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

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• NottsTraveller says:

  2 Jan2 January 08:33

  Been Silver for around a decade.
  Couple who will spent c£35k in 2024 on leisure travel
  2 BAPP and Barclaycard vouchers p.a.
  My observations after reading all comments
  – this has the whiff of a rushed (botched) announcement (no detail on really key elements like soft landing and credit card spend thresholds)
  – the move is very aggressive from BA as if there is no soft landing those who are spending heavily to hit status (especially in the last quarter on the collection period) are going to feel cheated if they lose what they were expecting i.e. status hold for 25/6
  – we have 2 BA holidays booked for May and June 25. We may well cancel these as this whole process has made us review the true value of status (especially as we always fly in a premium cabin largely due to 241/CUV’s)
  – We will still use BA because of the vouchers but we are now liberated to look at other airlines when booking £££ flights
  – We are not gamers or freeloaders as others have said of status holder we pay our own money for flights and use the lounges because we are entitled to as premium cabin travellers.
  – BA holidays are largely not the leisure travel we want. They are great if you want a beach holiday in Barbados or a city break in Europe but largely that is not us – we are more go on a tour in Japan or independent travel in South Africa.
  – BA have used a sledgehammer when simply removing DTP would have changed a lot of behaviours
  – we have always been pro BA but clearly the ‘love’ was only one way. Sad really.

  • NottsTraveller says:

    2 Jan2 January 08:35

    ‘Spend’

  • Phil says:

    2 Jan2 January 08:45

    I have just posted a similar thing about BA Hols based on convos with people in group tour operators I know.

    I think this is a fundamental they missed thinking they could capture all holiday spend instead of just flights – but they don’t offer anything to tempt in the crowd that buy say a 12 day group tour of Borneo or N India, or even 5 days sailing down the Nile. Its literally in a competition with TUI for a single location holiday or Expedia Citybreak.
    I don’t see how these changes encourages that crowd or the former to spend with BA.

    • mda23 says:

      2 Jan2 January 08:50

      Exactly this. Complete missed opportunity here for discerning high-end travellers who don’t want to holiday in overdeveloped locations where BA fly to and stay in some bland hotel.

      • Phil says:

        2 Jan2 January 09:43

        Nor do they want to sit in the LHR Wetherspoons because they didn’t hand BA over £8k in flights each due to the short-haul domestic home having to be economy, or else paying a vast overcharge for same seat and an M&S sarnie with nobody in the middle seat. Or even worse risking Avanti trains home.

        BA has taken both a myopic view of holiday desires and where everyone comes from and come up with NY and Surbiton as the answers

        • Mike says:

          2 Jan2 January 13:09

          Thanks for pointing that out. I flew only a couple times in business class on short-haul flights before 2010, in nice spacious chairs. Seeing their new business class seats on EU flights after 2020 was quite a shock. Recently I flew premium economy from USA, cold dinner and dirty silverware. They seemed to be understaffed or downsized their crews, or just my impression?

          I investigated different options. As I’m based in southwest the best deals are with Alaskan club for me. USA airlines are not the best, I avoid united and delta like a plague.

          Last, BA offers collecting points through buying their vacations. Are they really priced reasonable, do they target mainly UK travelers? Americans or Europeans will likely find better deals elsewhere. Changing the system to spend based takes the fun of collecting miles away and degrades BA awards to an average JC Penny.

        • john says:

          2 Jan2 January 15:08

          @Mike Yes BA Holidays can be competitive. I looked at it last year for a place we wanted to go to in Sardinia and booking the hotel through BA Holidays was cheaper than any other option I found (including direct). In the end I got the hotel to match the BA Holidays hotel price 🙂 and booked avios flights.

  • Clive says:

    2 Jan2 January 10:38

    What an excellent summary of the views of so many.

  • ALISON says:

    2 Jan2 January 11:18

    “BA holidays are largely not the leisure travel we want. ” BA / IAG really do not know their existing OR target market if they think BAH is anything near adequate for booking holidays. The hotel ranges are poor, the prices are inflated and the listings unattractive. Even at the level of finding a citybreak I see myself better off just booking 2x reward seats in CE and using an OTA (x6 or more Avios per £) via BA e-shopping portal.

  • Mike says:

    2 Jan2 January 16:20

    My favourite hotels in LA, Mykonos, and Ibiza aren’t available through BA Holidays, so why bother booking with BA?

• Phil says:

  2 Jan2 January 08:33

  Doesn’t Qatar have a CC that includes OWS ( their gold / BA equiv silver) as an annual perk?
  Think it has a hefty annual fee of $500 but lot less than £7.5k.

  Also been talking to some people I know at group tour holiday companies – let’s just say quotes specifying BA or OW are now being requoted for other airlines / cheapest at customer request.
  They are expecting a very rantic start to 2025 thanks to BA.

  These people are the premium leisure market BA meant to target. Long haul / medium haul business or first buyers but they go through another agent not BA holidays. As BA Holidays doesn’t run full tour services they aren’t going to win any business floating extra TPs at them to book a hotel package.
  But these people have just felt something was ‘taken away’ and are now angry.
  It does not have to be rational even as perception is the key.

  The other aspect is several of these group tours have ‘travel friends’ who agree a meet in a lounge before the tour. Some of those will have been in the lounge due to status not fare, whether people think they should be there or not, they will feel aggrieved and undervalued.

  Now add in the regional experience where people already feel that if you live north of Watford you don’t exist to BA and you get a good chunk of people looking around.

  BA may have just killed a sheep they wanted to fleece instead.

  • Catalan says:

    2 Jan2 January 08:48

    @Phil. Group tour (BT/IT) tickets are generally low revenue earners in the airline industry. Your friends are precisely the type of passenger BA no longer wants cluttering up their lounges.

    • Rob says:

      2 Jan2 January 08:58

      Got news for you. Not much Goldman Sachs traffic on probably 2/3rd of BA long haul routes. Think you’d be surprised how much of Club is Avios or IT bookings.

      BA Hols is useless for high end bookers as was discussed yesterday. People dropping serious sums have specific requirements which really need hands on assistance.

    • Phil says:

      2 Jan2 January 09:31

      @Catalan
      Got news for you
      Someone dropping 12k on a single holiday is precisely who they want.

      That 12k holiday is probably 50% or less land price.

      Believe me they want these people as they fly 2 or 3 such holidays a year. These are the ones who BA class as premium leisure – a few are the premium spend Americans.

      Now if you are telling me there’s no money in it and BA won’t miss people giving it a tasty chunk of travel money and giving it elsewhere instead then I think you need to think again – especially as BA seeks out good relations with such companies that sell to them.

      One such company admitted they can only book certain airlines because of such relations.
      Strange that they would go to such lengths for insignificant spend…

      BA don’t do trips to Antarctica, but at £17k land only starting price the people on them don’t fly economy to Buenos Aires. That is who you are dealing with.

      • Tim S says:

        2 Jan2 January 09:54

        BA could chase these people by tweaking the BAH TP offering, without throwing the rest of us out with the bath water.

        As has been said, BAH doesn’t not work for me because I don’t want to spend 14 days staying in the same hotel at the destination

        But why does that mean that they don’t want to encourage my 8 LH RT a year to be flown on BA/OW?

        • Phil says:

          2 Jan2 January 10:45

          I don’t think they’ll ever capture a slice of someone wanting a group package unless its a kind of multi-centre Inghams / Crystal / TUI arena.

          BA Holidays is basically add-ons to the flights rather than a dedicated holiday company in truth. It always will be without them drastically changing, which I don’t see them doing or making inroads quickly if do.

          If you want to do the Golden Triangle in India you aren’t going to even think of looking at BAH.
          If they allowed you to book a hotel in Jaipur and Agra that still isn’t going to wrestle people away from a package op like Exodus or Explore.

          BAH is for folks looking to sit on Cable Beach in Nassau or a long weekend in Berlin, not anyone who has any intention of moving about and exploring much.

  • Tim S says:

    2 Jan2 January 09:48

    just a couple of points to counter individual things
    Most people who book group tour holidays do so 6-9 months ahead. Almost no-one is booking now for Spring 2025 departures.
    The group tours that I deal with rarely specify BA or OW airlines in their included package. Most corral you onto Cheepie airline such as Air Europa, to get the headline costs down, or use Emirates – as that’s the worlds best, allegedly – so it might be if the don’t bump you onto Fly Dubai after you have confirmed – once tricked, never again!
    Very few of the people that I meet on a group tour have achieved “status” (on any airline), so choosing an airline because of the number of TP that they will get just doesn’t come into the calculation.

    In essence, I honestly don’t see this change making much difference to the providers of group tours.

    • Phil says:

      2 Jan2 January 10:15

      I think that very much depends on your group tour company.
      Most of the ones I’m talking about offerland only and you have to call to get a quote on flights and ATOL.

      Lots of the group members have status as they travel quite a lot.

      At least 2 of these companies offer the annual discount on tours departing before 1st June and start that around Christmas. Frequent users and those in their loyalty scheme know this and so end up with freebies on top of the standard loyalty bonus with them.

      6-9 months ahead on some things but many are a lot less, especially start of year.

      If you read what I put it is the people requesting the airline inclusive quotes who were stipulating BA and OW. Not the companies themselves, but they often were limited which airlines could use and BA was normally a first stop.
      Never ever been offered an Easyjet or LCC flight ever on one of these and was flatly told they can’t book Air India so definitely different types of company here.

      Flying India even in days of group flights they pushed BA / Qatar and you had to push for Emirates instead of being flown down to LHR to sit for a BA long-haul.
      Group flights started disappearing after Covid restarts and one company ditched them last year.

      You are literally talking to someone who flies these and chose BA over another for a TP reasoning as part of the decision. I know a few who do this and hence the BA / OW requests that the travel rep mentioned to me. They are the ones who also have their membership numbers filed withtravel companies so they go on the bookings too.

      On Emirates / Qatar pay close attention as well that if you pay first you will get first on all flights as via agents they sometimes ignore that one flight is business but same price flight as all first 2 or 3 hrs later.

      Qatar have also got form for dumping people on Air India or other flights if oversold flights around Diwali.
      They just won’t tell you until you reach Doha and are captive audience

• Mark says:

  2 Jan2 January 09:14

  Hi guys, quick question. I’m gold at the moment and it says that my card is valid till January/26. I’m not gonna get enough TP till April to renew. Will I stay gold till Jan/26 or drop down to Silver till Jan/26 ?

  Many thx

  • Tracey says:

    2 Jan2 January 09:38

    You stay gold to jan 26. It’s only after April that the new rules start, so your current qualification is protected.

• John says:

  2 Jan2 January 09:36

  The focus of this article now needs to move what scheme should people move to. There needs to be a consensus soon as I don’t want to be booking any travel this year on BAEC. Is it ST, SA or another OW. It’s actually quite liberating to think you can pick another airline with a much superior product. Will watch with amusement once the F lounge closes and becomes a corner of the business lounge with 10 seats.

  • Rhys says:

    2 Jan2 January 10:00

    Not sure there will be consensus, as a lot of that will depend on where you typically fly.

  • Rob says:

    2 Jan2 January 10:23

    When we all get off the beach …. 🙂

• Tracey says:

  2 Jan2 January 09:39

  Is this the first time that HfP comments have been more than 2000 for one article?

  • Rob says:

    2 Jan2 January 10:23

    Yup!

• Phil says:

  2 Jan2 January 10:07

  Oh to be a fly on the wall in the waterside board room this week.

  They will be nervously looking at metrics – bookings, cancellations, complaints, you name it. Probably have someone analysing social media sentiment. Trying to read the early tea leaves. I’d love to know if this has gone down as expected or they are freaking out.

  • Danny says:

    2 Jan2 January 10:12

    They already put it off twice in 2024 supposedly and many at BA didn’t want to implement it, thinking it’s a “terrible idea” but were railroaded into it.

    • Phil says:

      2 Jan2 January 10:43

      I’ve got no skin in the status game anymore. Don’t travel enough and family commitments long ruled out crazy TP runs.

      So looking from the sidelines, I’m convinced this is going to backfire in spectacular fashion.

      My prediction is all the modelling is based on data on which changing the rules so drastically makes it a fundamentally different game. All bets are off, all assumptions are invalid. We’re through the looking glass now.

  • Steve says:

    2 Jan2 January 10:19

    From whom? Someone at BA…?

  • Phil says:

    2 Jan2 January 10:31

    You’re a rotten tease Rob.

    I have clients in leisure travel. January is peak peak peak for bookings. It can make or break a whole trading year. You simply don’t fiddle with the levers days before. Boggles the mind.

  • Clive says:

    2 Jan2 January 10:46

    A day or so I wondered who would have to report to Mr Cruz – oh sorry, Mr Doyle, his spiritual successor – on the social media backlash, once he returns to work, I didn’t envy the poor so-and-so carrying out that task, but the storm shows no sign of abating and I still believe that BA will lose real money over this. But I agree with the view that Rob is being a tease, flaunting an e-mail, but giving no hint of what it contained, or who sent it.

  • Ryanfozzie says:

    2 Jan2 January 10:50

    Rob, give us a clue… 🤣

  • Robin says:

    2 Jan2 January 10:52

    Was it from Groupon touting another sponsored special offer for a hotel in a UK seaside resort?

  • Powlo says:

    2 Jan2 January 11:41

    I’ll wager your email said they botched the bonus points. And the intention was to award the bonus at the current rate *subject to conversion* into the new rate. Which would give people a bridge into the new system and effectively one more year in the game. And further your email said they are working out what to do about it, because everyone is still on holiday. Cold? Warm? Warmer?

• heggers03 says:

  2 Jan2 January 10:11

  What would be of interest in terms of BAH:

  1. BAH Hotel only spend earns 1 TP per £1 spent
  2. Option to 100% allocate BAH TPs to primary booking traveller

  Would probably sway me to spend £10k plus to BAH hotel only away from direct leisure Marriott/Hilton bookings. Guessing zero chance of above happening though.

  • PeterK says:

    2 Jan2 January 11:44

    Last time I spoke with BA, the agent was keen to sell me separate hotel or car hire an offer me 10 avios per pound spent; she was clearly incentivised to offer me the 10 avios so I reckon there’s plenty of scope for BA to instead offer a TP reward in lieu of the 10 avios and the agent’s incentive?

• Trevor says:

  2 Jan2 January 10:28

  BAH are just not set up for bespoke holidays. I recently tried to book a 6 segment return flight with 2 hotel nights online and then over the phone. Each time I got to the payment stage and then the booking could not be confirmed. I wasted so much time.
  I called the BA flight line, ditched the hotels, and booked the same 6 flights in one call.

  • Phillip says:

    2 Jan2 January 10:45

    Yes, BAH’s systems are very point and click – if the system doesn’t bring up a flight option, they can’t process it even if it’s available on BA.com. And let’s not talk about clunkiness!

  • AL says:

    2 Jan2 January 11:47

    Concur. I, a thirty-something, had to start using a travel agent for a reason other than (a) keeping the corporate overlords happy here and there, and (b) for additional tier points, when I realised that BAH systems are so clunky that they couldn’t fathom my specific request.

    Mind, it took a long while to explain it to the agent.

    • Tim S says:

      3 Jan3 January 16:04

      Tell me about it

      I’m currently researching London to Christchurch. The obvious route is LHR-SYD connecting into the 5 times a day QA flight to CHC.

      But will the BA site book me onto the Direct LHR-SYN (BA015) with 2 hour “stay on the plane” stop at SIN?

      Nope, it insists the only route is a 6 hour change of plane at HKG.

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