BIG NEWS: British Airways is ‘changing’ the cost of Avios redemption flights on partner airlines

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• Clive says:

  29 Apr29 April 22:53

  Cannot verify but https://www.seat31b.com/2019/04/leaked-devalued-british-airways-avios-award-chart/

  • Mikeact says:

    30 Apr30 April 07:52

    If correct it seems that Chase have had a say in keeping Avios costs down. Of more concern is the reaction from Delta…never one to miss a trick.

• Alex says:

  30 Apr30 April 01:03

  Can you book Fiji Airways flight with Avios?

  • guesswho2000 says:

    30 Apr30 April 02:27

    Theoretically yes, as FJ are a Oneworld Connect partner (with BA/QF/CX as sponsors) but I’ve not known of anyone doing so yet.

  • Rob says:

    30 Apr30 April 06:30

    Not yet.

• guesswho2000 says:

  30 Apr30 April 01:38

  If the leaked figures on FT are accurate, I could tolerate it (although far from happily), as they still beat QFF points for flights on QF metal!

  Whether the + effort to earn Avios vs QFF for the smaller saving is still worth it, I’ll have to think.

• JAMES says:

  30 Apr30 April 05:20

  I, for one, reckon they’ll be putting the Avios cost down……!

  • Marcw says:

    30 Apr30 April 06:10

    Not for partner awards…

    • KMcCarthy says:

      30 Apr30 April 12:39

      BA has confirmed to Business Traveller that prices will be going up, but no specifics!

      https://www.businesstraveller.com/business-travel/2019/04/30/british-airways-executive-club-to-make-changes-to-avios-prices-on-partner-airlines/

• Mikeact says:

  30 Apr30 April 07:39

  Seems a bit strange maybe, that Aer Lingus are calling it a day with Qantas and Cathy around the same time ? I think that only leaves Aer Lingus with BA and United as partners……prior to full One World membership perhaps? And I guess United too will shortly be given the heave ho next.

  I thought I would repeat this post I placed on the earlier thread recently re European one way costs.

• Joe says:

  30 Apr30 April 07:43

  Will this affect the multi carrier award chart?

• Tim M says:

  30 Apr30 April 09:42

  When IAG are in the unregulated position of determining what Avios are worth after they have effectively been sold, the temptation is forever to devalue them. If, as reported, IAG profits about to be announced are drastically down, stealing back from the Avios scheme will help the bottom line, share price and therefore their cost of borrowing.

  BA are in the unfortunate position of being a legacy airline with legacy contracts and obligations (including Avios), with low-cost competitors in an industry that is being increasingly frowned upon by the young for climate damage. I expect there will come a pivot point when IAG will liquidate existing BA and let new BA, without the legacy issues and with new green marketing, to buy old BA’s newest, most fuel-efficient planes and let the rest go.

  • zumodenaranja says:

    30 Apr30 April 10:22

    LOL so all those young people I see getting on planes are against flying ?

    I don’t believe for one minute that any significant proportion of the millennial population is going to give up cheap flights to Bali any time soon !

    • Tim M says:

      30 Apr30 April 11:04

      Basic statistics #1: a self-selecting sample in never representative.

      • Anna says:

        30 Apr30 April 11:23

        In general, people are travelling more, not less. I always think of what an environmentalist said about the biggest cause of global warming which is population increase, which is way more damaging than flying away on holiday 2 or 3 times per year.

      • Shoestring says:

        30 Apr30 April 12:31

        Of course world population increase is to blame for so much that is bad/ damaging:
        1960 – 3 billion
        2020 – 8 billion

        A 5 billion increase in 60 years.

        Probably a few outstanding brains in there who have invented cool stuff, I guess.

      • Craig says:

        30 Apr30 April 12:53

        I’m with Anna. I think Tim’s post is misguided – people are travelling more not less.

        Great if airlines can find greener ways of flying, but unless you are Greta Thunburg, you still fly on holiday and (if required) for business . Pressure to be greener is not the same as frowning upon the industry. And BA is better placed to adapt to new technology than most budget airlines

        Being a millennial myself, i just really dislike the implication that i should be some sort of green activist (so many people in older generations I know have this interpretation of millennials). Maybe I’m old before my years but i’d like to think I’m just balanced.

      • John says:

        1 May1 May 04:28

        When you factor in all the carbon emissions from railway maintenance vans driving everywhere, taxis to get train drivers from home to their trains, lorries transporting train carriages, the bosses of DB, Bombardier etc jetting around the world, and the fact that trains run at 4am and midnight transporting 1 passenger and a lot of air, some guy on railforums claims that it isn’t that much greener than the newest efficient aircraft. Also the carbon emissions per rail passenger are similar to that of two people sharing a car journey if the car is a newer, less polluting model (and if they don’t drive like a maniac).

    • Mikeact says:

      30 Apr30 April 13:45

      Over to you Tim.

• Julian says:

  30 Apr30 April 13:06

  Of course we know someone who runs this site who has been repeatedly directing collectors in various recent stories towards the fact that taxes are charges are less on airlines other than British Airways, which will have encouraged more collectors to redeem their Avios this way than hitherto.

  This is all a bit like Amex cards where for years a small number of people were constantly churning cards and gaining big signup bonuses and Amex could afford to ignore it. Then this site promoted that this was the fastest way to collect Avios and unsurprisingly Amex got worried about the economics and changed the rules of the game.

  This is what tends to happen if a bargain is trumpeted to the world at large. Namely that the bargain usually disappears from the shelves in fairly short order. The same thing happens with deals that are loudly trumpeted to the world by HotUKDeals……….

  • Rob says:

    30 Apr30 April 13:07

    I get a sneaky feeling that the people booking cheap Iberia redemptions are, er, Spanish people living in Spain and collecting via IB 🙂 IB isn’t changing either.

    My money is also on 98% of domestic US Avios redemptions being booked by US residents!

    Aer Lingus is not changing. What does that leave? Not much.

    Here is an idea. Perhaps increasing partner tickets by 20% is simply so they can move UK tickets to £0 taxes. So … currently UK to Athens is 20k plus £25 in CE. That has become 25k plus £0. Are they making the equivalent distance partner tickets 25k plus £whatever?

    • Lady London says:

      30 Apr30 April 15:02

      Could actually suit some people, as you say, Rob

    • Marcw says:

      30 Apr30 April 17:06

      Remember IbPlus has direct competition from Air Europa Suma , with similar redemption vales. Even though Air Europe has a much smaller route network, their redemption are surcharges free (so you only pay airport/gov taxes) , and like IbPlus it’s an Amex Spain MR transfer partner.

      So on that side, IbPlus has to play carefully.

  • Russ says:

    30 Apr30 April 15:13

    Hmnn….not sure about that Julian. All the blogs have been waxing lyrical about QR’s product for as long as I can remember but I’ve never had problems finding availability other than Christmas. Last night did a mad dash to book as many seats as I thought I may take till the calendar stopped showing them next year – still plenty left.

    • Rob says:

      30 Apr30 April 16:33

      Qatar has a revenue share deal with BA anyway, they effectively operate as one airline from the UK.

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