It's not just the insides of clouds that come in silver

Shortly after I gave up a high flying city job in favour of the low paid glamour of industry, I found myself in a unique position of being paid to travel the world.  Initially my trips abroad were to Europe, but then came the big one - Sydney.  For health and safety reasons the company policy was (and I hope to goodness still is) that for any flight over 6 hours, business class travel was applicable.  After all, they want you to turn up in a fit state to do some work at the other end, and it takes at least two days to unfold from any long haul flight in economy - or so I am told.  Once you have spent 22 hours in business class travelling to the other side of the world, you are I'm afraid ruined for life. Luckily therefore my next few trips were to Bangkok, Johannesburg and then Sydney and Singapore repeatedly for the next two years, and so when on business I was at least at the right end of the plane.  On one particular trip to Sydney via Hong Kong, I was upgraded to First Class  on the London to Hong Kong leg which was a taste into the really exclusive world of top class travel, and it was then impossible to even contemplate long haul in economy after that.  Fortunately with all of this jet setting came airmiles.  One of my colleagues held a strong belief that we should not collect airmiles on company business as they belonged to the company.... He was quite frankly an idiot, as whilst I enjoyed visiting various destinations for work, the time away from home, the lengthy periods in hotels enduring hotel food and the tiredness invoked by crossing through many time zones and still being expected to function professionally at both ends of the trip was a personal cost which was rewarded only in airmiles.  If the company had at any point suggested that my travels would not be eligible for airmiles, or that the business class option was not applicable, then my feet would have stayed firmly on terra firma and they could have found someone else to go and explain Commodity derivatives to the Indonesians. And the Greeks, and the Russians, and the South Africans, and the Kiwis, and the Aussies, and the Vietnamese amongst others.

In addition to airmiles, came points and eligibility to move up the tiers of the BA executive club.  It wasn't long before a silver card was safely tucked behind my passport, and a few months and several tiresome and increasingly monotonous business trips later, a gold card followed which was maintained for two years.  The benefits of these cards are only really appreciated whilst you are travelling and boil down to this; free lounge access for you and a guest regardless of class of travel (and airline for a gold card), and priority check in and boarding regardless of class of travel, although this often only works in civilised countries and not the UK interestingly. It might not seem much to anyone who has not experienced the the airport excessively as a chore rather than a precursor to a nice holiday, but its the little things that make all the difference.

You can have too much of a good thing, however, and after four years of travelling the world and racking up the airmiles I decided to give it all up for a more routine lifestyle and a different career opportunity.  The Gold card lasted for another eight months before it expired and then, to bring you back to earth gently, the worlds favourite airline generously give you a silver card automatically for a year regardless of how many points you get before demoting you to the commoners class again with a blue card. So for the last two years, Mr Man and I have only been able to go into the lounges if we are actually travelling in Club and it has been costing us a fortune. Until now that is. This week Mr Man's long awaited Silver Card has arrived.  Having missed out on it for the last two years having been thwarted by BA's fairly anal rules around points and timings, he has finally clocked up enough points in one year to be granted access to the Silver Card club. And what is more, he has already been able to make the most of one of its benefits when on Friday morning he flew to Madrid for work and despite being in cattle class was able to go into the lounge and have a civilised breakfast prior to boarding.  It was the same on the way back, which manifested in a big positive for me as it meant he arrived home in a much better mood than if he had spent an hour waiting on those hard plastic chairs so prevalent in foreign airports.  Hooray for the Silver Card!