We all want to get the most for our money while travelling, and it turns out you don’t need to fork out business class cash for a comfortable flying experience.
Nicky Kelvin, editor-at-large at The Points Guy, has a failsafe trick to ensure the seat next to you on the plane is free, leaving you with extra room to stretch out and relax in economy.
In an Instagram post, the travel expert revealed his hack for journeys with British Airways, which offers him a spare companion seat (almost) every time.
It all comes down to the carrier’s tier status program, which frequent flyers can take advantage of for all sorts of perks.
Nicky explained to MailOnline: ‘I fly for work a lot, and often in economy. I worked hard earlier this year to re-earn gold status in the British Airways Executive Club.
‘Alongside the usual benefits of first-class check-in, first-class lounges, extra baggage allowance and more, a largely unknown benefit is that British Airways has a system of blocking seats next to gold members to give them a chance of a free seat next to them, and only releasing those seats when they have to.
‘So, unless a flight is completely full, you will often have a free seat next to you, greatly improving your economy flight experience.’
While it may seem like something that’s only available to big spenders who regularly travel BA for business, there are plenty of other ways to move up the tiers.
‘It’s become easier to earn status with British Airways these days due to the double-tier points offer on British Airways holidays, which was one of the tactics I used to achieve status quickly,’ said Nicky.
‘And for those that spend large amounts on credit cards, you can now earn an extra 200 tier points every year by using the British Airways Premium Plus American Express card.’
As long as you pay back your balance every month, it can be beneficial to use this card for bigger outlays (like a wedding or when purchasing furniture) and rack up points.
The editor-at-large also recommends finding cheap flights in premium cabins on British Airways or one of their partner airlines and doing as many segments as you can where plans allow.
‘You can often find these cheaper flights by starting your flight in different European airports such as Amsterdam, Oslo, Sofia, or Bucharest,’ Nicky added.
‘I aim to earn tier points at a cost of less than £2 per tier point. That would mean gold status would usually cost somewhere between £2,000 and £4,000.’
Given the average Brit spends £3,418 a year on holidays, according to Trainline, VIP travel doesn’t seem quite so out of reach.
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