Maintaining BA status

greenbee

I'm 5 tier points short of maintaining my status for BA next year. My final work trip of the year, which would have put me over this has been delayed until Q1 next year and I won't travel in time to get the points.

As the upgrades save my sanity on work trips to the US East Coast on a regular basis, I'm seriously looking at the possibility of booking a day trip somewhere to accrue these points. But my year ends on January 6th so I'm really tight for time.

What's the best way to work out the cheapest (and least time-consuming) trip to gain the tier points I need?

HHarry

For 5 points just about any flight will do. A day trip to Jersey, Amsterdam etc will do.

If you go to ba.com they have a 'find our cheapest fare' link, where you can have a play.

My wife was in the same situation a couple of weeks ago. Its was about £90 for a day trip to Madrid, Paris and a few other destinations.

shaun_from_Africa

Some people will say that it's not worth doing but I disagree.
I used to fly with Air France to West Africa on a regular basis and in order to keep my gold status with them, I had to do 1 extra return flight per year. (I usually went London to Paris return on a day trip which if booked well in advance usually cost me about £60).
The gold card got me in to the AF lounges in CDG and quite often an upgrade on the aircraft.

I'm now silver with BA and fly with them long haul on business about 12 or 13 times per year and again, I occasionally pay to upgrade from economy to premium economy (WT+) to ensure that I keep the card.

Greenbee, if you are in or near to London, you could always do a day trip to Aberdeen on new years day for about £88 return.

richardw

Jersey is simplest from Gatwick, you could do one way on easyJet if cheaper.

Over on headforpoints the current good one for 200 tier points is LHR to TLL in business class for £232, some sectors can be on a flat bed A350 finnair aircraft if you pick carefully.

silvercar

If you will gain the necessary tier points within 2 weeks of your year end, then you can phone up BA and ask them to extend your year.

Westin

I would have a look on the FlyerTalk forum. There are lots of threads from BA (and other airline FF clubs) who do mileage chasing trips. They tend to know the best routes, best deals and lowest costs to maintain tiers and maximise mileage credits.

greenbee

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

Some people will say that it's not worth doing but I disagree.
I used to fly with Air France to West Africa on a regular basis and in order to keep my gold status with them, I had to do 1 extra return flight per year. (I usually went London to Paris return on a day trip which if booked well in advance usually cost me about £60).
The gold card got me in to the AF lounges in CDG and quite often an upgrade on the aircraft.

I'm now silver with BA and fly with them long haul on business about 12 or 13 times per year and again, I occasionally pay to upgrade from economy to premium economy (WT+) to ensure that I keep the card.

Greenbee, if you are in or near to London, you could always do a day trip to Aberdeen on new years day for about £88 return.

You're right, that looks like the best option - PITA to get to and from Heathrow, but it's my closest BA airport. Work normally provide transport so it isn't generally an issue. I don't really like travelling!

Most of my US east coast economy flights are BA so the upgrades and the lounges make it worthwhile to try to keep the silver status. I don't have enough status on any other airline to make it worthwhile switching (we operate a 'lowest logical fare' policy which means I have a bit of status on lots of different airlines... which is very frustrating!). I don't think I'm likely to get another work trip in within the deadline although I'll consider whether I should move a New York trip to January rather than wait for it to warm up...

SW17

By the way, your tier point earning year will end on 8th Jan, not 6th, so you have that weekend to travel (I'm not stalking you, all BA earning years end on the 8th of a month )

As silvercar mentions, BA will usually allow you to extend your year by up to 2 weeks if you have a flight that will take you over the line. Make sure you call them before the flight, and don't bother asking for more than 2 weeks, it's a non-negotiable deal from all reports.

There are also reports currently of BA renewing people who have fallen short, but you wouldn't want to rely on that when you are so close.

greenbee

Thanks SW17... you're right about the date, but I can't travel on the weekend, so my personal deadline is the 6th.

Doshwaster

SW17 wrote: »

There are also reports currently of BA renewing people who have fallen short, but you wouldn't want to rely on that when you are so close.

I had a "courtesy" renewal a couple of times when I was a BA Silver. It came as a nice surprise both times as I was expecting to be downgraded. In other years I had to plan my travel carefully around the membership year end date. My favourite Tier Point Run was a weekend in Jersey.

Now that I don't travel so much on business, the effort of retaining Silver became too much so I have resigned myself to being a lowly Bronze.

becominganobsessivesaver

Alternatively you could fly up to Leeds Bradford and get the train back to London, likely to be about the same price as previous suggestions but you don't have to go as far!