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

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• Liam says:

  6 Jan6 January 10:31

  Apologies if this has been asked before. Does anyone know if there are transitional TP arrangements for tickets purchased on OneWorld airlines (other than BA/Iberia/AA) before 30 December for travel after 1 April? (Asking as I have flights booked with CX pre 30 December for travel post 1 April).

  The FAQs on the BA website say “For flights booked before 13:00 GMT 30 December 2024 for travel from 1 April 2025, that are marketed by British Airways, American Airlines or Iberia, Tier Points will be awarded based on a conversion of the existing method.” As far as I can see the FAQs are silent on other partner airlines. I’m assuming this is the marketing team’s clever way of glossing over the fact that there will be no transitional arrangements.

  If anyone has managed to find any info on this point it would be much appreciated.

  • sigma421 says:

    6 Jan6 January 10:37

    At the moment, no. Although there is a comment a few pages back suggesting that BA is planning to do this but that it will require manual crediting.

    • Liam says:

      6 Jan6 January 10:59

      Thanks very much. Fingers crossed!

  • Calvin F says:

    6 Jan6 January 11:09

    Liam, I’ve had quite a bit of back and forth with the BA team on ‘X’ so I’ll share what I’ve managed to find out.

    The initial answer I received back was generic and mentioned the 13.3333 multiplier but really told me nothing. My follow up question looking for something more prescriptive elicited the response that partner flights would indeed be treated the same way as BA.

    So I was happy – until I looked at the media team response again. There was no explicit confirmation that my flight would earn at the new multiplier. So I tried again and this time got an answer that partner flights earn off a % of the mileage. I didn’t know who to believe so I posted my predicament on FT and one of the posters there was of the view that if you booked with the airline (CX), British Airways wouldn’t when the flight was booked, so you would receive points according to the terms in place when the flight takes place.

    Probably not the answer you were hoping for. The whole business leaves a very sour taste.

    • Liam says:

      6 Jan6 January 11:26

      Thank you for the info. Indeed not the answer I was after, but I very much appreciate the help. As you say, it will probably be difficult for BA to track flight purchase date etc for other airlines and so require a manual claim process if they go down that route. The FAQs mention that the partner airlines section may be updated further as arrangements with airlines are clarified – so let’s hope they come out with something. Seems that this has all been rushed out in order to announce over the Christmas period and have it all kick in for April and not all details have even been worked out (eg BA Amex spend conversion to TPs). The most annoying aspect of this is the lack to transparency and detail.

  • Karl says:

    6 Jan6 January 12:27

    I’m in the same boat.
    Need 180TP to keep silver so booked a AY flight in November (to fly in June).
    Nobody at BA seems able to tell me if this flight will receive 2400 new TPs (180 x 13.33) or 587 new TPs (as per the miles flown multiplier).
    The latter would leave me well short (1581 new TPs) of the silver status I was expecting at the time of booking.

• Garethgerry says:

  6 Jan6 January 10:49

  Look at the name of the forums and their objectives.

  Headforpoints . Objectives help people maximise the use of points/avios and obtain status. To travel cheaper and better for least mony

  Turning left for less. It’s in the name.

  Their readers are by definition bound to be against any thing that makes status more expensive. Hence balance of this thread.

  There are two other markets that matter,

  The twice a year say premium lesuire travellers in business that doesn’t care about status and will benefit from quieter lounges. A big market.

  The corporate travellers , who will easily make these spends who will benefit from quieter lounges. Big spenders

  • sigma421 says:

    6 Jan6 January 10:55

    All this assumes that lounge capacity will remain static. What is it about British ‘Cost-Cutting is in our DNA’ Airways that makes you think they wouldn’t see this as an opportunity to reduce the rent bill at Terminal 5? Even if that isn’t the intention now, in a few years someone with a cost saving target to hit would probably do it.

    • JDB says:

      6 Jan6 January 11:03

      BA isn’t going to give up its lounge capacity at T5 – it will actually build more as part of the LHR expansion programme. This idea that the lounges will suddenly be empty because all those now saying they won’t fly BA follow through is for the birds.

      • Barrel for Scraping says:

        6 Jan6 January 11:08

        What are the current LHR expansion plans?

        • JDB says:

          6 Jan6 January 11:42

          HAL will announce its expansion plans in the coming months, but absent a third runway, T5B & C will be extended and there is also provision for T5D to be built. That all requires quite a few other infrastructure changes. In the CTA, T1 will be demolished once the new baggage system is installed in T2 and that terminal will be hugely expanded, ultimately to accommodate pax/airlines from T3 which will be shut down. T4?? Probably quite a bit of shuffling of airlines before all that.

        • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

          6 Jan6 January 12:29

          Expansion will be to terminal capacity but not runway or increasing numbers of flights.

          Plus some improvments to taxi ways such as this one to improve efficiency

          https://planning.hillingdon.gov.uk/OcellaWeb/planningDetails?reference=41573/APP/2024/2838&from=planningSearch

  • Barrel for Scraping says:

    6 Jan6 January 11:06

    I’ve had loads of thoughts – the changes are definitely negative for me as it’ll be harder to get status on my spend pattern. But I was trying to think of positives and thought at least the Concorde Room and Galleries First will be less crowded. I had hoped that maybe this would mean Galleries First could get improved catering (it was a pretty decent lounge back in 2010 and even pre-covid there was still a small menu of things you could order to your table) and maybe CCR could get closer to La Premiere style service if the lounge was primarily F and genuine high value customers (as opposed to me).

    • Danny says:

      6 Jan6 January 13:10

      You’re being optimistic if you think BA will invest more in lounge catering.

      Every signal has been to cut costs to now.

      Some band 3 CE flights cut to Band 2
      Club World Brunch
      Galleries First Menu abolished

  • GUWonder says:

    6 Jan6 January 11:11

    Most of the previously very frequent corporate travelers I know now travel a small fraction of what they used to travel. Business “need” to travel is down because of lessons learned during the pandemic. The ones that spend big still and travel as much or more than ever however seem to travel with fewer colleagues or less often with colleagues than before. Most of the traveling staffers for the “big bucks” bosses are not able to count on as much and as expensive work travel as used to be the case in say 2015-2019.

    A lot of middle management business traveler types with BA elite status are going to have to downgrade their lounge use expectations following the full hit of this change.

    • meta says:

      6 Jan6 January 17:49

      And while the expansion is taking place lounge in T5B might be shut…

  • meta says:

    6 Jan6 January 17:51

    You’re assuming too much about premium leisure travellers. Given the increased living costs, there are far fewer of those.

  • Paul says:

    6 Jan6 January 18:07

    The twice a year say premium lesuire travellers in business that doesn’t care about status and will benefit from quieter lounges. A big market.

    The corporate travellers , who will easily make these spends who will benefit from quieter lounges. Big spenders

    For the grey market in group 1 don’t you believe it. They are savvy and astute and able to fly twice a year in premium because they know the value of a £

    The second group are the clear winners so long as the actual fare paid is not used. The ticket might say £5k but the reality will be very much less.

• Kevin says:

  6 Jan6 January 11:42

  I commented on page 71 and I seem to be right with the out of touch executives at BA. The shares have started their decline.

  • JDB says:

    6 Jan6 January 11:53

    I really wouldn’t be attributing any share price movement to the TP announcement (and IAG is anyway rather bigger than BA alone). The shares more or less doubled in 2024 and we are now hitting economic headwinds in a sector that is very sensitive to this. The shares have considerably more to worry about than a few disappointed soon to be ex status holders.

    • Danny says:

      6 Jan6 January 12:36

      JDB there have been stories in numerous newspapers about the BAEC changes too. Everyone is now undoubtedly aware. Coverage has been overwhelmingly negative.

      BA / IAG is at full liberty to do what it wants. “Sensible” business decision or not, nobody knows yet – But BA is increasingly only able to compete on price only…and with these changes that’s the only focus they can push. They’ll need to cut prices.

      They aren’t competitive in the air…in their lounges… with their cabin crew…with their IT…with their network…

      Their only advantage is having their position at Heathrow…and marketing their sub par offering to the average American…who has far greater income than the average Brit.

      • Rich says:

        6 Jan6 January 12:52

        What proportion of BA’s passengers / readers of business pages are chasing status and thus will be even the slightest bit interested, never mind troubled, by the changes? A tiny proportion is the reality. The views / venting in these comments, FT threads etc. are simply a storm in a tea cup.

        I mean look at BA’s financial results against the history of the well publicised IT meltdowns, Avios changes, labour model changes, lounge downgrades… etc. etc. Doyle and his team won’t be losing any sleep over the reaction.

        • Danny says:

          6 Jan6 January 12:59

          Andrew Neil said it was a mistake and he previously worked for the Economist and Sunday Times…

          And he admitted the changes wont even impact him.

          So there is one example.

        • Danny says:

          6 Jan6 January 13:03

          And then of course, a lot at BA were even opposed to the changes themselves….

          The internal opposition was such that, those responsible were told to push the button now or pick up their cards now…

          So I’m afraid quite a few have lost sleep at BA over this even before it was announced, Rich

        • Tom says:

          6 Jan6 January 14:05

          The top rated comment on the Financial Times article on this, with 722 likes currently starts with “Dumb idea from the dumb idea department”. There are virtually no comments defending the decision.

          But yeah, sure, you tell yourself that.

        • Numpty says:

          6 Jan6 January 14:31

          Andrew Neil was also an investor in GB news, lets not miss that off his CV.

  • yonasl says:

    6 Jan6 January 11:55

    Reuters this morning: BRITISH AIRLINE STOCKS FALL; IAG DOWN 4.3%, WIZZ AIR DOWN 3%, EASYJET DOWN 2.5%

    • Numpty says:

      6 Jan6 January 13:15

      IAG share price tends to drop first thing in the morning the bounce up later on in morning. Its general trend downwards at the moment started before the status announcement and was overdue after a crazy rise in the SP in late 2024 especially.

      On an almost daily basis brokers are issue SP predictions from £3.50 to £5 (the broker with the £5 estimate is always the most optimistic, and has been proven correct a few times).

  • JDB says:

    6 Jan6 January 11:58

    At the time of writing, LH Group shares are -2.94%, AF -0.92% and IAG -1.24%.

    • Phil says:

      6 Jan6 January 12:17

      Dead cat bounce. I’m choosing to believe there’s a hoard of traders furious about a status downgrade and selling hard.

      • Throwawayname says:

        6 Jan6 January 12:28

        The institutional investors really aren’t as clued up (and/or bothered) about this as some of the more well-informed commentators here and on FT. I’m convinced that the move will hurt IAG, but the share price may not be falling much for a while.

        • Throwawayname says:

          6 Jan6 January 12:29

          FT as in Flyertalk, not the newspaper.

        • sigma421 says:

          6 Jan6 January 12:30

          The first sign of trouble will be if IAGL doesn’t hit its growth targets for the 2025/26 financial year (keep an eye out for IAG suddenly changing the IAGL numbers it includes in its presentations). We won’t know anything real for more than a year.

        • JDB says:

          6 Jan6 January 13:21

          I think you will find that the institutional investors are very clued up about any likely financial implications and to suggest they know less than well informed HfP/FlyerTalk posters who are only interested in cheap status is totally absurd. The reality is that the TP changes are not going to have the sort of impact some clearly hope and there are far more important issues that might impact the IAG share price price than the storm in a TP cup created.

        • Throwawayname says:

          6 Jan6 January 13:53

          @JDB, come on now. They have limited inside information, no easy way of predicting consumer behaviour in response to this type of initiative, and they won’t be dedicating extensive resources to speculating about the BA yields in May 2026 or whatever, it just doesn’t work like that. Even if they do employ people with a gut feeling about where this may be going, I don’t think they’re about to start selling (or indeed buying) shares on the back of it unless and until there’s some clear data coming out of IAG.

        • Rich says:

          6 Jan6 January 14:04

          They know the business inside out and have access to the decision makers. They also see the bigger picture and are unemotional.

        • Danny says:

          6 Jan6 January 14:43

          Do you work for IAG/BA, Rich?

• Richie says:

  6 Jan6 January 12:40

  Is anyone hearing much about a shift from BA to private jet flying? Particularly short haul and amongst family groups.

  • GUWonder says:

    6 Jan6 January 13:24

    Not really on my end with regard to this change. Last minute private jet flying can be less convenient to pull off than just flying commercially. And when deciding to fly private, it’s typically not because of wanting to avoid a particular carrier or because of a distaste for the common carrier’s frequent flyer program.

  • Numpty says:

    6 Jan6 January 13:38

    Nothing has changed for the well off flyer (who can afford to charter a private jet) – if they were flying in First or Biz before, they still will – they still get lounge access, fast track security etc. I doubt they care about free seat selection or getting an extra bag for free. Perhaps they wont want tangled up with the riff raff in the business lounge rather than the First lounge on a domestic flight.

    If BA want to nick some business off the private jet market all they have to do is let passengers pets into the cabin, kid you not.

    • George says:

      6 Jan6 January 14:58

      Oh god. Pets on a plane. It’s bad enough that some restaurants allow smelly/flea ridden dogs in now.

      Any restaurant that says “dog friendly” isn’t one I’ll go to

    • PH says:

      6 Jan6 January 15:08

      The 1% long haul F/J flyer that BA apparently wants to reward/attract under the new regime may well fly private short haul, but with a Gold card after a few LH trips they may be more tempted to trade down to Club Europe for short haul (tho at this wealth level, perhaps they’d be using Heathrow VIP anyway negating the Gold airport benefits)

• sigma421 says:

  6 Jan6 January 12:43

  THE FAQ page now includes the line
  ‘We’ll update these pages as any further changes to how Members earn Tier Points with our partner airlines from 1 April 2025 are confirmed.’

  Is that new?

  • Calvin F says:

    6 Jan6 January 13:05

    It might be. I’ve been checking back under the “Travel Dates” FAQ and that one hasn’t changed. Can I ask which Q of the FAQ are you seeing this?

    • dundj says:

      6 Jan6 January 14:49

      Likely advising how you earn TP’s from the BA Amex cards with definitive amounts and thresholds.

• rosswill says:

  6 Jan6 January 12:48

  I’ve just downgraded my BA Amex to the free card. Very friendly agent advised this is all they are doing currently on every call. Not sure how many customers this represents and of course this could be an exageration but I can’t help feeling this won’t go unnoticed somewhere.

  • meta says:

    6 Jan6 January 14:07

    Why are you keeping the free card?

    • rosswill says:

      6 Jan6 January 15:30

      Good question regarding keeping the free card. Mainly as I’ve been an Amex card holder for 24 years and I thought it would possibly give me some options in the future with them. I may of course be wrong.

      • meta says:

        6 Jan6 January 17:54

        Haven’t you learned that loyalty means nothing?

  • Rhys B says:

    6 Jan6 January 21:06

    I know I must be missing something here but why is downgrading from the Amex Premium Plus card a seemingly common reaction to this sorry saga? Isn’t the ability to earn some tier points through credit card spend on the BAPP card one of the few ‘benefits’?

    • Rob says:

      7 Jan7 January 07:40

      2,500 (for possibly £40-£75k of spend) isn’t moving the needle.

      • Rhys B says:

        7 Jan7 January 10:41

        Right, but nobody who currently has BAPP does so to contribute to status or tier points so nothing has been taken away from BAPP, only added (albeit a token gesture). I completely get why the BAEC changes are terrible, I just can’t see the link to BAPP unless people are saying they’re abandoning not just BAEC but also Avios collection/redemptions in general as well?

        • Rob says:

          7 Jan7 January 10:50

          I do agree with you. Not many HfP readers earn the bulk of their Avios by flying BA and – logically – the fact that you move your cash flights elsewhere should have minimal impact on how you spend Avios.

          In some ways, Avios redemptions may become more important – eg if you want lounge access on short haul you’ll now need to be in Club Europe. This can be pricey for cash but not a huge uplift in points cost for Avios. People who used to pay cash for Economy and got lounge etc via a Silver card may now gravitate to Avios for CE.

• Danny says:

  6 Jan6 January 13:28

  Andrew Neil:

  “The changes to British Airways
  loyalty programme has the makings of a self-inflicted disaster. Maybe one of the biggest corporate cock ups of modern times. CEO Sean Doyle needs to think again. It’s a long time since it’s been the world’s favourite airline. He should avoid going down in history as the man who made it the world’s most unfavourite airline”

  • RC says:

    6 Jan6 January 15:17

    Says the man who’s political forecasts have been way off!

• Heather says:

  6 Jan6 January 14:27

  I’m sitting in the ba lounge in t3 Heathrow.
  I wouldn’t pay £7.50 for this let alone £7.5k. Wonky table same old food it’s been for how many months
  Like a subterranean cave
  Off to Cathy pacific for some noodles and au revoir when status runs out

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