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Why is British Airways charging lower taxes to inactive Avios members?

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A few readers have been in touch in recent weeks to highlight weird pricing behaviour by British Airways.

What was confusing is that I assumed there would be a common theme, but there isn’t. This article covers the oddest one.

British Airways is charging lower taxes on long-haul economy Avios redemptions if you are an inactive member of the Executive Club.

An ‘inactive’ member is someone who has not earned or spent 1 Avios in the previous 12 months. You will know if you are ‘inactive’ if you try to make a short-haul redemption and don’t see the usual Reward Flight Saver pricing options of £35 and £50 of taxes and charges.

How does British Airways change long-haul Avios pricing?

Rather than explain what I mean, it is easier to show you.

Here is the Avios pricing I see for an Economy redemption to San Francisco:

As you can see, the options run from 65,000 Avios + £150 through to 14,450 Avios + £555.

Let’s ignore whether this is good value or not for a flight in August – because it probably isn’t – and move on.

My imaginary friend Steve is going to come with me. He has an inactive Avios account – totally inactive, actually, as it has a zero balance because I only opened it 5 minutes ago.

Let’s assume that Steve does really have a lot of Avios but this account has simply become inactive due to no activity over the last year, which is far from impossible at the moment. Here is what he sees:

Apologies for the light grey text above. This is due to ba.com changing the screen colour if you can’t afford the booking you are searching.

As you can just about see, the pricing ranges from 41,250 Avios + £248 to 14,450 Avios + £453.

Steve, as an inactive member, is getting a FAR better deal than me (or you).

I could pay 52,500 Avios + £250, whilst inactive Steve pays 41,250 Avios + £248.

I could pay 14,450 Avios + £555, whilst inactive Steve pays 14,450 + £453.

I am either 10,000 Avios or £100 worse off, depending on which pricing option I choose.

Conclusion

I have no idea what is causing this difference in Economy Avios flight pricing. It is also not clear who is ‘right’ – is the inactive member being undercharged, or are active members (the majority of us) being overcharged?

Unfortunately there is nothing you can do about it, unless you know someone with an inactive Avios account with enough points to book the flight you want.

Once they have booked it, of course, their account will stop being inactive and they won’t be able to get the same deal on their next booking ….

You just need to cough up the extra £100 or 10,000 Avios.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (63)

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

  • Paul says:
    11 Mar11 March 07:36

    I was less shocked by the “bait and switch” than I was with £676 of fees for business class! That’s the real scandal!

    And it’s not Tax. Been saying it for years. Well under £200 of that £676 goes to the exchequer. The bulk goes into BA’s pocket!

    • JDB says:
      11 Mar11 March 08:48

      Out of say £676 for an Avios Club return to USA, £400 is the BA element. £276 represents the taxes and fees paid to third parties in the including the APD which is £180 on its own. The £676 taxes/fees/charges is identical if you buy a cash ticket.

  • Ron says:
    11 Mar11 March 08:12

    Those avios costs have rocketed!!! In July 2017 I went 1st class to SFO for 85000 plus the lowest addtl costs. Now it looks like it will cost me 50% more airmiles for a lower class….or am I reading it wrong?

    • Rob says:
      11 Mar11 March 09:16

      There is no change to Avios base pricing, but BA has introduced more options so you can use more Avios and less cash.

  • TimM says:
    11 Mar11 March 08:35

    Once there was a time when there were no taxes or fees paid on BA Airmiles redemptions. Far simpler and fairer times.

    • JDB says:
      11 Mar11 March 08:54

      In principle you are right, but extra charges/service fees/admin charges etc. have crept in all over the place, so are hardly exclusive to BA. I had a £35 PPE charge added on to my dentist’s bill last month. I would prefer not to pay the BA fees, but actually I don’t think the £200 each way charge for a long haul club redemption, flexible ticket is entirely unreasonable.

  • Iain says:
    11 Mar11 March 08:57

    Inactive Steve sounds like a bit of a character

    • ankomonkey says:
      11 Mar11 March 10:19

      Sat on his sofa all day in his egg yolk-stained vest and his undies…

  • Lev441 says:
    11 Mar11 March 09:03

    Can’t you get around this by transferring to Iberia plus or aer club/Avios?

    • Rob says:
      11 Mar11 March 09:12

      You can’t transfer into an inactive Iberia account. You can transfer into inactive AerClub accounts – wonder if that works?

  • Simon Cross says:
    11 Mar11 March 09:19

    What if my account ia “active” but another member of my household account is “inactive” . Would they get the better price offer but still be able to book “my ticket” as we are both members of the same “household account”?

    • The real John says:
      11 Mar11 March 09:51

      Yes I expect so, but the only way a member of your household can be inactive is if the household has not made any redemptions since that member joined the household.

  • Joe says:
    11 Mar11 March 09:22

    I think it’s poor rfs implementation! Last year I had a couple of cases where avios.com was cheaper than ba.com for ow UK to US flights. I thought it was something to do with child apd but I might have been wrong. Wasn’t this much tho!

    • kitten says:
      11 Mar11 March 13:42

      BA and avios.com agents have always denied this but IME it’s been true over years now.

  • Marek says:
    11 Mar11 March 09:36

    It’s the way BA has implemented the “avios for RFS” feature. Great idea, but a very poor implementation. Instead of implementing it correctly, BA opted to adjust avios + cash prices, so for RFS eligible pax “statandard” avios price is 15500 + £0.50 for LHR-EDI in Club, while for RFS non eligible pax “standard” avios price is 9000 + £25. It can be seen clearly on the second step of selecting RFS ticket – price is quoted as “Avios per person” plus “Price per person” while “taxes” are zero.
    This has a far reaching consequences:
    1) looking at any destination within Europe which had taxes lower than RFS – RFS eligible pax are charged full RFS fee, while RFS-non-eligible pax are charged lower taxes.
    2) Gold Priority Reward – agents now try to charge double avios+RFS value, so e.g. instead of expected 30000 + £25 for a one way LHR-WAW, pax are qoted 43000 + £0.50 – a really poor value asking for 13k avios for £25. Some agents will be happy to price it at standard avios pricing, while others will bluntly refuse.
    3) connecting flights where long haul is connected to shorthaul – on such trip taxes are calculated based on departure and destination, BA now charges RFS-eligible pax avios+RFS avios for the shorthaul leg, incorrectly.
    4) I bet 2-for-1s are affected too when it involves any RFS priced segment.

    • tony says:
      11 Mar11 March 11:45

      I can confirm the 2-4-1 RFS is in some instances a problem.

      Booked 5 seats to Greece this summer using 1 2-4-1 voucher. So instead of saving 37k Avios, I’ve only saved about half of that. The higher price was applied across all 5 tickets.

      I raised it with ticketing but they palmed me off to BAEC. Need to raise it with them, as the promotion of the 2-4-1 voucher is again misleading.

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