Wobbles in Crawley? Unprecedented 50% bonus for buying Avios launches tomorrow

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• ldb says:

  22 Feb22 February 07:09

  Seems like the second step in a race to the bottom. Sell more miles cheaper, devalue further, have to give larger partner bonuses, and so on. Not good for HFPers, probably even more annoying for frequent flyers seeing their payback further devalued.
  Should make any customer consider their buying options. 36k inc bonus for £399 means 4 ET Band 1 return flights for £135 each or 2 CW for £250.

• David Butcher says:

  22 Feb22 February 07:47

  Absolutely right about those of us who live in the Regions.

  My £150 BAPP card from Amex is going and I am certainly in no hurry to buy or acquire Avios right now.

  For me personally, BA have shot themselves in the foot. I realise it may be different for others.

  • Tim says:

    22 Feb22 February 07:58

    Agreed. Taxes and fees on long haul redemptions from the UK are about the same as the cheapest cash tickets. Short haul via London will cost about the same or more than a direct cash ticket. What is the point of Avios?

    Raffles, how about an article on how to get value under the new scheme for those in the ‘regions’ (i.e. everyone in the UK outside the London area) ? As far as I can see, this will first involve flying on a low-cost carrier direct to another One World carrier hub and travelling in economy. The bare facts may prompt more people to spend their Avios now and walk away.

    • James67 says:

      22 Feb22 February 08:11

      Rob, now the dust has somewhat settled on changes, I also think something like this would be useful. As a prelude a Saturday post allowing readers to comment on how their own personal collection and burning strategis will change as a result might be very helpful and i formative.

      • Worzel says:

        22 Feb22 February 08:48

        Good points, Tim/James.
        So difficult to form a strategy related to a system that takes(for most it seems) a long time to accumulate “points” and is subject to change at will, and with some frequency.
        For us(living in the sticks); Mrs Gummidge’s BAPP will be downgraded to the basic card this week in order to preserve a 2-4-1. My basic card(kept to preserve a 2-4-1, expiring soon) will likely go in the bin along with the 2-4-1 which we are finding difficult to use. Amex will be told that the cancellation and downgrading are due to BA devaluation of Avios.
        As for collection, we’ll be sticking with a1st year Gold card(which of course is not a credit
        card with associated protections) and collect for a while longer until things pan-out a little more.

        • James67 says:

          22 Feb22 February 08:55

          I think there is a chance BA might backtrack on regional issue, the LC and Gulf carriers must be thinking Christmas came early this year.

        • Jon Easthope says:

          22 Feb22 February 10:17

          God, I hope you are right. The loss of regional connections and the fact you can’t get 4 tickets easily in premium classes to anywhere (thus rendering the BAPP 241 practically useless for families) has stuffed the avios game for me.

        • Rob says:

          22 Feb22 February 11:19

          4 premium class are still there, to the extent it ever was, that does not seem to have changed. Would be suicidal if it did since the high paying business class customers being chased all have kids!

        • Don says:

          23 Feb23 February 18:14

          I live in the North and have friends who have pretty much signed up to the various CC’s because of me. When I broke the news that their flights to France are now 18k and £70 they all say its a complete waste of time and are cancelling. I cannot see for a moment how BA would want this scenario to play out.

          All BA needs to do is stop the stopovers on RFS which can cut as much as £26 in Y in APD (3x APD would be payable on 4 sector with >24hrs).

• Polly says:

  22 Feb22 February 07:48

  Can we buy 35k per person, or 35k per family account in the baec?

  • Frankie says:

    22 Feb22 February 09:12

    Hi James. How do you earn them on gambling sites? Any tips you can share please?

  • Nick says:

    22 Feb22 February 09:32

    Fairplay James67.

  • Rob says:

    22 Feb22 February 09:54

    Per person. If the same offer runs on avios.com, it will be 70,000 per person!

• fiona says:

  22 Feb22 February 07:52

  I can’t see the average non frequent flyer willing to buy avios, even at the bonus rate. Its an awful lot of money for points which come free with your shopping.

  • Fenny says:

    22 Feb22 February 20:08

    Doesn’t matter how you pay, you get tesco clubcard points on the shopping anyway. Points for payments are additional.

    • Mark says:

      22 Feb22 February 22:31

      Only if you shop at Tesco… And even then you can still use them for other things, even money off shopping values an Avios at (admittedly poor) 0.4p.

      The fact is whatever you value them at, they do have value and are never ‘free’.

      If I were short of avios I might consider buying at this price. If redeming before the end of April with a 2for1 it would get 2 Club World tickets to the US or South Africa at £545 each plus taxes and fees. Even with BA’s taxes and fees that is still good value. After the changes it would make a pair of off-peak return tickets £680 each plus taxes and fees – still not bad, even if you add a further £75 to cover the BAPP fee.

• Heather says:

  22 Feb22 February 08:36

  I am the average non frequent flyer who also lives in the regions, who shops at Tesco. This week I stopped shopping at Tesco and went to Aldi, saved a few bob. I have our flights secured for this summer, but I won’t be going mad now to collect more Avios for the three of us again, unless something changes for us out in the sticks. Not sure how I am going to spend the rest of my miles although I don’t have that many left.

• oyster says:

  22 Feb22 February 08:45

  Please let the Amex bonus happen AFTER I’ve received the slug of supplementary card points, but before I need to churn the Amex!

  • Hingeless says:

    22 Feb22 February 09:24

    Has anyone had the bonus for adding additional cards yet?

    • Lee Thornton says:

      22 Feb22 February 09:41

      Still waiting for mine since mid-December

      • Alan says:

        22 Feb22 February 09:48

        I had the one for the first cardholder I added come through quite a few weeks ago now, but the one for the next two I added only shortly after haven’t shown up yet 🙁

    • Mike says:

      22 Feb22 February 10:09

      I’ve had it for my first 3 (applied Dec), but not for my last (Jan). If you haven’t got them 90 days after applying, kick up a fuss.

    • Davey says:

      23 Feb23 February 16:40

      Received mine (for all 5 supplementary cards) in mid January.

  • The_Real_A says:

    22 Feb22 February 11:55

    Yes i got mine from December. I was told when i phoned to chase it up that they are added on a manually run batch every few weeks.

• Gadgeteer1066 says:

  22 Feb22 February 08:50

  If I use my AmEx card to spend the £575 and get back 1.5 point per mile, I get 862 avios. Add that to the 52,500 and I get a total of 53,362, or £0.92.

  Compare that to me buying my parking at an airport yesterday where I had the option of paying £40 and collecting 255 avios (incl. 60 from my card) or using the airport’s current online discount, but get no points, which would have saved me £6, meaning I ‘bought’ these avios at £0.42.

  Better ‘buy’s out there, but it’s a constant drip drip into the savings bucket, whereas you spend your money and get get a big top up.

  I’m pretty flush with avios right now, but wish Virgin had offered the same. I divert some points into there from a visa card when they don’t take (BA) AmEx but it is an infuriatingly slow process and I am too many in not to continue but wonder if I will ever get enough to get a decent long haul redemption.

  • mark says:

    22 Feb22 February 09:14

    gadgeteer, I might be misunderstanding you here but when you say “Compare that to me buying my parking at an airport yesterday where I had the option of paying £40 and collecting 255 avios (incl. 60 from my card) or using the airport’s current online discount, but get no points, which would have saved me £6, meaning I ‘bought’ these avios at £0.42.”

    if you mean that you got 255 avios for £6 and therefore paid 0.42p per avios, I think you might find that you did the division calculation the wrong way around…?

    • avidsaver says:

      22 Feb22 February 09:27

      gadgeteer I think you will find mark is correct. 255 Avios cost you £6 = 2.35p per Avios. Also, 53362 Avios cost £575 which I think you will find (please correct me if I’ve got it wrong) means £575 divided by 53362 = 1.07p per Avios.

• John From Aberdeen says:

  22 Feb22 February 09:01

  Yep, I’m moving my next batch of tesco clubcard points and Amex rewards to virgin. Will still earn and burn some avios but as my main use is family hol to Orlando, Virgin PE will be better for me. Will probably use my avios for Dublin flights to US. In past couple of years, for me BA have:
  1. dropped Abz – gatwick & LCY routes
  2. Experienced horrible security delays at T5 (which due to 1 above I am obliged to suffer)
  3. Offered me poor product in WTP
  4. Poor service from their overseas service centre
  5. And final nail in coffin is BAEC devaluation.

  Funnily enough a BA survey popped up in my inbox yesterday. What a shame when I used to be loyal to the brand. I would echo previous posts, more non london related posts would be appreciated and perhaps even more non BAEC posts will keep me here at this excellent site.

  • Rob says:

    22 Feb22 February 09:56

    There will almost certainly be a Virgin devaluation in the next six months. They would be stupid not to, as long as it is not quite as bad as BA.

    • Nick says:

      22 Feb22 February 10:12

      Shhhh!

      • Thomas says:

        22 Feb22 February 19:01

        They have already started. Neckar island week went from a million to a million.2

        • pazza2000 says:

          23 Feb23 February 11:19

          To be fair, 1.2 million is still good value for what is offered there.

        • Rob says:

          23 Feb23 February 15:15

          Agreed – it is £18k minimum. As I mentioned last week, I could actually book this but getting there with the kids would be too painful. Not sure my wife would be happy with me eating sushi from the Finance Directors belly button either.

    • RIccati says:

      23 Feb23 February 00:34

      Why would Virgin destroy a competitive advantage they now have in terms of FFP?

      Taxes on Virgin redemptions are already a serious factor, eg, take the HKG route the choice was between 120K Avios + £300 on Cathay vs 120K VC + above £500 on Virgin. The £200-300 differential was already there. One convert that amount into 20,000-30,000 additional miles required for Virgin.

      • Rob says:

        23 Feb23 February 10:22

        The Virgin model is to be ‘just a little bit better than BA’. That is why the Black credit card comes with 18,500 miles whilst the BA Premium Plus has 18,000, and why Economy redemptions cost a couple of thousand miles less (and £100 less tax, to their credit).

        Their is mileage (sic) in being seen as better value than BA but there is not much (pro-rata) extra mileage in being hugely more generous than BA.

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