Stuffed #1: How British Airways sharply devalued Avios for members outside the UK and US

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• Niklas Smith says:

  9 Dec9 December 05:23

  Does the same apply to short haul Reward Flight Saver (i.e. within Europe)? Is that also only available to UK and US residents? And have base Avios prices for short haul redemptions changed?

  • riku says:

    9 Dec9 December 05:54

    RFS is still available on short haul flights in Europe for me (my account is not in the UK/USA). The avios price did not change either.

    • marcolau says:

      9 Dec9 December 08:19

      Same for my Hong Kong-based account. Short-haul RFS is fine.
      Though I must say the implementation was already a mess back then, as it took months before my account was finally given options under the new rate structure

• Neal says:

  9 Dec9 December 05:36

  After handing out Avios like candies through Barclays etc and introducing the Avios subscription service, I predicted there will be a devaluation coming soon. Here we go. All my redemptions so far are either LCY RFS or HKG-LHR-HKG

  Time to cancel the BA Amex card…

  • Andrew says:

    9 Dec9 December 07:47

    Ironically it’s the markets where Avios wasn’t given away in their hundreds of thousands that have been hit the worst.

• patrick C says:

  9 Dec9 December 05:52

  Well i used my last 241 voucher and i don’t think I will get one again.
  I guess they are purposely guiding foreign members to fly qatar instead.

• Neal says:

  9 Dec9 December 06:00

  Rob, there is an easy way to check old Avios pricing by using seatspy. Just click on any date showing availability a table will then pop up with the old Avios pricing.

  • Rhys says:

    9 Dec9 December 09:05

    We have a whole table with all the standard Avios pricing! What we don’t have is the different options you are presented with, ie. more Avios/less cash and vice versa.

• riku says:

  9 Dec9 December 06:04

  I think BA have assumed that people living in mainland Europe would book a flight from their home country to LHR in conjunction with the LHR-USA flight, not just book LHR-USA. When connecting in the UK there is no APD and a redemption like this (connecting in LHR) is several hundred euros cheaper than just LHR-USA (avios is higher though, to cover the short haul connecting flight).
  Should everyone booking just LHR-USA get a choice of RFS and Europe-LHR-USA never qualifies for RFS? It’s not what BA have decided to implement.

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    9 Dec9 December 06:16

    It does seem a bit of a strange analysis to do given as you say if you’re living in Germany or France or Italy you’d more then likely want to book a trip originating from your home country to avoid things like not having your bags checked through on separate bookings.

    And how does the “live in” work? If you live in the UK what sort of pricing would it be for a DUB-LHR-USA trip. RFS or not RFS.

  • HAM76 says:

    9 Dec9 December 07:10

    The difference is actually not that great… HAM-JFK booked on one ticket is 191,250 Avios + 710.47€. Booked separately I pay 190,000 Avios + 853.90€. A saving of 1,250 Avios and 143€. That’s not worth the hassle dealing with bags, missing connections and a possible over night stay at LHR twice.

• Dev says:

  9 Dec9 December 06:13

  This will be a problem for non-UK/USA addresses as earnings of Avios will go down with the new revenue model. BA, to capture the connecting non point-to-point traffic, have to offer competitive fares against home carriers and this creates a double whammy. Lower earnings + higher Avios requirements

  At least with FlyingBlue, where revenue earning is already in place, I can upgrade on the day of departure and pay the entire sum with FlyingBlue miles (albeit at not so great rates).

  If BA move towards this model, I would make peace with this devaluation.

  • Jack says:

    9 Dec9 December 22:59

    Time they scrap the ridiculous idea of a revenue model for good no airline has done it properly even Iberia in the same company messed it up

• davidn says:

  9 Dec9 December 06:27

  On the point “any Executive Club member who fails to earn an Avios in a 12 month period loses the right to Reward Flight Saver” I’m wondering how this will affect the two children in our household (account) if they don’t fly an avios-earning flight for that long. They don’t have a credit card 🙂 and while I remember an article on HfP about spending 1 Avios via BA Shopping (or something) to maintain a BAEC account, this is different?

  Maybe it doesn’t matter if the person booking the flight has earned? Unless adding their BAEC number to future bookings will somehow disqualify the RFS.

  • David says:

    9 Dec9 December 06:39

    Person booking the flight is all that matters.

    You still need to worry about avios expiry at 36 months, unless someone in the HHA has status

  • HAM76 says:

    9 Dec9 December 07:15

    That’s been my situation for years… In fact, since I haven’t been flying BA through the pandemic, I suddenly wasn’t eligible for RFS last year. A quick minimum transfer from my Amex to my BA account fixed that. I booked our flights with RFS pricing for all of us and Avios where deducted proportionally to their balances.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    9 Dec9 December 09:38

    BA store counts and anything else that counts as activity to maintain your account will count for RFS. There’s no difference.

• Paul says:

  9 Dec9 December 06:35

  I gave up my BAPP card in August after having one since they were introduced. The sweet spot for Avios was 2010 to 2015 and I cannot recall a time when I could not get 4 premium seats, often in F without having to book 355 days in advance and at 1am.
  Now F are impossible and club requires booking at stupid o’clock a year in advance, and the cost is simply mad.
  There are other options as I have recently discovered. I had a return to SYD booked for January which I have had to change. With less than 36 hours notice I was able to book a one way in J to SYD for the equivalent of 90,000 plus €167. I paid to come back and arrived home yesterday. Every non BA flight was on time, there was no dramas, bags arrived in less than 20 minutes and catering was excellent. In comparison my flight to my EU starting point was late and the bags took more time to be delivered than the flight took from LHR. There was no catering.
  People need to vote with their feet!!

  • NigelthePensionerr says:

    9 Dec9 December 06:42

    👍🏻

  • Neal says:

    9 Dec9 December 07:26

    Delta?

  • JDB says:

    9 Dec9 December 08:06

    I think that’s a rather negative take. We too have had the BAPP since inception, earning two vouchers a year. We have never had to make the midnight call and while nowadays we aren’t looking to redeem on the most popular routes in school holidays (or too many popular routes at all) we still always go in F when that cabin operates which sadly it doesn’t any longer to CPT or EZE. We also go to the destinations chosen by us, not Avios availability as some suggest. BA’s punctuality is about average amongst European flag carriers. Our F flight back from MEX arrived a few minutes early at the weekend, 5 minutes through passports, luggage on the belt when we got downstairs. Of course it doesn’t always like that, but more recent experiences good and LH, for example, is no better.

    • jj says:

      9 Dec9 December 09:01

      Totally agree with JDB. Paul – you may be accurately describing your use case, but many of us have different priorities and, for me, these changes are significantly positive taken together. I can’t imagine using my Avios on most long haul routes without a 241 as cash bookings are usually better value. The RFS changes improve the value of a 241, and the Iberia changes open up a large number of interesting new destinations.

      Avios availability is good on almost all the routes I want to use, perhaps because I can’t imagine anything worse than a fly-and-flop trip to an international resort hotel in the Maldives. And Avios earning routes are wide open through a range of channels.

      In this Exec Club year, my family will take 14x CE redemption lights and 2x CW redemption flights. Every flight was on exactly the day and to the destination that I wanted. I’m happy.

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