Going for Gold with BA in 2021 18 April 2021 at 3:49AM in Coronavirus travel help & info 76 replies 1.8K views

ratechaser

bagand96 said:

There’s always FlyerTalk!

Yeah, but they're a bunch of travel fanatics over there, not like us well rounded lot 

Doshwaster

ratechaser said:

Doshwaster said:

ratechaser said:

...and if I were old and free and single (only tick one box there, and not the best one!), then I'd be making a lot more of my BA status than I have done over the past 10 years. But Mrs RC thinks I'm mad for caring about a silver card. Doesn't stop her happily lapping up the lounges, priority check in, security, boarding and seat selection, upgrades etc etc...

I just smile and nod. It tends to work with most things.

I never made it to Gold but I spent over 10 years at Silver with a mixture of business and leisure traffic. It's a status you get used to so I wasn't happy when a reduction in business travel a few years ago meant that I dropped down to Bronze and one year even went down to lowly Blue. I still use the Silver tags of my luggage though!

With the reduction in tier point requirements, achieving Silver on purely leisure  travel would be a fun challenge once international flights become easier.

And it's not really that expensive/difficult to maintain silver if you can be flexible on travel dates and even more so if you want to play the game of tier point running...

That's the sweet spot - silver status, cheap hand baggage only Europe flights, make full use of the seat selection, priority everything, and lounges...

Yes, looking forward to some weekend Tier Point runs once restrictions are relaxed.  Tallinn via Helsinki is a good one as is the famous Amsterdam-Jersey shuffle.

Butts

ratechaser said:

Butts said:

ratechaser said:

Butts said:

ratechaser said:

Butts said:

ratechaser said:

Westin said:

@Butts  When TUI build a Sensatori or TUI Blue Hotel and offer 7 night beach holidays in Belfast then I will.

Beach is in short supply, but if you wanted a good hotel in Belfast, I'd always recommend The Merchant, if only for the tasteful Art Deco nudie pictures on the bedroom walls 

Butts - I hope your plan regarding reuse of vouchers for an existing booking works, but that's one area where BA can be a bit picky - I think the rules now specifically state that vouchers are for new bookings only, but you may get lucky when you call...

No need to call you can do it all online.

Just make sure you have cancelled one trip before you book the new one.

They send you an e-mail with the cancelled booking reference and you just reply to it quoting the new booking reference and hey presto the amount magically disappears off the balance of your new booking.

Interesting, so just to be clear, you got the voucher for a cancelled holiday, and then responded with the PNR of another holiday you'd already booked to apply the value of the voucher to? 

if that worked, it's against the rebooking T&Cs, but we know how inconsistently these things work with BA... may have to try that myself next time...

You have to cancel one and replace it with a new one.

As long as you don't do it the other way around you are ok - ie book a new one then cancel an old one and try and use the voucher towards the new one.

Hope that makes sense.

Ok yes so as I thought. You can't just cancel a holiday and use that voucher to further pay off part of another holiday you'd already got booked...

Correct, now shall we talk about mega vouchers....no that will wait for another day !!

I think the standard terminology is 'e-vouchers' as distinct from FTVs... 

The only E-Voucher I have had was from a Flight Only Booking.

They are really handy because you can bang the number in during the booking process for an instant reduction.

Butts

Doshwaster said:

ratechaser said:

Doshwaster said:

ratechaser said:

...and if I were old and free and single (only tick one box there, and not the best one!), then I'd be making a lot more of my BA status than I have done over the past 10 years. But Mrs RC thinks I'm mad for caring about a silver card. Doesn't stop her happily lapping up the lounges, priority check in, security, boarding and seat selection, upgrades etc etc...

I just smile and nod. It tends to work with most things.

I never made it to Gold but I spent over 10 years at Silver with a mixture of business and leisure traffic. It's a status you get used to so I wasn't happy when a reduction in business travel a few years ago meant that I dropped down to Bronze and one year even went down to lowly Blue. I still use the Silver tags of my luggage though!

With the reduction in tier point requirements, achieving Silver on purely leisure  travel would be a fun challenge once international flights become easier.

And it's not really that expensive/difficult to maintain silver if you can be flexible on travel dates and even more so if you want to play the game of tier point running...

That's the sweet spot - silver status, cheap hand baggage only Europe flights, make full use of the seat selection, priority everything, and lounges...

Yes, looking forward to some weekend Tier Point runs once restrictions are relaxed.  Tallinn via Helsinki is a good one as is the famous Amsterdam-Jersey shuffle.

You've got me intrigued , is that Flight Only or can they be done as part of a package.

Finland is always very expensive for CW Flights as they are operated by Finnair ?

Can you notate the exact routings - ie is it  LHR-JER via AMS ? and the other please.

ratechaser

Butts said:

Doshwaster said:

ratechaser said:

Doshwaster said:

ratechaser said:

...and if I were old and free and single (only tick one box there, and not the best one!), then I'd be making a lot more of my BA status than I have done over the past 10 years. But Mrs RC thinks I'm mad for caring about a silver card. Doesn't stop her happily lapping up the lounges, priority check in, security, boarding and seat selection, upgrades etc etc...

I just smile and nod. It tends to work with most things.

I never made it to Gold but I spent over 10 years at Silver with a mixture of business and leisure traffic. It's a status you get used to so I wasn't happy when a reduction in business travel a few years ago meant that I dropped down to Bronze and one year even went down to lowly Blue. I still use the Silver tags of my luggage though!

With the reduction in tier point requirements, achieving Silver on purely leisure  travel would be a fun challenge once international flights become easier.

And it's not really that expensive/difficult to maintain silver if you can be flexible on travel dates and even more so if you want to play the game of tier point running...

That's the sweet spot - silver status, cheap hand baggage only Europe flights, make full use of the seat selection, priority everything, and lounges...

Yes, looking forward to some weekend Tier Point runs once restrictions are relaxed.  Tallinn via Helsinki is a good one as is the famous Amsterdam-Jersey shuffle.

You've got me intrigued , is that Flight Only or can they be done as part of a package.

Finland is always very expensive for CW Flights as they are operated by Finnair ?

Can you notate the exact routings - ie is it  LHR-JER via AMS ? and the other please.

TP runs tend to be flight only, but suspect you could package it if you tried hard enough - even if you just threw in a cheap hotel night on a date way outside your actual travel period (ie that you wouldn't bother using). But some of these fares are quite carefully constructed and booked through specialist agents like Propeller, and don't like being tinkered with. 

Don't think that's the case with this one though - pretty vanilla as TP runs go. It's the complex ex-EUs with positioning flights, lots of segments, and a potentially throwaway final flight (which is getting a bit dodgy especially if you have checked luggage), that you have to handle with care...

moneyursula

Do I need more than uk travel insurance for a British isles cruise with p & o?  Being told to have European cover from some travel insurance companies but can’t understand why!

Doshwaster

Butts said:

Doshwaster said:

ratechaser said:

Doshwaster said:

ratechaser said:

...and if I were old and free and single (only tick one box there, and not the best one!), then I'd be making a lot more of my BA status than I have done over the past 10 years. But Mrs RC thinks I'm mad for caring about a silver card. Doesn't stop her happily lapping up the lounges, priority check in, security, boarding and seat selection, upgrades etc etc...

I just smile and nod. It tends to work with most things.

I never made it to Gold but I spent over 10 years at Silver with a mixture of business and leisure traffic. It's a status you get used to so I wasn't happy when a reduction in business travel a few years ago meant that I dropped down to Bronze and one year even went down to lowly Blue. I still use the Silver tags of my luggage though!

With the reduction in tier point requirements, achieving Silver on purely leisure  travel would be a fun challenge once international flights become easier.

And it's not really that expensive/difficult to maintain silver if you can be flexible on travel dates and even more so if you want to play the game of tier point running...

That's the sweet spot - silver status, cheap hand baggage only Europe flights, make full use of the seat selection, priority everything, and lounges...

Yes, looking forward to some weekend Tier Point runs once restrictions are relaxed.  Tallinn via Helsinki is a good one as is the famous Amsterdam-Jersey shuffle.

You've got me intrigued , is that Flight Only or can they be done as part of a package.

Finland is always very expensive for CW Flights as they are operated by Finnair ?

Can you notate the exact routings - ie is it  LHR-JER via AMS ? and the other please.

You can get some good value BA Holidays in Club Europe which get full tier points. Often the hotel is effectively free.

This is the classic routing for the Jersey Shuffle:

1) Book a Gatwick to Jersey return. Sort of a "domestic" flight but you get Club Europe service and points. 40 points on the way out

2) Inside that return book a return from JER to AMS which is via LGW. 40 points per leg = 160 points

3) When you get back to JER fly back to LGW on the original return ticket. Another 40 points

Total = 240 tie points for the cost of two Club Europe returns all of which have short flights.

Throw in a hotel in Jersey or Amsterdam if you want to make a weekend of it,

More info here: https://pointstobemade.com/ams-jer-tp-run/


The HEL-TLL route works as HEL is one of the mid haul destinations which get 80 tier points so LHR-HEL-TLL return is 240.

I used to earn lots of points by flying to Spanish destinations via MAD or BCN but that became less lucrative when they cut the number of points for Spanish domestic routes. 

Butts

Doshwaster said:

Butts said:

Doshwaster said:

ratechaser said:

Doshwaster said:

ratechaser said:

...and if I were old and free and single (only tick one box there, and not the best one!), then I'd be making a lot more of my BA status than I have done over the past 10 years. But Mrs RC thinks I'm mad for caring about a silver card. Doesn't stop her happily lapping up the lounges, priority check in, security, boarding and seat selection, upgrades etc etc...

I just smile and nod. It tends to work with most things.

I never made it to Gold but I spent over 10 years at Silver with a mixture of business and leisure traffic. It's a status you get used to so I wasn't happy when a reduction in business travel a few years ago meant that I dropped down to Bronze and one year even went down to lowly Blue. I still use the Silver tags of my luggage though!

With the reduction in tier point requirements, achieving Silver on purely leisure  travel would be a fun challenge once international flights become easier.

And it's not really that expensive/difficult to maintain silver if you can be flexible on travel dates and even more so if you want to play the game of tier point running...

That's the sweet spot - silver status, cheap hand baggage only Europe flights, make full use of the seat selection, priority everything, and lounges...

Yes, looking forward to some weekend Tier Point runs once restrictions are relaxed.  Tallinn via Helsinki is a good one as is the famous Amsterdam-Jersey shuffle.

You've got me intrigued , is that Flight Only or can they be done as part of a package.

Finland is always very expensive for CW Flights as they are operated by Finnair ?

Can you notate the exact routings - ie is it  LHR-JER via AMS ? and the other please.

You can get some good value BA Holidays in Club Europe which get full tier points. Often the hotel is effectively free.

This is the classic routing for the Jersey Shuffle:

1) Book a Gatwick to Jersey return. Sort of a "domestic" flight but you get Club Europe service and points. 40 points on the way out

2) Inside that return book a return from JER to AMS which is via LGW. 40 points per leg = 160 points

3) When you get back to JER fly back to LGW on the original return ticket. Another 40 points

Total = 240 tie points for the cost of two Club Europe returns all of which have short flights.

Throw in a hotel in Jersey or Amsterdam if you want to make a weekend of it,

More info here: https://pointstobemade.com/ams-jer-tp-run/


The HEL-TLL route works as HEL is one of the mid haul destinations which get 80 tier points so LHR-HEL-TLL return is 240.

I used to earn lots of points by flying to Spanish destinations via MAD or BCN but that became less lucrative when they cut the number of points for Spanish domestic routes. 

Flying from EDI via LHR to mid-haul clocks up 240 points as you get eighty points for the domestic part of the return ticket.

Doshwaster

Butts said:

Doshwaster said:

Butts said:

Doshwaster said:

ratechaser said:

Doshwaster said:

ratechaser said:

...and if I were old and free and single (only tick one box there, and not the best one!), then I'd be making a lot more of my BA status than I have done over the past 10 years. But Mrs RC thinks I'm mad for caring about a silver card. Doesn't stop her happily lapping up the lounges, priority check in, security, boarding and seat selection, upgrades etc etc...

I just smile and nod. It tends to work with most things.

I never made it to Gold but I spent over 10 years at Silver with a mixture of business and leisure traffic. It's a status you get used to so I wasn't happy when a reduction in business travel a few years ago meant that I dropped down to Bronze and one year even went down to lowly Blue. I still use the Silver tags of my luggage though!

With the reduction in tier point requirements, achieving Silver on purely leisure  travel would be a fun challenge once international flights become easier.

And it's not really that expensive/difficult to maintain silver if you can be flexible on travel dates and even more so if you want to play the game of tier point running...

That's the sweet spot - silver status, cheap hand baggage only Europe flights, make full use of the seat selection, priority everything, and lounges...

Yes, looking forward to some weekend Tier Point runs once restrictions are relaxed.  Tallinn via Helsinki is a good one as is the famous Amsterdam-Jersey shuffle.

You've got me intrigued , is that Flight Only or can they be done as part of a package.

Finland is always very expensive for CW Flights as they are operated by Finnair ?

Can you notate the exact routings - ie is it  LHR-JER via AMS ? and the other please.

You can get some good value BA Holidays in Club Europe which get full tier points. Often the hotel is effectively free.

This is the classic routing for the Jersey Shuffle:

1) Book a Gatwick to Jersey return. Sort of a "domestic" flight but you get Club Europe service and points. 40 points on the way out

2) Inside that return book a return from JER to AMS which is via LGW. 40 points per leg = 160 points

3) When you get back to JER fly back to LGW on the original return ticket. Another 40 points

Total = 240 tie points for the cost of two Club Europe returns all of which have short flights.

Throw in a hotel in Jersey or Amsterdam if you want to make a weekend of it,

More info here: https://pointstobemade.com/ams-jer-tp-run/


The HEL-TLL route works as HEL is one of the mid haul destinations which get 80 tier points so LHR-HEL-TLL return is 240.

I used to earn lots of points by flying to Spanish destinations via MAD or BCN but that became less lucrative when they cut the number of points for Spanish domestic routes. 

Flying from EDI via LHR to mid-haul clocks up 240 points as you get eighty points for the domestic part of the return ticket.

Yes, there are tricks to getting the most out of any frequent flier scheme and with BA one of the the secrets is doing short legs in premium cabins. Other airlines are based entirely on miles flown  but with BA the number of individual flights flown is also a factor so you earn more by flying indirect. Of course there are lots of other considerations which is why whole websites are dedicated to TP runs.

rosiesposies

ratechaser said:

Butts said:

ratechaser said:

Butts said:

ratechaser said:

Westin said:

@Butts  When TUI build a Sensatori or TUI Blue Hotel and offer 7 night beach holidays in Belfast then I will.

Beach is in short supply, but if you wanted a good hotel in Belfast, I'd always recommend The Merchant, if only for the tasteful Art Deco nudie pictures on the bedroom walls 

Butts - I hope your plan regarding reuse of vouchers for an existing booking works, but that's one area where BA can be a bit picky - I think the rules now specifically state that vouchers are for new bookings only, but you may get lucky when you call...

No need to call you can do it all online.

Just make sure you have cancelled one trip before you book the new one.

They send you an e-mail with the cancelled booking reference and you just reply to it quoting the new booking reference and hey presto the amount magically disappears off the balance of your new booking.

Interesting, so just to be clear, you got the voucher for a cancelled holiday, and then responded with the PNR of another holiday you'd already booked to apply the value of the voucher to? 

if that worked, it's against the rebooking T&Cs, but we know how inconsistently these things work with BA... may have to try that myself next time...

You have to cancel one and replace it with a new one.

As long as you don't do it the other way around you are ok - ie book a new one then cancel an old one and try and use the voucher towards the new one.

Hope that makes sense.

Ok yes so as I thought. You can't just cancel a holiday and use that voucher to further pay off part of another holiday you'd already got booked...

I’ve done this at least 5 times this year! I cancel a booking and ask them to apply the voucher to one I’ve got booked! Has always worked for me.