Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

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

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You have just nine days left to book a flight on British Airways if you want to earn Avios based on your ticket class and flight distance rather than what you spend.

We knew this was coming – Iberia switched in November 2022. HfP had the world exclusive on this back in March 2018 when Alex Cruz discussed it in an interview.

Full details can be found on this page of the British Airways website.

British Airways claimed in the official press release that:

“This is a simpler and more transparent system”

This is not true, because earning is based on the fare you pay excluding third party taxes and charges – a sum which 99% of passengers don’t know.

In reality it represents a sharp cut in Avios earned for most people, except for those on higher priced, often fully flexible, tickets which are generally paid for by their employer.

The only upside for non-status passengers is that you will now earn Avios for money spent on seat selection fees and additional baggage fees.

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.

When do the Avios earning changes come into effect?

The changes kick in for tickets booked from 18th October.

Any travel booked before 18th October will earn at the existing rates, so you have just nine days left.

What is changing with British Airways Executive Club?

One selling point for the new arrangement is that it is simple. The number of Avios you earn per £ is based on your status in the British Airways Executive Club programme.

A base level Blue member earns 6 Avios per £1, whilst an elite member will earn up to 9 Avios per £1.

Take a look here:

Your elite status bonus has been cut

Part of the problem with the new structure is that it is alienating elite flyers by cutting elite bonuses.

Historically you received the following elite status bonus (based on miles flown):

  • Bronze – 25%
  • Silver – 50%
  • Gold – 100%

These will be cut for tickets booked from 18th October to:

  • Bronze – 17%
  • Silver – 33%
  • Gold – 50%

To be fair, the actual change will vary by cabin flown because the current elite status bonus does not apply to the cabin bonus. On the other hand, on a cheap short haul flight the majority of your earnings as an elite currently come from the cabin bonus.

A system so simple it is impossible to know what you earn

As happened with the Iberia changes, British Airways is basing your earnings on the NET cost of your ticket, after taxes and external surcharges have been deducted.

This makes it very difficult to know in advance how many Avios you will earn. Taxes and external surcharges make up a large part of the cost of an inflexible Economy ticket but only a tiny part of a fully flexible Business ticket.

For example, a £39 one way ticket to Manchester has a base fare, adding back the ‘carrier imposed surcharge’, of just £16.50. You will only earn Avios based on 40% of what you spend.

An £8,072 one way flexible business class ticket to New York has a base fare of £7,795. You will earn Avios based on 97% of what you spend.

It gets even more confusing ….

Tickets including those booked as part of a BA Holidays package will continue to earn under the current mileage- and cabin-based scheme:

“…. some tickets where the fare paid isn’t disclosed or isn’t available, including flights booked as part of a British Airways Holidays package, will continue collecting Avios based on a percentage of how many miles you fly and the cabin you fly in (no minimum Avios apply).”

Interestingly status bonuses will be cut compared to what you would earn now which is perhaps the clearest indication of what these changes are meant to deliver:

“Executive Club Bronze, Silver and Gold members will collect 15%, 30% or 50% extra Avios on top of the base flight award.”

British Airways to change how you earn Avios

What can I do if I don’t like these changes?

There is, of course, an easy way to avoid these changes – credit your flight to another airline programme.

The response of Qatar Airways here will be key. If Qatar Airways Privilege Club continues to award Avios based on cabin class and distance, you may earn more Avios by crediting your flight to a Qatar account. It only takes a few seconds to move them back to British Airways Executive Club.

The issue is that you won’t earn British Airways tier points this way. If you don’t care – either because you’ve already retained status or know you’ll never manage it – then opening a Qatar Airways Privilege Club account may be the way to go.

What is wrong with this model of earning Avios?

This model of earning miles has been used by other airlines and is generally disliked by flyers. This is because you are rewarding the wrong people most highly.

The people who are flying on £10,000 fully flexible business class fares to New York are the ones who are laughing all the way to the mileage bank. However, with few exceptions, these are corporate travellers whose choice of airline is made by their employer. You could give these people zero miles and it wouldn’t impact the money that their employer spends with the airline.

This earning model also excludes corporate rebates. Most big companies get a rebate from the airline at the end of the year if they hit spend targets. That £10,000 ticket? A chunk is likely to be repaid. This leads to an even bigger over-rewarding of people travelling on corporate tickets.

Similarly, it is the fullest flights which charge the highest prices. Because these flights are ALREADY full, it makes no sense to spend most of your loyalty budget rewarding the people who fly on them. Those seats would sell anyway, multiple times over. I don’t see anyone offering incentives to buy Taylor Swift concert tickets.

On similar logic, fares are higher on routes where there is no competition – but on routes where there IS competition, and where fares are lower, the lure of Avios is more important. Weirdly, you will now be rewarded more for flying expensive routes where only British Airways could get you there. You will earn fewer Avios on competitive routes where you can choose between carriers (because fares are lower) and more Avios on routes where only BA can you get there directly.

You can find out more about the British Airways Executive Club changes on its website here.

Remember that the changes kick in for flights booked from 18th October so you may want to consider locking in some future trips this week.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (67)

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

  • JR says:
    9 Oct9 October 08:23

    Will tickets purchased via Finnair still get the tier bonus post Oct 18th? Or will those be cut irrespective of carrier of choice?

  • Sharka says:
    9 Oct9 October 08:25

    For low cost, high mileage tickets this will not be good. However, on a recent business trip to the US on AA, I have received many more AA miles than under the old model (plus some Hyatt points), not least as I have Lifetime Platinum under AA and so the points per mile is floored in my case even if I do not travel much with them. Contrary to Rob’s argument, I have a choice of carrier since I work for myself: it is not all losers.

    That said, the next step will be for BA to copy AA and introduce earning status by non-flying means: AA uses Loyalty Points that can be acquired not just through flying but also the shopping portal, credit card and so on.

    • Dubious says:
      9 Oct9 October 08:36

      And the next step after that is to cut status benefits further…along with the quality of the entitlements.

  • Tony says:
    9 Oct9 October 08:25

    More nails in the BA coffin!

  • El Capitano says:
    9 Oct9 October 08:30

    Devaluation…especially considering how much redemption for flights are in long haul and that is once you can actually find them then add on so called taxes and surcharges…

  • Anneh says:
    9 Oct9 October 08:45

    It’s getting close to just picking who is cheapest now. Can’t see why you would go out of your way to fly BA now.

  • Skywalker says:
    9 Oct9 October 09:11

    “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”

    This made me genuinely laugh out loud 😀

    • BahrainLad says:
      9 Oct9 October 09:21

      These magic surveys that always result in the ability to cut costs and screw the passenger experience!

      • AviosNovice says:
        9 Oct9 October 10:51

        Reminds me of LNER ditching the quiet 1st class coach due to “customer feedback”.
        Funny how I’m on the mailing list when there’s cheap fares to places I’d never want to visit, but not on the mailing list for the survey that asked “do you want to be in a carriage with people’s phones beeping/loudspeaker phone calls for your whole journey?”.

  • Nick says:
    9 Oct9 October 09:32

    I’ll repeat what I said the first time round… the total number of Avios issued under the new system is the same as under the old one. I’m not saying that because I agree with it (far from it!) but because it shows just how skewed the new one will be in comparison. Lots of people will be hit hard but some will benefit handsomely and laugh all the way to the (mileage) bank.

    • dahokolomoki says:
      9 Oct9 October 09:43

      Indeed. Just calculated a usual work route I take (LHR to BOS or JFK in Business) and I’ll probably end up getting double the Avios I normally get. Despite being Gold and, in the article, “a reduction in my status bonus” from this change.

      There are winners and losers here, and I suspect many of the bitter comments on this thread are from the losers, unable to see the bigger picture that not EVERYONE is losing out here, and unfortunately BA just doesn’t value THEIR business.

      • ken says:
        9 Oct9 October 09:51

        Do you think there will be more winners than losers ?

        Do you think the sum of miles issued by BA will be more, less or about the same ?

        • Rob says:
          9 Oct9 October 11:01

          BA says the number of Avios issued will remain roughly the same. This may well be true, since a £10k business class return to New York will earn a Gold 85,000 Avios return which is a huge hike on the current 24,200.

          You are funding that though with fewer Avios on your flights – which you are buying with your own money, not your employers.

          Another question, which I don’t really address, is whether the Avios programme is better off if rewards are disproportionately earned. In the world of ‘real’ money, the UK is a wealthy country but because wealth is disproportionately held by the top 0.1% or so (mainly finance professionals, small business owners and travel bloggers), the country suffers.

          When you have the majority of flight Avios being earned by a very small % of your travellers, does the programme suffer? After all, there is a limit to how many you can spend. Anyone flying to NYC on business once a month on a flexible ticket will be banking 1 million Avios per year but probably struggling to spend them. Fewer travellers will be earning enough to pay the new inflated RFS rates.

          • flyforfun says:
            9 Oct9 October 13:02

            Exactly this!

            My work spend and my personal spend is peanuts compared to someone doing TATL on a monthly or more basis. But that knowledge of getting a set number of Avios per my booking class, has now gone out the window and it will be a guessing game as to what I new get. I just feel that as a “small” player that all the enhancements are driving us out. I have 650,000 Avios to burn along with 3 2-4-1s and 2 upgrade vouchers. I’m going to have to do the math of the fees I pay for the 2 cards per year and the miles I earn vs putting my spend on my MBNA card that rebates 1%. Apart from card churn, there’s no great deals to earn points like there was several years ago. Time for a rethink methinks!

          • Londonsteve says:
            9 Oct9 October 22:24

            I suspect that a higher ratio of Avios that never get redeemed is part of the game plan. I know someone with 1 million Avios and despite my attempts to convince him of their value and guide him towards better value redemption opportunities, he uses them to reduce every flight booking by the maximum amount. Having received them for free off the back of work flights, he sees no monetary value in them.

      • Dubious says:
        9 Oct9 October 14:07

        I am not sure about bitter, but it is not just about winners and losers. I have already moved away from BA except to use up the remaining travel voucher balance – and have finally reached Blue status having previously held Gold (for several years). The change does not affect me directly.

        My concern and annoyance is more on the bigger picture: it is making the loyalty game duller. It is removing the gamification element by removing some of the uncertainty. Understandable for the business but less interesting for the people that put in the effort to understand the scheme and be incentivised by it. It is similar to how I get annoyed at the likes of Microsoft for revoking useful features from their software in order to simplify it for the ‘lowest common denominator’.

  • Patrick says:
    9 Oct9 October 09:33

    Is the same date applicable for Iberia flights (credited to BAEC)?

    • G says:
      9 Oct9 October 09:55

      Yes. Treat Iberia and BA as identical for avios / tp earning purposes.

      • Patrick says:
        9 Oct9 October 10:10

        Thank you. Just found the relevant paragraph on BA too:

        “From 18 October 2023, flights marketed by American Airlines (AA) and Iberia (IB) will collect Avios based on total eligible spend. You will also collect Avios for eligible add-ons on flights marketed and operated by Iberia.“

        • Lady London says:
          9 Oct9 October 13:40

          You should be thankful @Patrick – this is the Transatlantic Joint Venture – do stop calling it a cartel, everyone, please! – in action.

          This change is a microcosm of the UK isn’t it – the vast majority of the [miles-earning] population are worse off. Whilst a very very few who haven’t actually made any effort, are very very much better off and all the benefits go to them.

          • Dubious says:
            9 Oct9 October 14:10

            I think it also makes the overall scheme have a lower value proposition, even if the mileage earning capability is net
            on average.

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