Another one bites the dust…
In 2015, British Airways made significant changes to the Executive Club loyalty program, mostly around how many points you’ll need for just about everything. While many airlines have devalued their charts multiple times in the time between, British Airways hasn’t. Unfortunately, the airline has just announced that-that’s changing, at least when it comes to redeeming Avios on other airlines. And yes, that’s something you can do and it’s been one of the best ways to use your BA points…
To say this is a cynical move is being far too polite.
What We Know
Sadly, not much when it comes to actual numbers. But we know the date, which is May 30th, and we know which airlines you’ll need to burn more points to fly on. This is the correspondence directly from British Airways.
“From 30 May 2019, we’ll be changing our Avios prices on reward flights with the following partner airlines: Alaska Airlines, Air Italy, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Japan Airlines, LATAM, Malaysia Airlines, Qantas, Qatar Airways, S7, Sri Lankan and Royal Jordanian Airlines.”
This is a shame, given the fact that the rates British Airways has charged in Avios have never been wildly lucrative. The ability to use points at semi decent rates on partner airlines was a very key value proposition to the entire game.
To be abundantly clear: you can still book flights using Avios at the current rates, even for travel after May 30th. The only key is that you book before May 30th, when the new pricing will take shape.
Upgrade rates will be changing as well, but only for travel on American Airlines, which makes sense because it’s the only other airline you can use Avios for upgrades on anyway. The new pricing will be the difference in Avios cost between the two cabins, which is exactly the same as the way it is on British Airways own flights. That bit could be good news. Maybe.
What’s Not Changing
British Airways own flights are not being impacted and the amount of Avios you’ll need for any flight actually flown by British Airways won’t be changing on May 30th. With that said, the airline is trialling new options where you can use increased Avios Points to reduce the taxes. In other words, you’ll still be able to redeem at the same rates, but you may also be able to use more points to eliminate much of the cash component too.
No word on when this will go live on a larger scale, if the trials prove to be successful.
Devaluations Are Never Fun
Airlines are constantly retooling their loyalty programs and unfortunately devaluations are an all too familiar part of that game. Of the 10 best ways to use Avios, many of them are on partner airlines where you can enjoy excellent value with lower taxes, in places all over the world. Seeing those rates go up is just not a bit cool.
To give British Airways credit, it’s nice to see a limited window in which these redemptions can still be booked at the classic rate, versus airlines like Delta and United whom have chosen to engage in this sort of behaviour with overnight, stealth devaluations which leave people holding the bag. Still, it’s not good, especially in the year of 100 acts of kindness from the airline. This certainly isn’t one of them.
From the text with sample fares under the FAQ section of the announcement, it looks like they’re adding surcharges which I’m guessing will make be similar to the surcharges when flying BA metal. If that’s the case then RIP Avois!
Whelp. It figures. I just got excited about joining BA Avios and using them for some overseas travel to earn, and then burn them on family trips on AA at a much better rate than AA itself offers. Too good to remain true I guess! At least this year it worked out. I’ll reserve judgement about next year and using BA to earn. It truly is a race to the bottom with airlines.
Little by little, especially since the rise of the low-cost airlines, BA has been shedding all those things which once made it, in its own words, ‘the world’s favourite airline’. This is just the latest really good perk it has decided to mess with, and will mean it slides further into mediocrity and anonymity. A great shame, but not at all surprising to this veteran of 50 years flying with them.
Two comments…
Remember you expressed the opinion that purchasing Avios was safe for a further year or so (I think 2021…)?
Perhaps this is a protective measure, given how many thousands of avios have been handed out as a result of service failures… A 747 with entirely non functional IFE = approx. 300? x 5000 avios in “compensation” which of course is just about to be worth less than it was. Crap service, crap apology, this is just demonstrating the disdain the corporation has for customers.
About 2 weeks ago LATAM decided to change the chart of WO award ticket using miles of LATAM. Making it dinamic, so the cost of an award ticket in WO now depends of the demand. They have announced that bad news like 1 month before.
I believe BAEC will do the same…and that would be the sudden death of this program.
Whish I’m wrong
My last message doesn’t appear in the thread =S
If British Airways would clean up their filthy aircraft it would help.