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A guest BA post by The Rt Hon Nigel Evans, ex MP and Deputy Speaker of the Commons

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Rob writes: we very rarely accept guest articles on Head for Points. However, when politician Nigel Evans – who spent 32 years as MP for Ribble Valley and was a Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons until the last election – offered to write about the British Airways Executive Club changes, I was interested.

What makes Nigel’s piece relevant is that it shows that unhappiness with British Airways runs deep and that interest in the topics we cover on HfP goes far beyond the hardcore frequent flyer community.

As Nigel said to me:

“I was chair of a number of a few committees, and was a delegate to the Council of Europe which took me extensively around the world . Needless to say I am Gold for Life with BA and at one stage was Gold on all three alliances simultaneously.

Whilst I will be unaffected by the BA changes – other than a beneficiary from deserted lounges in 12 months times – I am incensed by the cavalier way in which BA is treating its loyalty members.”

Over to Nigel. I have edited his piece and any errors are probably mine:

Nigel Evans

“They say that no one is as deaf as the one who chooses not to hear. British Airways whispered its changes to its well established and well loved loyalty programme during the Christmas break. It came as an unwelcome gift which would have been best left unwrapped. One can only assume there was no focus group played out with current members of BA Executive Club which would have quickly put this plan out of its misery.

British Airways is changing its loyalty programme to reward money spent rather than frequency of flying. There are nuances to it, but in essence the cost of getting elite status with BA is going to cost a huge amount more, in some cases by a factor of eight or more.

My friends who have been blindly loyal to British Airways for decades are in deep shock. They weren’t over surprised about the new tier points being awarded on revenue but they were traumatised by the huge increases required to have their loyalty recognised. Many have said to me they cannot retain their current status in the new scheme and are simply surrendering their planned trips with BA rather than even try.

There are a lot of savvy fliers who have engineered their business and leisure flights around gaining tier recognition with British Airways. A former owner of an airline once told me that frequent fliers have been known to fly in the opposite direction of where they want to go simply to fly with their chosen alliance and earn recognition.

Nigel Evans writes about British Airways

I was recently at a conference in Hampshire and there was only one side discussion of any note – who would people be transferring their loyalty to and which scheme would better reward their loyalty.

One former diplomat told me he had approached Virgin Atlantic to see if it would status match his BA gold card. Not only did they say yes, but they have since officially rolled out their status match with a further incentive of a prize draw for five lucky loyalty refugees to win a million points.

Another British Airways loyalty orphan told me he was switching immediately to Flying Blue on the day that Air France KLM announced its £99 status match. It also appears that Flying Blue is going one better and giving top tier status quietly to Gold Guest List victims. This is the highest level in their scheme and will allow enhanced recognition with extended lounge access to eight of your fellow travellers.

Another savvy frequent flyer texted me yesterday relating to his take on the changes – “I’m done with them”. He is looking at Flying Blue and planning his next BA-free break.

I am now waiting for Star Alliance to smell the stench from the rotting corpse of the BA bombshell and announce a status match offer. The scene is reminiscent of vultures circling above ready to swoop on the remains of an animal dying from, in this case, self inflicted wounds.

I have no doubt that British Airways has thought through these changes – after all they hide behind members feedback as their justification for the new scheme. I have no doubt some members have complained about lounges being crowded or the aircraft boarding by group number being a bit like the rush through the doors at the Harrod’s New Year’s sale. I have no doubt that the new scheme will rectify these problems but not in the way BA has intended.

Another friend is going to China next month and had already embarked on his loyalty journey with oneworld via BA. He has now taken out Flying Blue membership and taken a tier run to Scandinavia, he has a flight booked in business to Paris and next month will fly with SkyTeam to Shanghai. He would most certainly have booked BA to get him closer to his beloved Gold status but feels that BA have shown him no loyalty and two can dance that tango.

BA faces a big decision. It can plough on with its current proposals which have been universally greeted with total disbelief by the majority of frequent flyers I speak to or they can hear the screeching handbreak turns from former loyal members who are heading to pastures and alliances new.

The one thing I have learnt from my days in business is that the customer is always right and that they also have a choice. Unless British Airways wakes up and smells the Union coffee brewing in their lounges they will – without a doubt – soon be receiving fewer complaints from their incredibly loyal Executive Club members about crowded lounges. It will, unfortunately, be for all the wrong reasons.”

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Comments (336)

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

  • Chris says:
    20 Jan20 January 05:41

    This resonates precisely with what I am hearing from people who have never read HfP or FT or done a TP run in their life but who valued their BA bronze/silver/gold status. Yes, revenue-based status was coming but the new thresholds are ridiculous, matched only by the bonus TPs on offer at levels apparently deliberately designed to confuse people with the old system. Except nobody is confused, we all know we have been taken for mugs.

    And the day after Sean Doyle gave an interview to the Times and “refused to be drawn” into commenting on the changes? It doesn’t take a corporate genius to work out what is going on behind the scenes.

    Good luck, BA- next time pay for a focus group?

    • Kaye says:
      20 Jan20 January 05:51

      BA’s view is that people who read HfP or FT are all geeks trying to game the system at the lowest possible cost. I say is. Maybe was. As the latest surveys have started to ask if you read forums such as FT.

      Organisations are not exempt from bias and for BA, who have their own very long established internal hierarchy of who can have a good card and who can’t, and who they expect to be flying in their premium cabins, it’s very hard for them to accept that the world has changed, who has money isn’t necessarily who they think, and just because they only issue gold cards to very senior staff does not actually make it exclusive to people outside their organisation.

      • John33 says:
        20 Jan20 January 06:32

        But it’s true. Look at the comments and articles on this site. People going to Edinburgh by train to catch a connecting flight, people flying to Sofia for the day, etc etc. That’s not loyalty.

        Rob is upset because his business model depends on there being a system to gain and loads of people reading the site to find out how to do it. Why should British Airways care about this when it has thousands of customers who truly bring in ££,£££ every year and who are fed up of overcrowded lounges?

        • Rob says:
          20 Jan20 January 07:27

          Those are our readers. You fail to separate commentators from readers.

        • Kaye says:
          20 Jan20 January 07:42

          The ratio of commenters to readers will not be reflective of the situation. I have never commented here before yet read every day. We spend between us somewhere around £50k. We have paid over the odds for BA and BA hols to justify the TPs. We also influence others in our social circle, who would also never comment. I estimate we influence the best part of £200k per annum spend.

          I suspect we are not alone, and that BA’s data, nor the comments on an article will pick this up

      • Dev says:
        20 Jan20 January 07:33

        BA seem to forget that people age and mature over time, earn more money and simply cannot be bothered with the faff of Tier Point runs as they get older and more wealthy.

        I have been reading HFP since inception, and have dabbled with a Tier Point run to make Gold on BA (with a WTP flight to BOM, where I met with friends and spent a couple of days) to make up the slight shortfall to Gold. That was 12 years ago and the back of end of my 20s.

        I now have a wife and 2 kids, and cannot be bothered to come up with complicated routes to maximise TPs, etc. Its straight there and back using a logical route for me. Luckilly, BA (or Qatar without too much deviation) provide this. I managed to maintain gold for some-time due to work travel and a few personal trips but am I really gaming the system?

        Under the new system, can I even bothered to attempt it. I’ve moved to phase where I can drop £10-15K on a holiday and will simply book whatever I fancy. The reality is that with kids, its nigh on impossible to make multiple holidays in a year.

        Work travel is slowing down thanks to online calls. Yes, they are not as effective as face to face meetings but in the grand scheme, most employers seem to have accepted the degraded outputs for the cost savings e.g. happy with a pass mark of C rather than pushing for an A.

        So there you go, I could have been loyal to BA for another 20 years of working life, and another 20 years of retirement but that has all evaporated within a few hours at the back-end of 2024.

        • Nick says:
          20 Jan20 January 07:58

          +1

        • Talay says:
          23 Jan23 January 05:28

          If you have been forced off BA for Qatar to maintain Gold status, then surely you would have dumped BA entirely whether Gold or not ?

          Unless you fly where Qatar doesn’t easily fly to, BA doesn’t get a mention on the sort of holidays you suggest.

  • Kaye says:
    20 Jan20 January 05:43

    What an interesting article. I wonder if BA has realised that in stereotyping ‘TP runners who earn gold status for £3k’, they have completely underestimated how many people paying SIGNIFICANTLY more than that were ALSO engaging in a similar behaviour. They may well have just snubbed anyone spending between £3k-£40k.

    There is so much blatant classism and judgement underlying people’s views of ‘they don’t deserve status, the lounge is full of people on cheap tier points’, when it transpires more people than expected have just rather successfully been sucked into the companion voucher, double tier point, paid upgrades, extra trips for status, extra legs, starting in the eu, paying more for oneworld, ecosystem.

    And the other airlines who have probably been in despair at how to break the irrational hold that BAEC had will be watching with glee and probably disbelief at this self inflicted wound.

    • Alison says:
      20 Jan20 January 06:26

      I think you are spot on Kaye

    • L Allen says:
      20 Jan20 January 10:35

      Superb comment. I agree, spot on

    • vlcnc says:
      20 Jan20 January 11:03

      Glad you said this Kaye, not said anything and just ignored, but have found the demeaning and classist commentary from certain people rather frankly gross and callous. If people followed the rules, gave their hard earned cash to BA and earned their status they deserved to be there. And this gloating, one day some of them won’t make the cut anymore and they will suddenly be outraged because now it affects them! I also think a lot of people forget also that it is also a hobby for a lot of people and they have made connections and bonded with a community through it.

    • LittleNick says:
      20 Jan20 January 11:48

      Well said, wish I could rate comments on here

    • AJA says:
      20 Jan20 January 11:50

      @kaye The thing is if you are spending £40k exclusively with BA you will still be Gold at the very least and not very far off renewing GGL (earning GGL first time around will be tough).

      The people who are worst affected by this are those who travel economy for work. They really needed to fly business or first a few times to get Gold and a lot to GGL.

      If you’re spending £3k to get Gold then however much BA may have encouraged this in the past they have moved the goalposts significantly. BA has decided they don’t want to give you status so cheaply. Spending £3k won’t even give you Bronze status. But can you get OWE on any other OW FFP by spending only £3k?. It doesn’t look like it. So maybe BA has realised it was too easy and has moved the goalposts.

      Leisure only or self funded travellers are also adversely affected if Gold is their current status but in reality may just make Silver if they fly on BAHoliday bookings and spend on the BAPP. It won’t be easy but that’s how BA has decided to go. Whether only being Silver is worth or whether it is better to try being OWE in another FFP it is what people have to decide.

      I have looked at other alliances and other FFP schemes and they all have their disadvantages. I am really interested to see what HfPs analysis on other OW schemes is. Today’s other article on distance based BA Tier Point earning on other OW airlines is interesting.

      • Kaye says:
        20 Jan20 January 11:59

        @AJA If I currently spend £40k now and am comfortably GGL but with the new spend am Gold and further from Gold for Life then this isn’t desirable.

        • AJA says:
          20 Jan20 January 13:07

          So are you abandoning BA and moving FFP? If so which FFP have you chosen? Are you really going yo throw away your status with BA or will you just retain Gold and spend the other £18k with another FFP schemes?

          • Kaye says:
            20 Jan20 January 13:32

            Partner will go to Virgin this year, I will choose based on price this year and will redeem rather than cash on BA. Next year I’ll move to Star Alliance, hopefully with a status match but even if not it makes more sense. I’ll fly BA if it makes commercial sense but having looked at the numbers for the routes I need to fly over the next couple of years at best it’s even and for the majority they’re more expensive

  • Sue Holland says:
    20 Jan20 January 06:16

    Interesting article . People vote with their feet . And not just hfp readers –

  • Tim says:
    20 Jan20 January 06:19

    Nice comments. I wouldn’t want to be one of his ex-constituents. He seems out of touch.

    • Qrfan says:
      20 Jan20 January 06:38

      Public servants should be prohibited from attaining personal benefit from public spending in my view. Fly business if they need to, but ban use of personal frequent flier IDs. This guy should not be gold for life on the public dime, so to speak.

      • The Paw 🐾 says:
        20 Jan20 January 07:25

        When Mrs Paw was a civil servant
        and travelling on the government/taxpayer dime (several years ago), the rule was that they could get status but not use any of the accrued miles/points. I think that was (is?) a sensible policy

        • insider says:
          20 Jan20 January 09:03

          but in reality, you are just accruing those points to use once you are no longer a civil servant, so it’s still accrued benefit

          • Rainman says:
            20 Jan20 January 12:31

            Like Money Laundering, when cash hits an account, its nigh on impossible to ascertain which £1 was the specific dodgy one in a pot of 100 x £1s. The same applies to points. You have multiple ways to earn miles – credit cards, work trips, personal trips, transfer points from hotel points earned from work trips, transfer points from hotel points earned from personal trips, hotel points earned from credit card, credit card points earned from work expenses, credit card points earned from personal spend and so forth.

            No employer can ever trace points once they hit a members account.

          • The Paw 🐾 says:
            20 Jan20 January 13:10

            She let the appropriate number of points expire, but I guess that wasn’t the case for everyone!

      • flying high says:
        20 Jan20 January 07:26

        This seems like a bit of a silly take. presumably he was traveling for work like a lot of the rest of us

        • Qrfan says:
          20 Jan20 January 09:51

          Take away the personal benefit and let’s see if the enthusiasm for spending govt money on travel decays somewhat. Private companies without good cost control go bankrupt. When the govt lacks cost control we collectively just end up in a bigger mess. You can’t compare the two.

      • Simon says:
        20 Jan20 January 08:16

        But what if they can demonstrate that the personal benefit comes at no additional cost to the public purse (i.e. they took the cheapest ticket, rather than preferring a particular carrier to obtain loyalty)?

      • Graham says:
        20 Jan20 January 08:44

        Absolutely, I just not came here to say that, he even appeared to be floating about it. Not a great sentiment to that article in my opinion. Poor show HFP!

      • David says:
        20 Jan20 January 10:53

        Why? Who is it hurting?

      • Anthony Dunn says:
        20 Jan20 January 13:36

        Really? Why should this rule apply solely to public servants? Why should not companies insist on retaining any Avios obtained from the ticket prices they pay? Why then should not HMRC regard the Avios retained by staff as a benefit in kind and tax this?

        The shoulder chipped mindset towards the public sector is really not pretty. Or considered.

    • masaccio says:
      20 Jan20 January 06:44

      What because he made the most of business travel? Would you prefer he talked about recipes for hotpot and shopping at Aldi?

      • NorthernLass says:
        20 Jan20 January 07:02

        He was MP for the Ribble Valley – one shops at Booth’s, or if feeling the pinch a little, Sainsbury’s!

        • Sandgrounder says:
          20 Jan20 January 11:46

          The average weekly full time income is £38 above the UK average and the average house price is £228k, it’s not poor but let’s not get carried away, it’s not exactly Kensington!

  • Nick says:
    20 Jan20 January 06:29

    Mr Evans has hit the nail on the head, and has pretty much summed up what myself, and a lot of other frequent BA customers, often over many decades, feel about the changes. Many, again like myself, I’m sure, have ‘threatened’, for years, to leave BA for other reasons, but haven’t actually done anything about it. Well, I have now, and already have, wherever feasible, started using other carriers, who actually want my business. It’s not large, by any means, but they’ve had it for the best part of the past 30 years , or so, and all in Club or First. I said it before, and I’ll say it again, IMHO they’re making a big mistake, and will regret it, especially as the economy, likely, falls into recession, and the large corporations cut back on executive travel.

    • Davidm says:
      20 Jan20 January 07:45

      If your flying club or first all the time, these changes make no negative difference to you. I would argue the product is going to get better for you with quicker check in and emptier lounges.

  • Adam says:
    20 Jan20 January 06:32

    Does Harrods have Christmas sales (as per article comparison) and are they any good?

    • Thywillbedone says:
      20 Jan20 January 06:45

      Nothing is ever truly on sale at Harrods …

      • Cranzle says:
        20 Jan20 January 06:57

        I’d go as far as to say that Harrods is one of the few retailers that has a genuine sale in many departments where you cannot buy the same prodcuts elsewhere for less.

        • Thywillbedone says:
          20 Jan20 January 07:03

          I’d go as far as to say you’re wrong …

          (joking aside, I have picked up the odd outsize value item there but much of the sale are items brought in specifically for the sale …like brands at Bicester Village having dedicated cheaper lines which they sell ‘exclusively’ there …

          • Andrew J says:
            20 Jan20 January 07:10

            Harrods has excellent and genuine sales.

          • Lady London says:
            21 Jan21 January 14:43

            If you shop there enough then the bought-in sale specific stuff is easy to spot and avoid. Though some specific bought-in sale stock can be excellent quality at an unusually low price.

            @Cranzle is right.

      • Rob says:
        20 Jan20 January 07:26

        It is. Got a pair of Summer Walks for £300ish two years ago.

    • JDB says:
      20 Jan20 January 07:21

      The comment re the rush at Harrods is quite dated, but it did use to have an absolutely legendary sale which usually started in early January.

      • Rob says:
        20 Jan20 January 07:24

        That’s true, they go on Boxing Day now like the rest! And 30% off from about 10th December ….

        • Chabuddy Geezy says:
          20 Jan20 January 11:03

          We received a 10% discount on a yoyo buggy and accessories in a Harrods sale. We couldn’t find it cheaper anywhere else.

    • iceman says:
      21 Jan21 January 09:36

      greatly discounted PVC bag that never gets discounted otherwise but still a PVC bag.

  • Nick G says:
    20 Jan20 January 06:35

    Deep shock? Seriously? Having your house burnt down would leave you in shock, someone dying who you’re close to would leave you in shock. If that’s the biggest issue people have then I think they need to be grateful for some basics in life like having a roof over their head. Yes it sucks, yes it’s not right, but BA like any other company can do what they want when they want. As for listening to any politician I’ll pass on that thanks.

    • MKB says:
      20 Jan20 January 09:39

      It’s a rhetorical device for effect known as hyperbole. If you take all English prose literally, you’re going to have lots of problems.

  • Tkmaxx says:
    20 Jan20 January 06:39

    The problem can be solved by adjusting the thresholds lower, and rewarding leisure travel at a much higher rate, say giving 2x on BA holiday spend, or other indicators of leisure (minimum stay of 7 nights on round trips etc, which would also weed out the TP runners).

    Revenue based loyalty is here to stay. If you owned a restaurant, you wouldn’t give free food to the random person who came in to order a cup of coffee every day, you would give it to the person buying steak and champagne, who spends the most per table per period of time, to make sure they keep coming back

    But when the threshold is set this high, people are clearly going to just give up altogether.

    • Kaye says:
      20 Jan20 January 06:45

      Can the problem be solved by doing that now though? Is the genie not already out of the bottle?

      I agree your solutions are sensible but I think it’s too late and people will always be aware of what the intentions were.

      It’s a version of the employee who threatens to leave and stays because you offer them a pay increase. You know they’ll be gone again soon.

      Likewise if BA backtracked, I still wouldn’t want to put my loyalty towards them, as I know what their intentions were.

    • johnny_c-l says:
      20 Jan20 January 06:57

      The person buying a cup of coffee from you every day is likely more profitable than Mr Steak & Champagne who visits once a year.

      There are many other coffee shops on the same street so that free cup every now and again (pennies of cost) is a great decision and the goodwill generated might encourage them to buy a sandwich or cake every so often, also at a high margin.

      Similar situation to when the person fills that last seat for a CE weekend break and chose BA because of status rather than any other European short haul operator.

      • Tkmaxx says:
        20 Jan20 January 07:49

        I thought I wouldn’t have to spell out my analogy, but here the person buying the steak and champagne would be spending more money on a yearly basis than the person just ordering coffee as they come multiple times. A coffee is 4 pounds, every weekday is 1k, steak and champagne for the family is 200, once a month gives you a 1.2k at higher margins (champagne especially).

        What this blog fails to grasp about airline economics is that load factor is just one input KPI.
        Revenue per available seat mile is far more important as it factors in yield (higher loads means you don’t have empty seats, yes), but for an airline like BA, higher fare mix is FAR more important.

        Put it this way, if BA load factor fell 3% points, which is actually a 5% point loss from economy, but a 2% point increase in business, their profits would massively rise.

        Their loyalty program needs to reflect this. BA make the bulk of their profits from their high fare passengers, many of whom fly LHR to JFK and spend 3k a pop. The person flying CE spending 300 every now and then is not even close in absolute terms.

        • Rob says:
          20 Jan20 January 08:24

          Evidence from the US is that under a revenue based structure top spenders slack off more quickly. If you can now hit Gold in 4 trips to NY instead of 7 (fully flex flyers) you move those other 3 flights to Virgin to get SkyTeam Gold as well. A large % of BA premium passengers only fly BA to get status to benefit them on short haul. You don’t even NEED status if all your trips are Business.

          • tkmaxx says:
            20 Jan20 January 17:48

            Thanks for the reply, and I now appreciate my initial reply was pre-caffeine and slightly curt, apologies to the person above!

            Couple of questions:
            1) Do you have a link to analysis on the impact of the US airlines’ change to revenue based vs. segment / mileage based?
            2) How is the “surplus” flights, and not needing status for business, any different to a segment/mileage based world? In that world, you stop flying after you hit the mileage / segments needed for Gold, and then get status from Virgin / Turkish Airlines instead?

            I genuinely think what frustrates people the most about these changes is that the thresholds have been set so high so as to not even be aspirational. This problem can exist in both a revenue-based system, OR in a mileage / segment based system, if you set your thresholds wrong.

          • John says:
            20 Jan20 January 18:30

            I live in the US and thats what I do. Hit the spend requirement and then slack off. But BA under their new arrangements might get some money from me for silver or gold that it wouldn’t have got under the old system

        • Michael says:
          20 Jan20 January 20:51

          The CE passenger might not spend as much in absolute terms, but given that CE is 1.5 SH economy seats with a bit of food and drink, it might not be too bad in revenue per square foot, and the aircraft can carry three or four CE passengers in the same time as the long haul flight. Witness also that WTP is frequently said to be the most profitable cabin on long haul.

          The thing about BAEC was that the achievable targets made passengers relatively less price sensitive, and would prioritise BA over others even if a bit more expensive. BA will probably always fill their cabins out of LHR but will they be able to do it at the same yield now that they are reducing the BAEC carrot?

          The move to more explicitly revenue-linked schemes in general reduces the obfuscation and gamification elements of the scheme (and probably makes it easier to tax!) Objectively easyJet for short haul is becoming a better option as the oversize value from BAEC is not there anymore to justify spending a bit more on BA, but BA will probably be ok as capacity on domestic and short haul is so tight.

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