Frequent Flyer Schemes discussion

There are some significant errors in this report.

On the BA frequent flyer scheme it should be noted that 20 tier points will only be given on the most expensive short haul economy tickets. From a money saving expert better to book a flight in premium economy long haul with BA where a return would earn 150 points. Four of these would get you a silver card and return fares could be as low as £500. An expensive economy ticket earning just 40 points return could cost around £300.

On bmi to get a silver card you need 16,000 points. The account is then reset and to keep silver you need 16,000 points from the issue date of the silver card or 38,000 to get to gold over 12 months from when you first got silver. More important is that the bmi scheme does NOT automatically offer space available upgrades. Golds get four upgrade vouchers for upgrades to business on short and medium haul routes - but many short haul routes have no business class. On long haul the upgrade is to premium economy only. No upgrades for silvers ever, or golds after the vouchers have been used. There's also no point in joining the bmi scheme if you live near East Midlands Airport. bmi might have one flight from there - they use to have more - but now bmibaby is based at EMA. You get no status points flying with bmibaby and very very few frequent flyer miles as it's a low cost airline - and so no lounge or business class. Better to join the bmi scheme if you leave near to Heathrow or travel from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast or Manchester to London.

The Virgin scheme is incorrectly described as well. Virgin do not offer domestic flights so if you travel a lot short haul forget Virgin.

Some the upgrade examples don't have sense. The upgrade to business from Atlanta to Tucson doesn't ring true. It's only a short flight allowing little time for sleep; very few airlines in the US offer business class - normally it's first only; the domestic US first seats do not convert to flat beds and do not encourage sleep; even in first for short flights you're unlikely to sleep through a great food service. On short routes in first you're lucky to get a packet of crisps!

The Paris example is also wrong. You can't be upgraded from premium economy to business on BA because on short haul routes they don't have premium economy - this is a long haul product.

There are other issues that others will no doubt comment on.

BAsmiles

I have noted some errors as well.

American Airlines
33"
38"
60"
British Airways
31"
N/A
73"
British Midland (BMI)
31"
49"
60"
Continental
31"
N/A
55"
KLM
31"
N/A
79"
Ryanair
30"
N/A
N/A
Thomas Cook
30"
N/A
N/A
Virgin
31"
38"
60"

Source: SeatGuru. Seat pitch for long-haul cabins, except for Ryanair (short-haul only)

So, of the biggies, only American Airlines offers more than 31" in a standard seat

American Airlines do not have any Premium Economy seats.

Their Economy seats do not have a 33" seat pitch; most are 31-32" - see Seat Guru which you quote as a source!. I think this is outdated information from the days when they ran a promotion called More Room Throughout Coach(MRTC) sadly discontinued about 3 years ago.

BA do have a Premium Economy seat.

In my experience, you cannot use your frequent flyer miles to purchase an upgrade to your existing booking if you made that booking through an agent and not directly with the airline. I got quite excited reading the article and we have just booked tickets to fly to Vancouver next year on BA, via the Thomas Cook website. I have loads of frequent flyer miles which I couldn't use to buy the original tickets direct from BA as they wouldn't let me select the dates I wanted, so i thought I could use the miles to buy an upgrade. But on trying to do it, it says I can't do that because I bought the tickets through an agent. How annoying is that? Does anyone have any way round this? I've got about 80,000 BA miles.