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Comment by crdb | Hacker News Reader

There actually is a formal version of "extreme status" on BA, in the form of a Black Card [1] [2]. Basically, you need to be something like "the guy responsible for the travel spend at big corp" and each membership is approved by the board.

Benefits supposedly include delaying an entire airliner by up to half an hour if you are running late, and it's so rare many lounge staff will deny you entry, not understanding what the card is.

[1] http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-clu...

[2] http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/re...

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Regardless of the hearsay posted on FlyerTalk, I find it very difficult to believe any Big Corp would allow a purchasing manager to accept any kind of personal kickback from a supplier, period. Maybe a small corp like the principal of a small consulting firm that does a lot of travel, but no publicly traded company would allow this.

>I find it very difficult to believe any Big Corp would allow a purchasing manager to accept any kind of personal kickback from a supplier, period.

Why not? Lots of big corps allow their staff to keep stuff like loyalty points so its not too big of a jump. Plus big corps run on policies...and there is rarely a policy in place to cover 1 head honcho.

Because most of the Big Corps have complete internal policies about exactly what's acceptable and what isn't, to the level of actual values of any gifts. This means for example giving someone a spare gift card would be violation of the policy if the receiving party was the user or a potential buyer of some product. It's not that there would be a policy to cover 1 head honcho - there's usually a policy for everyone, with maybe only potentially exceptions for the head honcho.

Yes I know - I'm in one of those Big Corps, so I know the whole spiel about gift registers etc. In practice "indirect" benefits like these fly under the radar. Its just too much hassle & admin to catch everything.

Obviously if there is a direct link between say a contract given and an airline upgrade that would just be fraud. Thats not the scenario I meant.

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