 3,500 tier points over the 13 years I was actively using them. That was blue the first year, silver the next two and gold for the next 10. As I recall you needed 800 to re qualify for gold (???) each year so I had to have a minimum of 8,000. I know I was we'll over their threshold most years.

That's my point, if you are going to take them up on their offer, check carefully their calculations. In at least one case (me) they have undercounted significantly.

[Evanelpus]

At that time, I had been a Gold Card holder with BA for 16 consecutive years and wrote to BA asking if I could pay for my daughter and her husband to sample the Exec Lounge at Manchester prior to their outbound flight as I thought this may be a good start to a somewhat sombre visit. They were the only members of the party on that flight.

I received a three line rather curt reply stating that the Exec Lounge was for the use of Exec Card holders and Business Class pax only.

Look, BA lounges are for the use of Exec card and business pax only, what's difficult to understand about that.

I take my hat off to your daughter and her husband for doing what they did but if they didn't fit the above entry crtieria, why should they be allowed to use the lounge, whether you offered to pay or not.

I'm sorry if this sounds rotten but that's life.

[strake]

I can't really see BA bothering to cheat - mainly because there doesn't seem to be any point.
I think the problem is a lot of people may think they achieved more points than they did - mainly because they had a Gold card for a number of years. Getting a Gold card was pretty easy for say a regular C flyer however, the real high point regular flyers in F & R, were doubling or trebling tier points over the same periods.

[TSR2]

As I said in my final paragraph, I understand that BA may wish to keep the Exec lounge exclusive for Exec Card holders, even though at that time Gold Card holders were allowed to take 'guests' into the lounge.

My gripe was not the refusal of access but the curt and impersonal response to a long time Gold Card holder.

[Captivep]

exXB

So, you think that BA have (a) either gone to the trouble of looking at your account and undercounted just in case you get another 27,000 points (but they are not worried that you might get 31,500) and get lifetime gold or (b) they've done it for everybody hoping that nobody keeps their own records?

Neither of those theories actually make much sense, do they?

TSR2 - I would imagine that they get plenty of emails from non cardholders asking if they can pay to get into a BA lounge and a junior member of staff selected the stock response to that question.

Perhaps you might have got a more sympathetic response if you hadn't offered to pay. I'm serious!

[Evanelpus]

My gripe was not the refusal of access but the curt and impersonal response to a long time Gold Card holder.

I think we've all been here before and read about the woeful customer support provided by BA these days, I wonder how many other PPRuNers are shocked by their response?

[Captivep]

I must say I've always had extremely good customer service from BA.

The problem for them, and any company actually, is that people are at least 10 times more likely to talk about instances of bad service than they do of good.

[mixture]

My gripe was not the refusal of access but the curt and impersonal response to a long time Gold Card holder.

A "long time Gold Card holder" has even less of an excuse to not know the rules about the lounges. :ugh:

[ExXB]

No, I don't think BA went out of their way to 'cheat' me. I have no intention of taking them up on their offer, so it's all moot.

Frankly I have no idea how many tier points I accumulated over the years that I was one of their 'loyal' customers, I can't really recall how their scheme worked. But I don't think they got it right.

I'm just observing that they appear to have rushed out a 'new offer' without ensuring that they are giving their important customers the right information. If I am not the only one, they are going to aggravate some of their best customers. If I am the only one, well nothing lost because I won't use them.

Edited to add: Most flights I had with BA were good, although the crews on the IAD flights were consistently bad. But the few occasions where things went pear-shaped, not always their fault, they were incompetent in dealing with it.

[Dairyground]

ExXB:


Frankly I have no idea how many tier points I accumulated over the years that I was one of their 'loyal' customers, I can't really recall how their scheme worked. But I don't think they got it right.




To get the message at all, ExXB must be a current EC member, but if anyone goes 36 months without accumulating or spending Avios (or presumably their predecessor), then their membership lapses and all Avois and Tier Points vanish. So it seems plausible that ExXB and others claiming to have fewer life time points than they thought have not been in the EC continuously over the years.

[Captivep]

Dairyground

I'd forgotten that - you're absolutely right!

And, if I remember correctly, that 3 year period of grace is longer than a lot of other loyalty schemes.

The rather delicious irony of this is that if exXB had used any of his Avios at the right time (and consequently benefitted from the scheme run by the airline he clearly loathes) then his tier point score would be higher (although he now concedes he has no idea how high it really should be...).

[ExXB]

My last flight with BA was 2010.05.23. (Dug that out of my e-diary). I still get e-mails telling me how many miles thingies I have.

If I should have been kicked out and I haven't, that really isn't my problem.

But, then again, I'm not surprised.

[Captivep]

exXB

So, what are you moaning about? They haven't lied to you, or anybody else.

Your complaint now seems to boil down to the fact that you're on an email list...

If I were you, I'd click the unsubscribe button on the next email you get from BA and just go and get on with your life; alternatively you could carry on playing the victim...

[ExXB]

Well, you are entitled to your opinion. However that doesn't change my view of BA's customer service which let me down a number of times.

Frankly I've just been deleting messages from BA, I'll look for the unsubscribe next time they send me one.

Tell me I've got 6000 or so mileage thingies, can I give them to a charity? How?

[Ancient Observer]

I did not get out of the wrong side of bed when I started this thread.

Fact 1. BA told me in the late 90s, when I lived in Belgium, that their historic records of members were "rubbish".
Their word, not mine.
I joined in 1989, when I was flying globally rather a lot, and I was discussing with them why they kept on getting my records wrong.

Fact 2. BA ran an offer to give Gold members of longstanding "lifetime" Silver membership. They withdrew that offer.

So it seems to me to be a good idea to warn fellow Customers that BA might well be repeating behaviours that they have shown in the past.

[Omnipresent]

The T&Cs clearly state that the lifetime membership can be withdrawn at six months' notice. There is nothing unreasonable about that. No-one knows what may happen in the future regarding mergers of airlines and FFPs. Branding BA as liars and con-artists is excessive and disproportionate in the extreme.

Overall, this seems to have been welcomed by frequent flyers, particularly because it does not require a long consecutive period of good membership.

[Heathrow Harry]

"lifetime"= "6 months"?????????

let's be honest - another example of marketing doublespeak

[Ancient Observer]

6 months is more than a lifetime for someone in BA Marketing who invents this rubbish.
Once they move on, they will cancel the offer, as they have cancelled offers like this before.
Or, the beancounters will find out. Watch out Marketing if the beancounters catch up with you.

[Heathrow Harry]

I'm just surprised that people believed a commercial organisation on any "lifetime" offer - other than "A lifetime of hassle with this product"

[SLF3]

Singapore Airlines did the same - were offering lifetime Gold and Silver for the spouse if you got a certain number of tier points. They withdrew it when too many people were qualifying. The mate who has one and told me this flew business class on air miles to Perth on Christmas Eve and back New Years Day with his wife and child on air miles - booked via his 'customer relations manager' the week before Christmas.

Flew to Asia (six sectors) on SQ (for the first time in years) last month. The world has moved on. BA hasn't, and was more expensive.

Pick the best air line on the route, and don't count the miles - if you fly that often, you won't want to use them: and when you do want to use them, you won't be able to!

[YorkshireTyke]

BA can't even spell Lifetime.

Ask some of their 'old' retired employees who were promised lifetime rebate travel after retirement.

They lose it next April 1st - suitable choice of date, what !