FINAL WEEK TO BOOK: BA moves to ‘earn Avios based on your spend’ on bookings from 18th

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

• Jack Hodgson says:

  9 Oct9 October 06:02

  The line it is based of customer feedback is frankly a load of made up rubbish. I don’t know anyone who would said they want to earn less avios than before . Sadly this is the way that most companies are going now revenue based for earning loyalty points and there will be some winners and losers . I do personally believe that those flying on tickets they do not pay for do not need further rewarding but that is simply my opinion

  • Andrew says:

    9 Oct9 October 09:21

    Depending on how you ask the question you can get any answer you want:
    “Would you like to earn fewer avios on your discounted ticket” – of course not.
    “Do you think a £400 ticket should earn the same avios as a £50 ticket” – of course not.

    As Rob points out though a reward scheme should be set up to maximise the marginal income and not just to throw more treats at the people who were going to spend with you regardless.

    • Londonsteve says:

      9 Oct9 October 21:57

      That’s why the existing system was so clever; it rewarded people the same for flying a given route, irrespective of the price paid for the ticket. Well, not entirely, for they already heavily reduced the base Avios paid in the cheaper ticket classes back in 2015 IIRC. Those flying on £39 tickets to the Med were already receiving only 25% of the base Avios.

      Rob’s right, during quiet periods when pretty much all tickets are cheap the Avios is a big incentive to book with BA as relative to the ticket price, it’s a decent rebate. These are the flights BA needs to work hard to fill; they often fly only half full despite seats being sold at lead-in prices for months in advance.

• AviosNovice says:

  9 Oct9 October 06:13

  This is likely a stupid question, but I normally book through AA and credit to BA.

  Does this have any effect on the avios I’ll receive? For better or worse?

  • sigma421 says:

    9 Oct9 October 07:12

    Yes. At some point between this deal being announced and now, they cut AA in on the deal so AA flights will also now earn based on revenue.

  • G says:

    9 Oct9 October 07:19

    American is now covered by this. Booking with AA, IB or BA are spend based. AY it is!

    • Lady London says:

      9 Oct9 October 13:41

      AY…for now.

• Charles Martel says:

  9 Oct9 October 06:32

  How does the new earn rate compare with crediting to Finnair or Qatar?

  • Rob says:

    9 Oct9 October 08:27

    As neither is spend based it obviously varies depending on your route, cabin, ticket class and more importantly what you pay.

• simonjones says:

  9 Oct9 October 06:36

  If I book via a travel agent say for example in nov Will I get old points or new ?

  • Rob says:

    9 Oct9 October 08:24

    Package holiday = old rates but with lower status bonus, flight only = new rates.

    • Nick says:

      9 Oct9 October 09:25

      Not strictly true. Book a net fare (non-transparent and where the agent can charge what they want), old style. Book a published fare, new style. Thing is, you’ll never be told which you have until it comes to the award – it’s nowhere near as simple as ‘package is one, flight only is the other’.

      It’s actually the same with BA Holidays, if they sell you a package based around a published fare, you’ll get the new style award. If they use a net fare, it’s the old style. Most are nets, true, but not all.

      • Rob says:

        9 Oct9 October 11:02

        The T&C specifically say that BAH will award under the old rules.

• Qrfan says:

  9 Oct9 October 07:36

  Every time this article runs there is an assertion that business travelers don’t get to pick their airline. This isn’t true of bulge bracket I have experience with, whereby if the cost is within tolerance you can pick your carrier (which happens frequently on routes where there’s a negotiated rate). Is this not common?

  • Mr. AC says:

    9 Oct9 October 07:51

    In our company the booking portal marks some airlines as “preferred”. I’m not sure what happens if I book a non-preferred one of a preferred operates on a route. Probably nothing, but many people would rather not investigate this experimentally.

    • Qrfan says:

      9 Oct9 October 08:36

      That’s pretty much my point. There’s multiple preferred airlines we can pick. The choice is mine and normally includes multiple alliances. I suspect this is common. And I agree, I bet nothing happens if you book a similarly priced non preferred.

  • S says:

    9 Oct9 October 07:56

    Not in the areas of the public sector I’m most familiar with, UK universities, where lowest cost is the ultimate driver (perhaps if you’re the Vice Chancellor you get more of a say). You also typically have to book through a corporate travel agent, which I don’t object to, if they’re competent and have a decent web portal. Unfortunately they seem to be rarely competent (a colleague was booked onto two different PNRs with only an hour between them once, because it was cheaper), their web portals are often rubbish or non-existent, and it’s impossible to get urgent support by phone or email. They seem to bid for lucrative contracts safe in the knowledge that if they succeed they’ve got a captive audience who can’t book through anywhere else.

    • David P says:

      9 Oct9 October 10:00

      Well, as someone who has worked for multiple universities (and not at VC level!), I’ve always had the flexibility to pick an airline as long as the cost difference with the cheapest quote is not too big. You don’t have to automatically accept the cheapest provider if there is a good justification for taking a slightly more expensive fare, and I’ve done this through negotiation with corporate travel agents as well as booking tickets myself and claiming back expenses. I even managed to book a business class flight to Boston once because it was on sale and cheaper than the same date economy fares which were stupidly expensive due to school holidays.

    • Panda Mick says:

      9 Oct9 October 10:45

      I pitty anyone who has to use Concur 🙁

      • Dubious says:

        9 Oct9 October 13:16

        Concur were great – at one point the system wanted me to explain why I wasn’t picking the lowest fare – an 8 he train from London to a Scotland instead of 90 minute flight…

        …for a one day-meeting…
        – I wasn’t starting my journey in London either.

        It made the justification nice and easy.

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    9 Oct9 October 08:02

    But others have said in the business they work for the choice IS limited to specific airline(s).

    Your experience is valid but so is that of peoples that don’t match yours.

    An acquaintance of mine could only select VS and DL when going to the US on business because of the mega deal his company had with them.

    • Qrfan says:

      9 Oct9 October 08:39

      I’m sure both situations exist, but I’m challenging that situations like mine where you do have a choice are one of the “few exceptions”. I suspect it’s quite common. And therefore I suspect that offering large amounts of avios to corporate travellers does influence their carrier quite a bit, which is the opposite conclusion to this article.

      • Stu287 says:

        9 Oct9 October 08:56

        Was thinking exactly the same. My company (fortune 500 tech) allows me to book any airline as long as the flight is deemed in policy. I do see some fayres being labelled ‘negotiated’ but they rarley differ to the direct booking option in terms of price…

        • Novice says:

          9 Oct9 October 10:45

          Still it’s not fair though, is it?

          The people getting awarded the Avios are not paying for the corporate travel themselves.

    • Londonsteve says:

      9 Oct9 October 22:04

      With exclusive arrangements like the one you refer to, we might start seeing the ability to collect FF miles excluded. The airline doesn’t have to incentivise anyone in that case to fly with them and excluding the provision of miles allows them to bid lower for the contract.

• LittleNick says:

  9 Oct9 October 07:55

  “However, to be fair, British Airways says in the press release that the change is being made as the result of customer feedback. You have only yourself to blame.“
  I bet only a minority of people said this flying on tickets paid by their employer, very much doubt many people as a proportion of responses actually said this. I doubt BA would release the numbers on this, complete PR spin

  • Dubious says:

    9 Oct9 October 08:42

    It could be ‘customers who told us this told us this’….

    In reality I suspect customers says one thing in response to a specific question/s and that got interpreted to mean something else…or cherry picked to match the agenda.

    I used to find this with meeting minutes – sometimes only select information was included, so that it could be referenced later to form a course of direction. Dissenting feedback was quietly left out of the meeting minutes…

    • Matarredonda says:

      9 Oct9 October 11:16

      Very true.
      I used to like being the Secretary of a Committe as could put ‘my spin’ on the discussion and nobody ever queried it!
      Now I am often Chairman and sometimes struggle to recall exactly what was said/agreed so rely on the minutes!
      What goes around comes around…..

    • Lady London says:

      9 Oct9 October 13:49

      I was a professional minute taker in some very intetesting meetings in a few organisations.
      Ensuring you get a brief as to how they really want the minutes to be wriitten and writing the minutes in a way that will achieve this is a definite art. Lots of discussions must not appear in some minutes of course, you need to suss out how this is to be handled.

• NigelthePensioner says:

  9 Oct9 October 07:55

  Do BA really believe that their loyal customers will believe that this change was suggested by passengers?? Do they believe that turkeys vote for Christmas??
  This is yet another MASSIVE devaluation of Avios, making it much more difficult to earn enough to spend on a decent redemption – even with 3 BA AmEx vouchers in the account. There is becoming less and less point in doing anything but upgrades during a seat sale. The AmEx vouchers are about to have had their day.
  I would have thought that any tickets booked via BA will only get these trivial Avios irrespective of where they are credited. Maybe booking all flights via the QA website and crediting to BA would work?? Probably not on a BA metalwork flight though? It would certainly get you tier points in any event and no fewer Avios. If it did work then you just do a return to Inverness (lovely city) and to Belfast (lovely city) for your 4 flights!
  Remember the day not so long ago when booking wt+ in a seat sale and upgrading to club, as a gold tier, would give you back nearly all the 25k to the USA or 20k to the Middle East that you spent on the upgrade!!
  If it wasnt for the cabin crew and the concorde room, I would have given up on BA yonks ago. Doubtless I will find myself discussing this with the CM in F on BA125 tomorrow!!

• Zark says:

  9 Oct9 October 08:02

  Articles says:
  “However, to be fair, British Airways says in the press release that the change is being made as the result of customer feedback. You have only yourself to blame”
  So BA asked one customer (partner of the BA marketing person?) who works for a big corporate…

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