[No Name]

I was BA Gold last year. When my card was issued it did not expire until July 2020. The BA app continued to encourage me to collect tier points for last year to renew my gold.

I attained over 1500 points and expected my renewal last week to be 2021 but it remained at 2020. I rang the BA gold line and tried to explain my issue. I had a very difficult and one way conversation with the manager which I can summarise as “hard luck chum” – You didn’t need to earn any points last year as it would have automatically renewed.

When I asked why the system continued to encouraged me fly to retain gold, she said, “It’s in BA interest to encourage you to fly as we are a business.”

I feel quite hard done by this particularly as I upgraded several times when I didn’t need to to retain gold, and a bit stunned by the way I have been treated.

I was also informed by the gold manager that she was the final decision maker so there was no form of appeal or arbitration. I was told even if I talk to customer service that would be pointless as it was her decision. Can someone advise me of whom I can write to senior at BA to try and get a reasonable customer service approach.

The BA EC app clearly encourages you to fly to retain gold for your second year and does not inform customers that they don’t even need to fly once to retain gold. It’s is sharp practice I think. The gold manager told me she had never encountered this situation before. Is that true?

Thanks in advance for everyone’s advice. Clearly BA don’t really care about customers they just want profit.

[openfly]

It’s a steep learning curve with BA. The first two letters of battle are BA!

[MartynSinclair]

Welcome Leroy.

I too would like to be educated on this one..

[SimonS1]

Without dates it’s hard to comment on OP’s case, however I believe when you step up a tier you get the remainder of the year plus one full year at the new status level.

So if your year ends in July 2019 and you go from silver to gold in Jan 2019 then you have gold for the remainder of that year (July 2019) and for the following year to July 2020. You need to have the necessary TPs by July 2020 to renew for the following year.

It is done this way to avoid people making it to gold 11 months into their year, getting upgraded for 1 month and then being downgraded again.

Of course other airlines have better ways of doing it, for example those using a rolling TP year.

[No Name]

Moved from Silver to gold in June 2018 4 days before it was due for renewal. Initial card was issued to expire July 2020. But the app continued to encourage me to fly counting down to a renewal date of June 2019. My new card from last week still says July 2020. So my 1550 points last year were for nothing. I should perhaps have been told this by BA?

[TimFitzgeraldTC]

Hi Leroy

What BA have done is what sounds like the normal process for BA Exec Club so it doesn’t sound like you have missed out on anything.

From what I can ascertain from the post – you got to Gold in 2018 just before the end of your TP year – which would have meant you would then have for the following year to the end of June 19 (for Gold). Maybe an error on part of an issued card to say expires Jun20.

You’ve then earned your 1500 TP’s this year (2018/19) which keep Gold until 2020. It wouldn’t extend into 2021 unless you get 1500 Tier Points from 01Jul19 in no time at all, as that year hasn’t started for you just yet.

[rferguson]

I think the app is pretty simple in plain english.

On mine I click on ‘account’. It brings up an image of my Gold card with current balance and tier points.

Scroll down and the first field I see is the subject ‘Retain Gold’. XXXX amount of Tier points needed. X out of 4 flights completed. Once I see i’ve hit 1500 and it changes status to ‘Gold retained’ I know i’m done.

I don’t see how it can be any more clear.

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ImissConcorde, AFlyingDutchman, GeorgeJ, mkcol74, Swissdiver, 1nfrequent, Fair2380, FaroFlyer

[SimonS1]

[quote quote=943370]I think the app is pretty simple in plain english.

On mine I click on ‘account’. It brings up an image of my Gold card with current balance and tier points.

Scroll down and the first field I see is the subject ‘Retain Gold’. XXXX amount of Tier points needed. X out of 4 flights completed. Once I see i’ve hit 1500 and it changes status to ‘Gold retained’ I know i’m done.

I don’t see how it can be any more clear.[/quote]

I think the OP was suggesting he got the points to “retain gold” but it didn’t make any difference to his card expiry?

[No Name]

Yes that’s correct. My point is this is either erroneous/bad app design or sharp practice by BA to encourage you to accumulate tier points you don’t need. It counts down as you move through the gold rewards year.

Just got a flat response from customer services that mirrored the Gold Manager that didn’t address my issue or the situation. They also declined to give me the contact details for a BA senior manager to discuss this with. Can anyone advise of a email of a senior BA person to write too or are they anonymous to their customers?

[capetonianm]

Whilst you’re correct about BA’s attitude and not caring, this worries me:
” I upgraded several times when I didn’t need to to retain gold ”
Is status really so important?
I upgrade if and when I want to and if the price is right. Perhaps it’s just me but I don’t understand the obsession some people have with their ‘status’.

Perhaps it will be more helpful if I suggest you write to the Basque (Alex Cruz) at Waterside. He won’t see the the complaint, nor would he care if he did, but it will go to someone higher up the the tree than if you start at the bottom.

My guess is that they won’t budge, for your sake I hope I’m wrong.

[Gold-2K]

When you are already gold and hit the required 1500 points for renewal it doesn’t at that point reset the renewal date. Your membership renewal date will stay the same. There are additional benefits you can get by accruing more than 1500 Tier Points eg upgrade vouchers at 2400 and 3500, Concorde Room card at 5000 points for example.

The only time the renewal date resets is when moving from bronze to silver or sliver to gold.

[No Name]

Thanks capetonianm for this and an alternative view which is always good.

[Fair2380]

My guess is that the card hard copy card was incorrect. Did your app say that it would expire in July 2020? That would be odd as you’re only entitled to the remainder of the year plus the following year. Like RF, my app clearly says when I have retained gold and so clearly the system was under the impression that you hadn’t done so.

My only thought is whether you were booked to fly during the IT catastrophe? If so, they may have extended your tier status longer without telling you (this is particularly likely if your tier jumped up immediately after then incident). Just speculation.

Finally, whilst I’m no defender of BA, I do find it odd that you are surprised that they were encouraging you to fly. That is – after all – their purpose. I am pretty sure that had you not got the 1500 points, you’d be back at Silver and so this is just a card error really and nothing more. You’re entitled to be Gold until 2020 and you will be.

[Ekond222]

…Before raising a complaint to BA ..find out your actuall tier point collection end date…please follow these steps..

1/ Sign on to BA exec club.
2/ Glide over the ‘Manage Tab’
3/ Click on ‘My Executive Club’
4/ Click on ‘Account Information’

You’ll see that your ‘Card Expiry date’ is 7 weeks after your ‘Tier Point Collection End Date’ …this has always been the case to allow processing of tier ponts from partner airlines.

Hope this helps…

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mkcol74

[TiredOldHack2]

[quote quote=943386]I upgraded several times when I didn’t need to to retain gold[/quote]

I’ve done a few ‘points runs’ too. In fact, last weekend my wife and I went to Jersey for a couple of nights on a BA flight/holiday booking to keep me on Gold. For a few hundred quid, it was a bloody good weekend and I have discovered (invariably when things go pear-shaped) that having Gold status definitely gets things sorted faster.

[Author]

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