British Airways removes Qatar ‘R’ business class from tier point and Avios earning

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• keith says:

  3 Nov3 November 07:23

  Hi Barry. Company pay for your flights by any chance?

  God Save the Points is suggesting using social media or emailing BA to register complaints. They are also suggesting Nov 30 as cut off point.

  • barry cutters says:

    3 Nov3 November 07:32

    No I pay for my own flights. But the idea of a frequent flyer program is to generate loyalty by providing perks to people spending a lot of money with the airline. It simply wasn’t sustainable for ba to be offering free lounge access for almost 2 years to someone (plus a guest) who paid qatar £900 for a flight. Never mind extra avios, extra bag, all other perks

    • Genghis says:

      3 Nov3 November 11:11

      “With 1,138,000 page views in October 2016, Head for Points offers a unique opportunity to connect with a substantial number of UK-based business travellers and high-end leisure travellers.”
      https://headforpoints.com/contact/

      • Rob says:

        3 Nov3 November 11:30

        Indeed 🙂

    • Lady London says:

      3 Nov3 November 13:19

      Well said Polly.

      The sad thing is that so many people are actually prepared to contemplate that BA could do something so dishonourable as not to honour a promise on the basis of which people who pay their own flights and have a choice, spent their own hard-earned money.

      There was a time when the word “dishonourable” and BA would not have even appeared together.

      And I say this as mighty frustrated with BA and their appallingly unhelpful customer service line. Their Indian call centre had me in tears last night after 66 minutes trying to persuade them to put me back through to the Executive Club whom I’d been cut off from due to phone problems when I’d been speaking to them earlier. I had to dial back in again asking to be put back through to the Exec Club so that I could progress the call from where I was with them. I was in tears at minute 52 when they simply refused to put me back through. At minute 64 something their supervisor said let me know they thought I was trying to make an EU261 claim for a 2 hour delay in Europe which was nothing to do with the subject of the call…. and they’d spent 62 minutes refusing to put me back to the Executive Club for that…. I’ve really had enough of BA right now. Maybe the low-costs and working on the basis of cash cost only, is the way to go. Or is BA taking us there already?

  • Andrew Chapman says:

    3 Nov3 November 07:38

    Whilst Nov 30th suits me (outbound flight 22nd) it utterly shafts many others and is not acceptable. The date of announcement is the appropriate time to draw the line. There are enough frequent flyers using HFP to register a significant complaint en masse. Let’s see what happens when the dust settles

• Dan says:

  3 Nov3 November 07:24

  I have ARN-DOH-PVG return booked in march. Was only yesterday looking up how to get the extra 40 TP and 4 BA segments needed to finally get to BA Silver. Very glad I didn’t book them now, and that Air Berlin kindly gave me Gold status through to their current match.

  Any chance IB will continue to credit R class as it’s only BA who joined the deal with Qatar I think?

• Andrew says:

  3 Nov3 November 07:25

  This is pretty disgraceful. I’ve specifically booked s trip in R in 3/52 to make sure I hit Gold this year. I’m sure many others have done this in good faith. Is there any prior history of BA changing rules and failing to honour pre-existing bookings?

  • roberto says:

    3 Nov3 November 07:41

    “Is there any prior history of BA changing rules and failing to honour pre-existing bookings?”

    Erm , well the buy on board was introduced to all new and pre-existing bookings.. Lots of people booked as were told they would get food and drink for free and wont. And tbh that effects many many more travelers that the odd thousands making hay though this loophole.

  • Dave says:

    3 Nov3 November 07:41

    Prior history of changing the terms after booking? How about withdrawing free drinks on ET from 11th Jan?

    • Andrew says:

      3 Nov3 November 07:53

      With respect, in flight drinks may cost a fiver. R class (“cheap fares” cost >£3k for two tickets to Asia, and non one world alternatives were cheaper at the time of booking. So I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be irritated

      • barry cutters says:

        3 Nov3 November 08:18

        With respect you are not losing £3000, You are still getting your super cheap business class flight to Asia. -you are just losing the free avios and free tp.

• James says:

  3 Nov3 November 07:36

  I don’t have any QR R flights which I’ll credit to BA booked so won’t benefit if they do honour existing bookings, however feel that they really ought to.
  It was not long ago they appeared not to offer TP or Avios on R fares but then announced that they would, and did. On the back of that announcement & change people booked in good faith based upon information BA provided them with.
  To then go back on their word is dishonourable and thoroughly unBritish.

  I am just about still a BA customer now and then but I am not loyal to them anymore as they have not shown they really value my loyalty for the past 4/5 years or most importantly kept up their quality.

  I now have far more QPoints than Avios & Platinum status with Qatar (Emerald O/W) and am so glad I switched away from BAEC. I now no longer feel the need to try to justify using a substantially inferior product. It does irk me a little as I’d much rather my money went to support BA than Qatar (for nationalistic reasons !) But I just can’t justify flying BA when competitors offer a markedly better experience.
  I have been running my Avios down with shorthaul CE trips & positioning flights.
  I still have 2 valid 2-4-1 Avios vouchers and once they’re all gone I shan’t be interested in BA anymore other than the occasional short haul use where my decision will be based upon value for money and they may occasionally win out.

  I don’t care about BA status anymore because of the constant devaluing of their product and as such my spend is mostly going elsewhere.
  If BA hadn’t eroded away at their service and product quality I would still care about status and they would still be getting my money.
  They are still determined to race to the bottom.

  BA is no linger a national institution to be proud of but a bit of an embarrassment.

  • Leo says:

    3 Nov3 November 07:49

    Why would you care about BA status if you are already OW emerald?

• Julian says:

  3 Nov3 November 07:39

  At the end of the day Priority Pass Prestige membership only costs £259 a year for unlimited lounge access for those of you making a return flight at least once a week, which only comes out at £5 a week. Given that just the one R class flight to Doha (that used to provide lots of BA Exec Club tier points cheaply but now does not) would cost over four times this isn’t it better for people to stop having to jump through all of BA’s absurd hoops to get Silver or Gold status with their airline and instead travel on whatever mix of airlines they need whilst paying an effective £2.50 a time for the somewhat dubious privilege of having to arrive at the airport and check in a lot earlier for your flight in order to feel like one of God’s Special People. I accept that for those regularly making connections on certain obscure routings (where there can be very long waiting times between flights) that lounges can be a god send but if you are mainly travelling on direct point to point routes between cities and not transferring flights then if taking say a short haul BA Club Europe Avios redemption out of T5 at £25 plus 15,000 Avios per sector redemption the two basic Club lounges just becomes a dubious extra privilege, for which you need to allow at least another 45 minutes on your total journey time (especially as BA seemingly goes out of its way to limit your likely potential food and drink consumption in a short period by not providing any trays or trolleys to carry your food and luggage on to get to your table). And unless you are a very heavy fine wines drinker you get only some yoghurt, some crisps, some muesli, some orange juice, some cheap bits of fruits (apple, banana or orange but no mango, peaches or strawberries or raspberries etc) and a variety of truly utterly disgusting motorway cafe type main course food (nasty swilling chill con carni and worst possible Stockpot type chicken curry and a baked potato and baked beans that are always the same every single day and not a bit of smoked salmon, caviar or crab pate in site) for your trouble. But with the unlimited Priority Pass you can buy whatever flight you want and for those of you flying weekly only pay the £2.50 for each lounge access that this facility is probably actually worth.

  • Rob says:

    3 Nov3 November 07:43

    I don’t think anyone was randomly flying to Bangkok and turning straight round again just for the tier points.

    Most of these Qatar trips have been exceptional deals and would have been worth doing – will continue to be worth doing – even if they don’t earn Avios and tier points. £900 return to Asia in one the best business class products in the world is worth doing irrespective, and you will still earn a pile of miles too in some scheme if not BA.

    There is also, effectively, no Priority Pass lounge in T5 anyway as Aspire is always at capacity with paying guests so it isn’t a good alternative until the Plaza Premium facility opens, which with 200+ seats should be a game changer.

    • Julian says:

      3 Nov3 November 08:03

      Rob,

      In my experience of both of BA’s Club Europe lounges in T5 (one of which is much larger than the other but has a truly horrendous access route involving lots of escalators there and back) they are also always horridly full when I have tried to access them and moving with my large wheelie bag and my laptop plus some of the free food and drink, that one is actually there for, safely to a free near by table is usually a near impossible task.

      The baked potato, baked beans and swilling hot vats of curry and chilli type hot food in the Club Europe lounges is also now complete swill and would have disgraced even a very bad motorway service area 30 years ago. It may of course be that for those of you qualifying for the giddy heights of the Concorde Room at T5 that things are a lot better?

      • Genghis says:

        3 Nov3 November 08:09

        What’s the Club Europe lounge? I’ve never been there…

        • Julian says:

          3 Nov3 November 08:19

          Its the two lounges (in the North and South lounge areas) they will let you in with a Club Europe ticket. I am sure that it has some other actual name that you as some scary geek who is quite clearly stalking me on the forum will undoubtedly also know by heart for every single possible airport lounge worldwide.

        • @mkcol says:

          3 Nov3 November 09:54

          Irony fail in that other response…

      • barry cutters says:

        3 Nov3 November 08:22

        Firstly its one escalator down to the main level and then another 2 or a lift . Nit a horrendous route considering its a massive airport and the lounge has to be somewhere. Secondly, put your bag down at a table and go to the buffet with both hands free. Its not the fault of ba that you dont have 3 hands

      • Rob says:

        3 Nov3 November 08:30

        I generally find them OK but I rarely fly at peak business times, eg 8am Monday.

        We had the 5B lounge pretty much to ourselves last Thursday!

  • Genghis says:

    3 Nov3 November 07:59

    How was your holiday in Spain?

    • Julian says:

      3 Nov3 November 08:06

      How do you know where I went on holiday? Club Europe goes to a lot more places in Europe than just Spain.

      • Genghis says:

        3 Nov3 November 08:15

        🙂

        • Brian W says:

          3 Nov3 November 21:49

          Literally fell off my seat reading this 🙂

          Here in Spain…………with my fee free Duo cards………….. 🙂

• N says:

  3 Nov3 November 07:41

  Anyone else waiting for BA to trot out the ” tier points are complimentary” line on their socials?

  • Julian says:

    3 Nov3 November 07:53

    After Avios.com bought in charges for redemptions (even though it is now still only £25 per sector for Club Europe flights to Zone 2) I always used to feel really angry when they sent me a patronising booking email saying that they hoped I, the customer, enjoyed my “treat”. But I imagine customers making a long haul Economy Avios redemption to the USA and paying many hundreds of pounds of taxes per flight, plus shed loads of Avios, would have felt a lot more cross than me about the patronising and outdated language used (only appropriate when there were no cash charges for redemption of what were then Air Miles). Perhaps unsurprisingly avios.com now no longer use the word treat in their redemption booking covering emails.. Hopefully in due course we may also start to earn some Avios on the cash charges now imposed for the redemption booking…………………..

• Derek says:

  3 Nov3 November 07:55

  BA’s prices seem to be coming down year on year, but the value and quality of service has been going down even faster. The same is true of their loyalty program and, for me, this is probably the straw that will break the camel’s back.

  It’s time BA came clean and declared itself a low cost carrier. Hopefully this – and an effective competition enquiry – will allow a new entrant to come into the market and provide a decent product.

• Mike says:

  3 Nov3 November 08:08

  BA should credit some TP and Avios for all tickets, even if at a reduced rate. I use Qatar for long haul to asia, becuase it is miles ahead of BA, but I use BA for all European short haul and value the gold status for business lounges etc. Hopefully BA will see sense . . .

  • Julian says:

    3 Nov3 November 08:13

    Seems like they need new earnings categories for Business Low and Business Lowest in their awards table as opposed to Business Fully Flexible (which many Business tickets no longer are but originally always were).

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