British Airways extends Executive Club status… for half their frequent flyers

Extensions to frequent flyer status have been a recurring theme throughout the pandemic. With travel severely curtailed, it is not at all surprising British Airways have announced a second extension… but only for half their frequent flyers.

In June 2020, BA did a blanket extension of 12 months for everyone in the Executive Club. There were winners and there were losers, but now that seems to have been addressed.

The Happy Half

Anyone with an Executive Club renewal date from July to December 2021 will have their status extended by a year. With the ongoing flight restrictions and border closures imposed upon airlines and travellers, this makes a lot of sense. These people were also the ones who were most hard done by in the previous round (and didn’t they let everyone know about that!).

Previously it was done just after June renewals. Therefore, if you renewed on 8 June, you had 12 months to use your status. As the extension was applied during June, those people, such as me, had 12 months added to that, in effect giving 24 months at the new level. Today’s announcement means the July to December people now come out at least even, if not ahead.

Will We See More?

Considering the time it is going to take to get travel moving again, I do believe we will probably see a similar announcement later this year. With borders closed and vaccine rollouts taking time, it will be 2022 until any semblance of normality returns, in my opinion.

Constantly keeping up to date on what the airlines are doing is what informs that view. While some airlines are more optimistic than others, in reality we will see domestic and regional travel start well before any proper long-haul gets going in any decent way.

Overall Thoughts

This announcement was pretty much expected by British Airways frequent flyers, though the smart money was on another 12 month extension for all, given in June. This is what other airlines have usually been doing in one form or another, so this isn’t much different.

While the status extensions sound great, it’s not like many people have had a chance to fly very much to actually use it. Oh well, things will change, so it’s time to start planning for that.

What do you think of today’s announcement from British Airways? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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Featured image by Igor Dvurekov on Airliners.net via Wikimedia Commons.