British Airways Gold is one of the highest levels you can achieve in the Executive Club. This is the equivalent to oneworld Emerald which is the highest level in the alliance. To achieve this at British Airways you need to accumulate 1,500 tier points in one year.

My first post on Travel Update was about the British Airways Gold pack that you get in the mail. In about two weeks time, I will lose my Gold status forever.

My Favourite Gold Benefits

There are tangible benefits to being a Gold frequent flyer or oneworld Emerald. At British Airways, you earn 100% bonus Avios points which is handy for later redemption for award flights or flight upgrades. This is a really nice perk as you can imagine.

Hands down the best benefit is access to the First Class lounges at ports that operate one. In addition to places such as the British Airways Galleries First Lounge at Heathrow, you also get access to oneworld alliance airlines First Class lounges.

This includes the excellent Cathay Pacific The Pier First Class Lounge in Hong Kong and the Qantas International First Class Lounge in Sydney. Both of these lounges are a great example of what an airline lounge should be.

Another benefit I love is that Gold frequent flyers can choose any seat at the time of booking which means you can snag the coveted first row should you so desire.

Farewell, Gold!

My flying over the past year has accrued 1,130 tier points meaning I am 370 tier points short of renewing the status. I am not flying again between now and my renewal date so there is no chance of that total increasing.

One ray of light in all this gloom is that British Airways give you a soft landing. Regardless of how many tier points you have, you only fall one level which means I will be Silver or oneworld Sapphire.

Silver status gives you a 50% Avios bonus rather than 100% and access to the Business Class lounges rather than First Class. It is still a very good status to be at and I certainly won’t be complaining about that.

Overall Thoughts

It will be a sad day for me when I pop down to Silver. That being said, I have thoroughly enjoyed my year at Gold, enjoying lounges previously closed to me as well as the other perks. I am very lucky that I made it to Gold in the first place and the past 18 months has been enjoyable in many respects.

Now that I will be back to Silver, it’s time to chase getting back to Gold at some stage, but perhaps that will be next year! Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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Featured image by James Pritchett via Unsplash.