BIG NEWS: BA moves to revenue-based tier status for Bronze, Silver, Gold and Gold Guest List

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• Bryce Taylor says:

  4 Jan4 January 11:40

  I may be missing the point here, but as a retired someone who only travels for leisure in Club World or Club Europe, usually on Reward Flight tickets, I’ve never got above Bronze so I don’t even think about the status. But I do notice the lounges are overcrowded so if this means fewer people using their status for lounge access when flying economy, to me it’s a good move. And a recent complaint about an overcrowded lounge at Catania yielded compensation of a £200 eVoucher which I’ve just used, which I think indicates a positive customer relationship.

  • BrancasterLancaster says:

    4 Jan4 January 12:34

    IMO there are, broadly, two groups who are annoyed by this.

    The first are those who “gamed” the system to earn top status very cheaply. The fun times are over for them (I make no judgement on TP running etc).

    The second are those who have made conscious decisions to fly with BA for business and/or leisure even though there are often better, cheaper, or better and cheaper alternatives available. These people aren’t necessarily massive spenders (I’m naturally a silver, occasional gold) but they do show, and have shown, loyalty. They feel aggrieved because this loyalty has now been totally disregarded and, in effect, BA/IAG have said “We don’t really care about your custom. See ya!”

    Now you can argue about whether people should show loyalty to a business, but that’s rather moot. People have.

    • Andrew J says:

      4 Jan4 January 13:25

      Or people are a combination of the two. I don’t consider myself to have “gamed” the system by booking a holiday to the US in First and availed myself of 840 tier points. I have the money to fly First and was encouraged to spend it with BA as I was also offered a gold card which makes travelling to Europe through T5 more appealing with the use of the First wing. Now I no longer have that incentive to spend with BA, I won’t necessarily, I might, but I might not, and that’s what BA have to realise that they have lost the near guaranteed loyalty of customers and in an increasingly price driven world, that’s a dangerous move.

      Meanwhile Galleries First T5 will become some empty depressing space like Galleries First at T3, where the champagne has been sitting open for hours and it’s so quiet you can hear someone the other side of the lounge crunching a crisp.

    • Kaye says:

      4 Jan4 January 13:39

      It’s overly simplistic to think there are two groups.

      Almost everyone has been ‘Tier Point Running’. Whether that’s booking with BA even though another airline is cheaper, taking a flight when you could have taken the train, paying for a POUG, taking BA holidays you wouldn’t have taken for the double TPs, adding in a stopover, or yes, flying to a destination and coming straight back.

      The only difference is the degree to which people have been doing it and the variable of some people who are time rich being able to avail of cheaper more creative routings.

      This is all of BA’s making/design starting from the AMEX companion voucher, them encouraging TP runs (they did a press release issuing a gold card to an AMS-HNL TP runner), and deciding to issue double TPs on BAH.

      It’s a fantastic sleight of hand that they’ve managed to convince people that it’s because of ‘those other people’.

• Penny says:

  4 Jan4 January 11:50

  Is there any chance you might consider doing a chart that gives an idea of what points would be earned on flights? Not all destinations of course, but just perhaps the world capitols?

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    4 Jan4 January 13:02

    Since TPs will be based on fare paid such a table would be useless as well as takign a heck of a lot of work for zero benefit.

    You can do the calculation yourself.

    From the fare breakdown take the base fare add the BA surcharges = tier points.

    • Yona says:

      4 Jan4 January 14:39

      The only positive. No more “help me design a TP run” messages haha. If you need 1,000 TPs to make it to silver, just fly for £1,300 (or £1,000 with BAH).

• BrancasterLancaster says:

  4 Jan4 January 12:00

  FWIW I doubt we’ll see any changes or climb downs.

  Various commenters, myself included, have hypothesised various possible ways BA could back out or water down the changes but I just can’t see it.

  The only thing that will cause a change of direction will be if the bottom line, and ultimately the share price, take a hit – and this won’t be apparent for a couple of years.

  • Gerry says:

    4 Jan4 January 12:53

    Not impossible (although unlikely).

    A good example: Delta made some aggressive changes to its program in 2023 and had to backtrack on some of them due to widespread backlash:
    https://onemileatatime.com/news/delta-rolls-back-skymiles-sky-club-changes/

  • numpty says:

    4 Jan4 January 12:53

    Agreed, there will be no climb down. But, at a guess I expect the Avios scheme to be widened to include opportunities to earn tier points through spend targets on retail, bonus tier points on BAH and whatever non flying related ideas they come up with that add new routes to increase profits. This way you get trapped into the Avios ecosystem directly, and not just through a Sainsburys points scheme. You see it already with BA Shopping and points bonuses on Bicester etc.

  • Phil says:

    4 Jan4 January 14:35

    I think its going to be hard to both climbdown, save face and not admit they have dropped a massive bol…. ahem clanger, but we can live in hope.

    What is self-evident is a group of folks who fly their network have put far more thought and have far more idea than the execs that signed this dogs dinner off.

    • Scott says:

      4 Jan4 January 18:27

      Blame Russian, Chinese or North Korean hackers releasing a concept or some fake AI story …..

• Garethgerry says:

  4 Jan4 January 12:23

  Nothing I can find in papers today, perhaps the Sunday papers will have something, or it may have blown over

  • Rob says:

    4 Jan4 January 12:57

    It’s in my FT piece for a start!

    • Garethgerry says:

      4 Jan4 January 15:09

      Yes , but could not find it as subject of stand alone article, critiquing it as it was the day after it was announced.

• lcsneil says:

  4 Jan4 January 13:09

  Does anyone know when the exciting new opportunity to earn Tier points by signing up to The Club’s new “opiate” newsletter, giving great discounts on bulk buys of OxyContin, will be rolled out?

  • Phoenixed says:

    4 Jan4 January 17:29

    Looks like McKinsey got in too much trouble for creating addictive strategies, so they’re now behind ones to drive punters away instead.

• Mark says:

  4 Jan4 January 13:16

  I’ve got gold until April 2026 at least but admittedly with barely flying BA and just tagging Finnair or Qatar business class flights to my BA account which did of course earn more TP as not direct although BA weren’t even flying to BKK for most of that time. I’ll move on to the QR scheme I think and will have the odd BA flight in CE I guess.

• Ilou says:

  4 Jan4 January 15:49

  On the BA holidays booking, if no loyalty number is added and only the lead traveler put his.. is it still split between all travellers ?

  • cats_are_best says:

    4 Jan4 January 16:12

    Yes.

  • AJA says:

    4 Jan4 January 16:34

    Technically, as I understand it only those passengers with BAC membership numbers will earn tier points based on the total cost divided by no of passengers in the booking. Those passengers who are not BAC members just forfeit any tier points they might have earned.

    • Throwawayname says:

      4 Jan4 January 16:40

      It would be interesting to see how they’d split the earnings for a second passenger in the booking with an FFP number from another oneworld member. I wouldn’t be surprised if such an action were to cause an IT meltdown and prevent anything from departing T5 for 3-4 days.

      • Ilou says:

        4 Jan4 January 17:27

        At least if it all goes to the lead person, then this might be worth it !!

        So not possible for AI hotels and have to make a booking for one and contact hotel to adjust ?

      • LittleNick says:

        4 Jan4 January 17:58

        @Throwawayname, if a 2nd person in the booking uses there non-BA one world FFP, they are awarded points as per their program not BA. So if a booking is £1000, £500 worth of TP will go to the BA member and the 2nd person would get the usual credits for taking the flights. In effect the 2nd person would be forfeiting the TPs on the hotel spend.

        • Throwawayname says:

          4 Jan4 January 19:36

          @Littlenick on 50% of the hotel spend. I did spend 30 seconds trying to think of possible scenarios where that might create an arbitrage opportunity, until I realised that I’ve never had any interest in any form of package holidays.

  • JDB says:

    4 Jan4 January 17:59

    Yes, it is still split between the pax even if no club number means they earn nothing. You need to be the only pax to get the full TP in the new system.

• Adam says:

  4 Jan4 January 16:07

  **several days of pondering later**

  I can see why this is, on the face of it, a good idea for BA. Thing is, I’ve been in business plenty long enough to realise that unless something’s also good for the customer then its benefit to the supplier is short-lived.

  I type this from a bed en- route to JFK from LHR, a flight which I arrived at by bus from 10A. The service has been good, the food fine, but all this BS over the last days leaves a bad taste and a doubt whether BA gives enough of a stuff about my custom that I should give a stuff about booking its flights.

  So, BA, what’s it gonna be for the next west coast, LatAm and Asia trips? You, or someone that values its customers? (or at least pretends to).

  • Clive says:

    4 Jan4 January 17:03

    And when you boarded your bus at 10A were you squeezed further and further in, as the driver tried to get Groups 8 and 9 in as well? Contrast this with the Business Class bus at DOH, or the even smarter First Class bus. Or the occasion at KTM when I was asked to take a seat at the gate as a bus would come to me, and they meant just for me.

    • Adam says:

      4 Jan4 January 17:44

      The Emirates First Class bus is quite a thing, too. The Bling-Bus from Planet Extravagant. My days selling my soul to the Emiratis for the privilege of Platinum were rewarded well.

      • Phil says:

        5 Jan5 January 11:36

        Yes that is a little weird being on a bus with Austin Powers lighting and 5 or 6 other people at 11pm.

    • Throwawayname says:

      4 Jan4 January 19:42

      Or Ethiopian having a dedicated bus gate for premium passengers at ADD, straight across the lounge and without having to mix with the hoi polloi. Or Aegean boarding straight from the lounge at SKG.

      (If this had been less of a car crash, I’d have expected some comeback from a BA apologist about the supposed inferiority of *G status which doesn’t get you into ‘first class’ lounges…but it’s starting to look like the species in question may be facing extinction)

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