Avios changes 6: why are off-peak Club World upgrades now more expensive than peak?

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• richie says:

  31 Jan31 January 05:54

  This is a massive jump. I have been doing this for all my long haul flights thus retaining status and gaining most tier points back. I am quite flexible and didn’t really have an issue with getting availability. Eg in the sale last week I got nyc from lhr for £800 paid 20k avios and £100 to upgrade. Did the same for Delhi in march and Punta cana in may. I need to change my way of thinking now I think. The 241 Amex has just got 50% more valuable

  • Worzel says:

    31 Jan31 January 08:17

    richie: ‘The 241 Amex has just got 50% more valuable’.

    I mentioned the 241, and my view that the cost of the BAPP will probably go up in a comment yesterday. When they all sat down and planned their devaluation strategy the 241 will probably have been an irritation -but what to do?

    Scrap it?: “Too much at this stage we”d lose too many collectors”.

    Increase the charge for the BAPP card and place a minimal one the formerly free card, there’s some revenue to be had there?: “Great idea, how long shall we wait for the dust to settle?” Six months?

    • Mr Bridge says:

      31 Jan31 January 09:47

      I guess that would be in the numbers

      commission from amex paid to ba – cost of 2-4-1 redemptions =????

• Kiran says:

  31 Jan31 January 06:04

  I think gold upgrade for 2 and gold upgrade for 1 vouchers are now very valuable unless BAEC have quietly devalued those too. I need 50TPs in February to hit 3500TPs before March 8th and so have a little more insentive to do this.

  • C Y S Yuen says:

    31 Jan31 January 12:37

    You can perhaps do a LHR-DME run?

    A round trip gives you 70TPs for WT.

    Also please sign my petition to the changes on BAEC if you haven’t!

    https://www.change.org/p/british-airways-maintain-the-current-avios-and-tier-points-earning-rates-on-all-ba-flights

    • richie says:

      31 Jan31 January 12:54

      You could also do jersey or Dublin Amsterdam in club. That would get you 80tp.

      • richie says:

        31 Jan31 January 22:52

        Saying that if you have earnt 3450 tp in a year im Sure you know that

• Tom C says:

  31 Jan31 January 06:29

  Excuse my terrible ignorance on this, but how do you go about upgrading using Avios having purchased a ticket? Or is it only possible to do when booking a ticket in the first place? I’ve ever only used Avios for purchasing the entire flight. Due to my height I cannot travel anything less than Club World, so wouldn’t want to book a flight and find I cannot upgrade it later on.

  • Mark says:

    31 Jan31 January 06:45

    You can upgrade later via Manage My Booking online or by phone, but only if there is Club redemption availability on the flight and you have to pay the difference in taxes and fees as well as the avios. That is usually somewhere around £100 from memory on a return flight.

  • Rob says:

    31 Jan31 January 11:36

    You can do it via Manage My Booking at any tin as long as reward seats are available in the higher cabin, your ticket is in the right fare class and it wasn’t bought via a travel agent ( with some exceptions).

• James67 says:

  31 Jan31 January 07:33

  Ist is this change alone that has cost BA my business. It is unlikely they will get a longhaul flight from me ever again barring a decent CW sale. I had planned most of my travelling over next couple of years would be WTP UuAbit now I will just find best J seats on trip by trip basis. I think your assertion that the 42k UuA to SFO remains good value is wrong because the typical WTP fare is probably going to be similar to that I pay for Asia; about £1200ish. Only an idiot would pay this plus the miles required without first checking availability of special fares in J with other airlines. At peak times to USA or if booking close-in it probably does remain good value but for all other times, advance bookings and other destinations I would expect to find revenue J fares costing not much more. BAs belief that UuA from WT to WTP will be welcome and popular is also misguided for similar reasons; BAs economy fares rarely offer good value when compared to the competition even in a sale, pax will not have or not be willing to part with the miles they have, and will turn their noses up at increased tax required. I believe WTP is currently only viable due to UuA; I suspect BA may have inadvertently killed it off. Airlines have difficulty making premium economy work, some have scrapped it while others are in process of doing so.

  • Tim says:

    31 Jan31 January 09:06

    Actaully is £1200 about the price of a BRU-HNL in Club right now (plus a wadge of TP)?

  • james says:

    31 Jan31 January 11:17

    I don’t think WTP will be going anywhere because of the huge number of firms which now specify premium economy in their travel policies for all but the most senior executives. And on US routes there is no competition in this area except from Virgin Atlantic. WTP on LHR-JFK is always packed with jaded Gold Card business travellers who aren’t allowed to fly Club World on work’s buck and haven’t been able to upgrade with Avios/their own cash. If anything, I could see BA getting rid of First and expanding WTP.

  • Mark says:

    31 Jan31 January 12:39

    I mentioned £1500 J cash fares from Madrid to Miami the other day. Looking around I can see other options that would also easily trump a BA UuA under the new rules.

    Qatar currently (for the next 3 days) has an offer on UK to Phuket valid for the remainder of the year – can be booked in J for as little as around £1300 via a third party site.

    It is also possible to book Frankfurt – Kuala Lumpur for around £1250. £120 cash or £35 plus 9k avios (8k under the new rules) will get you to Frankfurt and back.

    By comparison the direct BA flight W->J UuA is pricing up at about £1150 – at the moment with 35k avios. Under the new rules that will be 70k avios peak and a massive 85k avios off-peak with reduced earnings compared to the Qatar option.

    Hmm – less than £1300 (Qatar) or £1150 plus an extra £72k avios minimum (BA)… I really don’t see the value in that outlay for a £150 saving a direct flight.

    • Mark says:

      31 Jan31 January 12:43

      … plus an extra 62K avios minimum even – still not great value.

    • Mrs Fussy says:

      31 Jan31 January 22:35

      Hi Mark -is this fare available via Qatar directly ? You mentioned a third party website

      • Mark says:

        1 Feb1 February 09:30

        Have a look at http://www.skyscanner.net You’ll see that booking through a third party such as ebookers.com is often a bit cheaper than Qatar direct.

• Mr Bridge says:

  31 Jan31 January 09:12

  lots of flights have opened up on BA now.
  its time to activate my companion voucher, to get in before 28/04
  i bet hotels.com are busy with cancellations…( laughs out loud)

  • Rob says:

    31 Jan31 January 11:31

    🙂

  • dynamo says:

    31 Jan31 January 19:56

    Is this the best way to bring forward amex spend? I have 1500 to go for the 2-4-1.

    • Rob says:

      31 Jan31 January 20:08

      Buy a fully flex BA ticket (albeit you pay cancellation fee) or a fully flex hotel room via h.c – they will still insist you pay in advance but refund immediately when cancelling.

• Nick says:

  31 Jan31 January 09:12

  Managed to upgrade with Avios on return trip from Barbados last month for all of my family for just 50,000 Avios – children couldn’t believe it! I bought premium econ tickets (rather than economic) for this exact reason – kept checking the website for Club World availability but none. Then one day before return flight BA offered be GBP400 per ticket to upgrade. I didn’t feel like paying GBP1600 for us but looked at the cost in Avios GBP172 plus 50,000 Avios : which I quickly snapped up. Strange thing was when we boarded I saw that only 2 of the prem econ seats were taken, but club was full??
  A real shame BA has changed the attractiveness of this

• Deb says:

  31 Jan31 January 09:18

  Now have I got this right, it will now cost me 120k points to upgrade 3x WTP to Club LHR to JFK
  in peak times instead of 60k points?

  Thanks Deb

  • Rob says:

    31 Jan31 January 11:30

    Yes

• Mr Bridge says:

  31 Jan31 January 09:44

  what is the chance of amex increasing from 1.5 to 2 to match bmi??

  • mark2 says:

    31 Jan31 January 10:30

    BMI cards are no longer available, so pretty much nil.

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