British Airways Executive Club

By Jay, on July 6th, 2009

As a frequent flyer, I have joined quite a few of the different airlines frequent flyer clubs over the years and the Executive club is the first one that I’ve managed to achieve any status with. Sadly, my status is short lived and at the end of October this year my membership will be downgraded from Silver to Blue again. While I’ve been on silver I’ve managed to figure out quite a few things about the membership benefits and have tried to work out if the benefits are actually worth the effort getting the status in the first place. So here are my finding.

In order to reach silver status with the British Airways Executive Club, you currently need 600 Tier Points. These are not the same as the miles earned when flying on the airline and the amount of point you receive is very much dependant on how much money you spent on the ticket, and of course which cabin you fly in. Last year I flew with British airways a total of 14 long haul legs (all between London and Johannesburg) and the points I received on each flight differed almost every time.

My trips were all in economy and the points I received were – 0, 30, 60 per leg. If you do happen to have a lot of notice on any trips you might be going on, and you do manage to book your flights months in advance, you will more than likely get a really good price on the flight, and either no points of 30 points. You will also notice that if you do manage to get the super cheap tickets, you will also not receive the full miles flown. When comparing the same class of travel (in this case economy) there are 4 different price options for tickets ranging from the early bird tickets which usual give no points and very few miles, right through to the expensive tickets that you can change or cancel without penalties that will give you 60 points per leg and full miles flown.

To make your life easier, BA has an option on their online booking form, that allows you to get the cheapest ticket that still earns you tier points. These however are not necessarily the cheapest tickets you can purchase, they are just the cheapest that earn you Tier points. Now since a lot of my business is done overseas, and I do fly a fair amount, and of course I want to get there the cheapest possible way, I always just get the cheapest ticket I can, and often because of the lateness of my booking (all the cheap seats are gone) it will still result in earning some Tier Points. It’s this reason I was able to reach Silver status.

So what benefits have I received been on Silver with BA?

Firstly, lounge access. This is great if you happen to have a long stop over at an airport and you would like to have a shower and a bite to eat with a couple drinks. However if you are just going through customs and getting onto your plane, I’ve never really had much time to spend in the lounge as I like to walk around duty free and by the time I’m done shopping, boarding has begun, and often don’t even get a chance to see the lounge. The times that I have gone to the lounges, I have been very impressed. There is an open bar (self-service), TV’s to watch sport, news etc, buffet for having something to eat before your flights, comfy couches to relax in, and internet access to catch up on your e-mails and of course showers to freshen up if you have just come off a long flight.

Secondly, using the club and first class line to board the plane. I cannot say a bad thing about this benefit. There is nothing better than just walking straight up to the gate handing over your passport and ticket and walking straight onto the plane. No queues, and for this reason alone the Silver status has been worth it.

Third, as a silver member you receive a bonus 25% of the miles you earn on your flight.

Lastly, and certainly one of the best benefits, is to be able to choose your seat online at the time of booking your ticket. You don’t have to wait till 24 hours before departure to choose your seat at on-line check-in time. I did this many times before, and it always seemed that the person with the fastest internet connection and a little luck got the best seats.

So looking at the benefits and thinking about what you need to achieve them, I have come up with this final thought…
If you happen to travel a fair amount, and you can receive status purely on the amount of flights you do, great! But if you are going out of your way to get the points just for the status, you are probably better off getting the cheaper tickets and spend the money you saved on drinks and food in the duty free hall.

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