Stuffed #3: How British Airways closed off low-tax Avios loopholes last week

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• Felix Lo says:

  14 Dec14 December 15:04

  Terrible devaluation and adds so much added complexity. I am going to be moving to Virgin despite my 700k+ avios balance…

  • Mikeact says:

    14 Dec14 December 15:52

    You mean you’re happy with the limited Virgin destinations ?

    • Anna says:

      14 Dec14 December 16:24

      They are limited but even from MAN they go from JFK and ATL, from where you can get to pretty much anywhere travelling west.

      • Mikeact says:

        14 Dec14 December 20:54

        Potentially fine for the US, but still way short.

  • VerdantBacon says:

    14 Dec14 December 16:18

    Just redeem the Avios on partner airlines, I’ve redeemed over a million Avios this year and only two flights are with BA and only because I had jokers to use before my collection year ended

    • Harry T says:

      14 Dec14 December 20:54

      Agreed!

  • Jack says:

    14 Dec14 December 19:33

    it is not devalued the old options remain and virgin flies to way fewer destinations than BA

    • Mikeact says:

      14 Dec14 December 21:04

      I doubt many will up sticks and change to Virgin , despite the threats…more likely to change to other OW carriers….if possible. And why should BA worry, I guess the majority of their customers would never have heard of HfP.

• Stew says:

  14 Dec14 December 15:35

  I’m somebody that was new to this game last year. Picked up the Amex and already sent a significant amount of money BAs way for flights, as well as stocking up on Avios buying them for my wife and myself to make sure I could cover a lot of awards flights.

  Was genuinely considering doing a bunch of BA holidays to get a higher tier and funnelling extensive travel and spend through BA.

  But after looking into it carefully:
  – Flights are already expensive compared to competitors
  – Rewards flights now cost as much or often more than BA regular tickets thanks to the insane surcharges, so the only benefit left is flexibility. That’s largely an illusion because availability is so weak.
  – With the surcharge increases and avios devaluations, BA cannot be trusted to be providing the same value even 12 months from now, so why would I prepay? (Essentially what these loyalty programs are, I’ve come to realise)
  – BA service isn’t even good.

  I’ll be off to another airline. A slight improvement to the value of the 2-4-1 voucher does not come close to offsetting, especially given the spend it requires to funnel through an otherwise uninteresting card.

  • Rhys says:

    14 Dec14 December 16:24

    The insane surcharges is what these changes partially negate!

    • No longer Entitled says:

      14 Dec14 December 17:39

      But they are replaced with insane Avios requirements. Hence we are on our third “stuffed” article.

      • optomdad says:

        14 Dec14 December 19:03

        No, we are on our third ‘stuffed’ article because there is no travel news/updates to give. When even Rob and Rhys accept in these articles that only a certain group of customers are being stuffed (those that made use of loopholes in the past in this particular case), but that others are actually better off, this smacks of headline grabbing

        • pooki55finland says:

          14 Dec14 December 20:37

          News will come and go, irregularly/ important or not so important ie unevenly over time.

          Surely you are not saying that there wasn’t really a devaluation for most people?

          I think on certain Euro RFS routes there has already been a small devaluation as well.

          Not a huge shame as BA have got so cash price competitive on European flights (if you buy ahead) that the (still excellent value) RFS flights on Avios are not such a bargain as they were in the past.

        • Rob says:

          14 Dec14 December 21:21

          It’s like the Liz Truss ‘anti-growth coalition’ – add up everyone on her list and the only people remaining were members of the Adam Smith Institute.

          Everyone outside the UK and US (being fixed, admittedly), Barclaycard / Barclays Premier customers, holders of ‘old’ Amex 241 vouchers, GGLs and high earning Golds, those who take advantage of low tax options, those who use Avios to upgrade ….

        • Lady London says:

          15 Dec15 December 14:13

          Hum. Not seen you much optomdad, but in cases of longevity of paying attention to HfP and other sources over the years, I doubt many who’ve actually made decisions to take flights with BA, not just flown BA blindly because their employer chose BA, would agree with you.

          I thought BA’s program would be trashed and replaced by them around 2024/2025 when they’ve had a chance to see how many corporate flyers return after covid settles down. But I think BA has taken a view and made decisions on who they are willing to provide loyalty benefits too, now, much earlier

  • Jack says:

    14 Dec14 December 19:35

    the whole idea of these changes is lowering the surcharges avios have not been devalued for most with this change. They cost no more than before as the existing options remain if you wish and if you are flexible with dates you can always get a seat most of the time

    • Stew says:

      14 Dec14 December 22:26

      From my perspective, they increased all the (rewards) prices of the flights I was most interested in over the course of the year, and now they’ve apparently shut down all the loopholes that could potentially have kept it interesting. (If they’ve left some open, the intent is clear and they can’t be relied upon to still be there)

      Rewards flights now cost (in cash and points cash equivalent) as much or more than cash flights on either competitors or even BA themselves, and they don’t even help you earn status. That’s a particular problem given BAEC is crap until Gold, and that’s already hard to hit without gaming the system.

      There’s just no value left in the loyalty program. The same is not true of their competitors, so no reason for me to fly BA unless they offer the cheapest cash flight.

      • LittleNick says:

        15 Dec15 December 07:43

        Yes shame they don’t offer tier points with avios bookings, you are choosing to fly with them after all, just paying in a different way

• AlexF says:

  14 Dec14 December 16:52

  Does anyone know the position for booking ex-JER or ex-INV redemptions on BA but using Iberia or Aer Lingus? If that’s even possible does it revert to the old taxes or does RF ‘S’ track through?

  • Robm says:

    14 Dec14 December 23:23

    Would you be better off going ex-DUB or ex-MAD? Just take one flight to DUB or MAD, then start your journey there. You wouldn’t need to start your journey in INV or JER to lower APD. This is one of the advantages of Aer Lingus or Iberia is that if you live outside of London you just need one flight to get to DUB or MAD.

• Peter says:

  14 Dec14 December 16:59

  So glad I moved all my Avios to nectar.
  I’m sure short haul redemptions are next in turn to be doubled.

  • Jack says:

    14 Dec14 December 19:37

    they will not be doubled for SH as what is the point in doing that, they need to offer good value in a very competitive market versus easyjet etc. they also have not been doubled for long haul the old options remain

    • pooki55finland says:

      14 Dec14 December 20:59

      It will just be a 10% increase in Avios required, no other significant changes, or so I’m reliably informed by the person in bed next to me 🙂

• Hbommie says:

  14 Dec14 December 17:01

  I’ve always used 241’s when redeeming, so even though this change is detrimental to many people it’s no real change for me. If there’s a better option when flying business or first from the UK I’d change in a heartbeat.

• Tracey says:

  14 Dec14 December 17:25

  As we are generally flexible on dates and have a stash of Avios, I think these changes are fine for us. In fact we may even benefit from the lower taxes/ more Avios equation. Together with enough 241s to keep us going and RFS it may work out well.

• david says:

  14 Dec14 December 21:54

  Hi, does anyone know if my usual of ex-EU economy flights returning via LHR and dumping the final leg? Will these be affected in any way?

  • Rob says:

    14 Dec14 December 22:01

    RFS was active on Economy flights for a while now so nothing will have changed since last week UNLESS you were flying to one of the countries where Economy RFS hadn’t been rolled out in the first wave.

• Stew says:

  14 Dec14 December 22:55

  I wonder if closing these loopholes is a bit of an own goal?

  Theoretically, they stand to make more money from these tickets. But now there’s no reason for people who were taking advantage of those loopholes to jump through the hurdles in the first place. Instead, they’ll just switch to the more convenient route on which BA genuinely has to pay the tax, and they make no more out of that journey than they were before. Except now they’ve killed the financial incentive they were offering that customer in return for the inconvenience, so there’s a higher chance they’ll just go off and use a competitor instead and BA lose out on the whole fare.

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