Avios First Class flight availability to the Americas, Asia and Africa is back

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

• Steve says:

  3 Apr3 April 20:12

  This is what I think happened: something has been deployed last week (6pm a day before the long weekend) and key people went on holidays. Wouldn’t be the first corporation this happened to. Also, I believe, no one in here has any trust in BA being able to do some consistent ‘agile’ management of these situations. That would explain the absolutely no PR around it, but if there would be any that would mean that actually, something bad happened. That never happens to us! Anyway, fix has been deployed. Everything is ok. No one is responsible for anything. Let’s tweak these numbers a little bit and we actually over-delivered for 2018 already. Bravo. Well done everyone. Short week! The pub, early Thursday!

• Peter Sharp says:

  3 Apr3 April 21:20

  Maybe they took all the comfortable seats out of the planes to replace all the cheap hard seats on the Thameslink class 700 trains which are now running all the way through from Brighton to Cambridge and Horsham to Peterborough.

  • Brighton Belle says:

    3 Apr3 April 21:30

    I feel that pain

    • David says:

      3 Apr3 April 22:00

      Controversial, but I actually prefer them…the old style make my bad back worse but the new 700’s are ok. Very pleased they brought them in for my Hove – LBG commute 🙂

• will says:

  4 Apr4 April 00:42

  Out of interest is there an example of an airline loyalty scheme which blocks first class for redemptions?

• uk1 says:

  4 Apr4 April 00:49

  What concerns me is if there is a move to remove redemption function on BA,com to Avios.com is that currently we are unable to transfer between accounts on several of our BA household accounts to and from Avios – something that wasn’t a problem until recently. I wonder how smooth any transition will be particullarly if you have an “extended” BA household “family”. I hope that if there is such a move they give the option to consolidate by agreement all householder accounts into the head account at no transfer costs and then transfer that account ove to Avios, Still it is early days ….

• Bosco says:

  4 Apr4 April 06:33

  Aren’t you a bit embarrassed that your most read article was a jump the gun conspiracy theory that proved to be a damp squib?

  • AndyGWP says:

    4 Apr4 April 07:24

    Not sure waiting a few days before publishing anything is jumping the gun. I think most people would prefer to have issues highlighted and it’s a key reminder that change is the biggest risk to points collection.

    (Anyways, for all we know, the article triggered a quick fix, so could’ve been worth it regardless.)

  • Mike says:

    4 Apr4 April 08:43

    Bosco your comment could almost be taken as being a criticism rather than being appreciative of the hard work that Rob does for us all.

    • AAlsc says:

      4 Apr4 April 09:03

      Could be taken as criticism? That was how it was intended I would imagine! Also, let’s not forget that quite frankly BA are under no obligation whatsoever to drip feed changes to their programme to anybody in advance and the comment “be easier if BA acted like most other UK travel loyalty schemes and showed me” is coming across as some sort of flying Messiah complex.

      • Rob says:

        4 Apr4 April 09:07

        It simply makes sense, given how much negative publicity towards BA my article on Monday caused.

        You ALWAYS brief the media in advance about what you are doing if you are sensible, under an embargo if necessary.That is how you manage the story.

        When Hilton makes changes, for eg, Mark Weinstein – who runs HH – calls me and we chat about what they are doing and why. It tends to result in more favourable coverage too because I understand, even if I don’t agree, where they are coming from.

  • George says:

    4 Apr4 April 08:56

    I wouldn’t be embarassed. Media exposure to issues like this is what usually triggers a response, be it a simple statement, or, a correction with no explanation offered.

• Polly says:

  4 Apr4 April 06:50

  Just be glad it proved to be a damp Squid! A lot of people can actually get on and book their trips now. It’s hard work collecting to an F 241 redemption, so yes it would have affected many of the readers.
  Then comes along a great Qatar J ex EU sale, and some end up cancelling their F 241 tickets!…it’s a fun game but nail biting to say the least…

  • Zild says:

    4 Apr4 April 10:00

    Be glad IF it proves to be a damp squib*. I still suspect this is a precursor to negative changes coming between now and 2019… If I had enough points to redeem for First I would be doing so ASAP.

    Squib, not squid. Not sure of the origin but I presume it is related to the usage of the word as a small explosive charge, which would indeed suffer from being damp. A squid lives in water and so should always be damp!

• James says:

  4 Apr4 April 08:11

  I don’t want to fly BA business class as it’s crap compared to the competition so if F rewards are removed I’m absolutely dropping my collecting of Avios and thus the use of Avios’ partners and I can shop around more freely without factoring Avios into the equation.

  This needs a statement from BA. Now.

  I’m sure that Cruz has been employed to degrade BA’s reputation.

• Richard says:

  4 Apr4 April 09:56

  OT (no “Bits” today) — Are there any points bonuses currently available for adding partner cards to a Platinum or Gold account? There’s the usual online form to do so, but no promise of extra points.

  Thanks!

  • Tilly says:

    4 Apr4 April 10:10

    I didn’t have anything to say they’d add points for adding a first supp card to my platinum after upgrading from gold but as soon as I added my husband as a supp card holder I got 5k MR post.

  • wally1976 says:

    4 Apr4 April 11:23

    Generally, it seems, for a first supplementary card you get 3k for gold and 5k for platinum but not guaranteed.

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