Bits: Avios Group CEO replaced, BA Buy on Board – just fancy that …

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

• BigDave says:

  6 Apr6 April 08:50

  as with easy jet I will take my own sandwiches when I can
  probably spend almost the same money, but I can eat them
  when I want and it will always be first choice….

  • Julian says:

    6 Apr6 April 09:32

    Travelling out of LHR or LGW with BA I will from now on always be buying an airside Boots meal deal for £3.79. (don’t ever buy it landside before security or your drink won’t make it on board with you).

    Large good quality sandwich or shusi platter, wide choice of soft drinks including up to 450ml fruit smoothie and then either crisps, chocolate bars, chocolate brownies, various sliced fresh fruit choices or a porridge and muesli breakfast thing for the add on snack.

    Cruz is a complete liar and the only reason BA is actually getting rid of free drink and free sandwich is to vastly up their on board revenue streams by either not having to provide a free drink and sandwich at all or otherwise vastly over charging and making a very fat profit on those customers who still insist on BA serving them one.

    The main question is will BA’s top possible last minute one way cash fare for a 2 hour Economy class seat to the Med be any less than the outrageous £479 one way being charged last year (compared to a top price Easyjet or Ryanair last minute booked fare of only about £200 one way) in view of their new more efficient cost base? I suspect not and reckon that the extra money made will largely go in the pocket of Alex Cruz and his fellow senior directors/managers as a large bonus payment……….

• @mkcol says:

  6 Apr6 April 09:34

  I wonder if Boots in T5 has seen an upswing in meal deals being sold in the last wee while.

  • Julian says:

    6 Apr6 April 10:06

    I’m sure Boots have seen a very big rise in Meal Deal sales. Although a lot of customers won’t change their habits until they have experienced their first Fleece You On Board BA offering.

• Lostantipod says:

  6 Apr6 April 09:56

  Cruz displays the senior management hubris and self-belief that sees great companies go the way of the dinosaurs, by expecting us to believe he never received his first choice meal in 7 years. Being quoted in interview saying rubbish like that makes clear the utter contempt he has for his passengers.

  • Julian says:

    6 Apr6 April 10:01

    Hear, hear. But Cruz is only a Spanish Clone of Wee Willie. He is not where the rot first started within BA/IAG.

• Rash says:

  6 Apr6 April 10:35

  O/T I upgraded from my Gold to Platinum and the symbol has changed to Plat now when I login to my account. Only happened today, and I haven’t activated my card yet – slight problem is my MR points balance is not showing at all. Is this normal?

  • Mark says:

    6 Apr6 April 10:41

    happened to me too, it reappeared in a couple of days with all my points plus the 10k for upgrading.

    • Genghis says:

      6 Apr6 April 11:42

      The counters do seem to disappear and then reappear. Nothing to worry about IMO

      • Andrew* says:

        6 Apr6 April 12:02

        +1

        • Rash says:

          6 Apr6 April 12:10

          Thanks guys 🙂

  • BA says:

    6 Apr6 April 17:46

    Can we upgrade from gold to plat and get a bonus again now?

• Scottydogg says:

  6 Apr6 April 11:05

  O/T

  I think I know the answer for this but though id check .
  Ive just cancelled Amex gold card , I wanted to sign up for a platinum in July as we are travelling for the month of April and will be visiting a good few airports so though it would be good to have lounge access .
  Would I get the sign up bonus ? only 3 months later ……I messed up my timing with cancelling that gold , my partner has a gold card too so can’t sign up in her name either !

  Any help ?

  • Alan says:

    6 Apr6 April 11:06

    Nope, you need six months without an MR-earning card. Perhaps look at SPG or BAPP in the meantime?

  • Brian says:

    6 Apr6 April 12:03

    Get your partner to upgrade to Platinum and see if Amex will give her a bonus for doing so?

• aliks says:

  6 Apr6 April 11:09

  On our recent (economy) flight to Athens, the head flight attendant come over to talk to me about BoB. I told her I wasn’t too worried about the change as the previous food offerings were such low quality.

  Given that we are always in the lounge beforehand, we don’t really want free food on European flights just a coffee maybe – so its not even much of a price hike.

  • David says:

    6 Apr6 April 18:31

    Selfish comment. What about people that don’t have lounge access? There used to be a good selection of free drinks. Terrible in my opinion.

    • Leo says:

      6 Apr6 April 19:02

      Why is it selfish? Someone is simply expressing how it effects him?

      • David says:

        7 Apr7 April 23:43

        And I was just expressing that I felt that the comment was selfish, in my opinion.

        • callum says:

          7 Apr7 April 23:56

          Your opinion is wrong (yes most opinions are subjective, but yours is objectively wrong).

          Not being too worried about the severe suffering wealthy people (if you can afford to fly, you’re wealthy) go through when they can’t get some complimentary food doesn’t make you selfish.

        • Louie says:

          8 Apr8 April 00:23

          I’m with David. Perfect example of when my mum would have said “I’m alright Jack”. Or I don’t care how other people are affected as long as I’m not affected myself. I don’t see that the subject matter matters.

        • callum says:

          8 Apr8 April 06:02

          Jesus Christ, it’s a tiny packet of crisps or half a wrap. Your sense of entitlement is beyond absurd if it’s “selfish” to not be “too worried” over the wealthy having to go 3 hours without a complimentary snack!

          Either that or you must live in a constant state of severe depression – a hell of a lot more people go without a hell of a lot more for their entire lives…

    • TripRep says:

      8 Apr8 April 07:18

      Inclined to echo Leo’s comments.

      David, it was a personal response to an open question on how they felt about the new service.

      Most people would reply in the context of how it affected them individually.

      If I were asked (and I wasn’t feeling grumpy) I might of said that BA should keep Tea/Coffee & water as complimentary and honour the benefits of any tickets bought prior to the announcement of this enhancement.

      • the real harry1 says:

        8 Apr8 April 07:31

        yep I’ve got no problem whatsoever with BOB as it does actually make my flights cheaper, I’ve noticed, for the times we actually pay – and makes cheapie HBO £70 a decent alternative to £17.50 + 7500 Avios if you want to conserve your Avios stash

        but I do seriously object to not getting my F&B previously paid for on my T-355 tickets, as y’all know! 🙂

  • AndyR says:

    6 Apr6 April 19:18

    Some outstation lounges are crap though. Also what about your return as BA don’t provide lounge access in Athens?

• Arun T says:

  6 Apr6 April 11:16

  Airline CEO’s always tend to be a ‘special’ type of person….but the more I read about Alex Cruz, the more I seem to think he has genuinely lost the plot with this ‘low-cost’ strategy.

  The one major caveat, is that IAG is making money – and that’s all his employers care about. Until that stops, he will keep pushing it!

  • Nicholas Danks says:

    6 Apr6 April 12:03

    At the end of the day, the market is full of choice. I guess we have a narrow ‘lense’ through which we view changes; the real measure is the bottom line profit and long term sustainability of their business model as required by their shareholders.

    I’ve got quite a lot of skin in the game with over 1m of avios and 4 x 2f1 vouchers, however I’ve resigned myself to Longhaul Y or J in QR as a way of earning enough avios to fly me and my family around within europe using RFS.

    I suspect Alex Cruz’s success as measured by the board of IAG will be judged by his impact on shareholder value; not by us FF diehards who mourn the loss of perks or downgrading of service.

    This is just my objective view – I don’t like the way things are going either 😛

• Jonny says:

  6 Apr6 April 11:58

  OT: Just booked a week’s parking in June at Gatwick through the official airport “Premium Valet Parking” service (dropping off car outside the terminal). myGatwick was offering 20% off, which made it cheaper than anything else as far as I could tell. Hope this helps someone.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.