Why is the Amex deal to award British Airways Club tier points still a secret?

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• strickers says:

  21 Mar21 March 11:28

  Whether it’s BA or Amex dragging their heels, it’s a mess. I wonder how many consultants were involved in this particular omnishambles.

  • Phoenixed says:

    22 Mar22 March 08:41

    Or maybe still are?

• RC says:

  21 Mar21 March 11:43

  Perhaps the usual BA arrogance expecting to be paid, announcing something with no supplier agreement and then hoppy negotiate their way.
  If that is the case it highlights so many communication and bad management characteristics to list.
  Here’s hoping Amex have them in a tough spot. suddenly with USA looking recessionary BA needs Amex more than Amex need BA

  • No longer Entitled says:

    21 Mar21 March 14:33

    Let’s be clear, AMERICAN Express have never needed BA. The GDP of California alone is bigger than the UK. We are an after thought that is useful to trickle in revenue, but AMEX do not stand or fall by what happens in the UK, let alone what happens with the BAPP.

    • Andrew says:

      21 Mar21 March 15:19

      Amex UK might need BA’s UK market though…

  • mvcvz says:

    21 Mar21 March 16:21

    What does “hoppy negotiate their way” mean please?

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      21 Mar21 March 18:44

      I think it was a typo meaning to say hoping to

• Ramsey says:

  21 Mar21 March 12:21

  We can’t expect the same deals USA customers get. The UK (very fortunately) have kept the EU. cap on fees credit card providers can charge to retailers (and zero to individuals). Having just returned from the USA these silly fees some retailers charge, partly fuel the sky high prices USA customers experience. So AMEX have to be less generous with perks as they make less money on transactions here than the USA. Whilst like everyone else I want more points .., I much prefer our lower prices.

  As for BA not announcing the new arrangements, I’m not surprised. Their typical communications ‘we are doing this for customer enhancement’ show how out of touch they are with their customer base. They’ll no doubt tell us the delay has been due to them ‘listening to our customers’.

  • RC says:

    21 Mar21 March 13:52

    LOL
    Or ‘customer feedback told us you want more uncertainty, so we’ve made the decision not to tell you how BAC will work with Amex’.
    ‘An original British F up’

    Interesting to see IAG shares DOWN 6% so far this year when AF and LH are up 20-21%. 27% relative underperformance compared to peers tells you that despite all the desperate measures like share buy backs, investors think it’s a stinker.

    • Rob says:

      21 Mar21 March 14:04

      I saw some February flight booking numbers at the Tourism Alliance conference on Tuesday which I don’t think have been publicly seen by analysts. The drop year on year is shocking.

      I don’t have that slide but I do have another one showing a 7% fall in long haul bookings TO the UK for travel March-August 2025 vs last year, based on end Feb data year on year. Unless there is a spike of late bookings it will be very messy.

      BA is only a fraction of these figures but the trend is clear.

      • Paul says:

        21 Mar21 March 16:42

        No dount some consultant told them that the USA market was forever lined with streets of gold leading to the airports they serve. They turned their backs on the rest of the world and ME3 and others have taken up the slack. this drop in numbers explains the fall in the share price.

    • Rui N. says:

      21 Mar21 March 14:45

      Tourism to the US is declining by 15% compared to last year. So, less traffic going that way. A recession is looming over there, so less traffic coming our way.
      With BA being so dependent on the US, no surprise IAG shares are suffering.

    • danimal says:

      21 Mar21 March 15:05

      Up 70% over the past 12 months so I wouldn’t read too much into that.

  • Ziggy says:

    22 Mar22 March 18:33

    As someone who spends a lot of time in the US I can assure you that the “silly fees” you refer to have very little to do with the “sky high” cost of everyday goods.

• StanTheMan says:

  21 Mar21 March 13:43

  The timing is a messy situation too. TP spend clock starts April 1st (maybe). 241 spend clock starts on a totally different date in the year for every card holder.

  Some will overlap closely, some will be 6 months apart.

  Unless they reset all future BAPP years to a April 1st start too……

• dundj says:

  21 Mar21 March 14:59

  Amex have the upper hand here as BA announced the additional TP’s would be earned via the BAPP. This to me would be a hard-nosed negotiation if I was Amex saying you have announced it so we are paying nothing until the end of our contract for it.

  There is an option that Amex can let this play out and hard ball negotiate a contract extension at either a far lower cost to them, or say we have a contract with AF/KL in Europe which we would love to extend to the UK, so we won’t be paying what you want.

  BA no longer hold the cards (pun intended), and a smart plan by Amex could easily see them save a lot of the margin on the BA cards for themselves or switch the airline it promotes.

• Clive says:

  21 Mar21 March 16:41

  As I have commented previously, one of the most appalling aspects of the new scheme is the virtual impossibility of planning in advance to reach any specific level. This shambles over AMEX Tier Points is simply another example of how badly wrong BA has got it.

  • Paul says:

    21 Mar21 March 16:43

    Well yes and no.. Agree you dont know what BA are offering so dont want to book with them. But you do know what Finnair, Iberia, Qatar and many others are offering so you can book with them.

• Rupert Smith says:

  21 Mar21 March 16:47

  Several things are clear.

  1) The new BA ‘Club’ has not been carefully planned. It is someones ‘whim’ and been implemented without crossing ‘t’s or dotting ‘i’s. The fact they added in number of flights to appease staff shows as much.
  2) This is highlighted somewhat by the Double Tier points for holiday bookings which states you will need to book a holiday etc for at least 5 nights for travel before March 31st 2025 (I could have sworn this was originally June). This implies that if I book and travel before March 31st, and come back after, my tier points are doubled (it does not say travel and return). So does that mean the value of my purchase is doubled now as there are no more journey points?
  3) The ‘from April’ (note not April 1st) is classic marketing suck you in terminology. The comments suggest this has worked because almost everyone who has a BAPP card has made an assumption about it being preferential to them. BA have confirmed nothing about the mechanism or its terms. Given the ambiguaty of the launch date and BA’s arrogance at doing what it wants when it wants, there is every possibility that they intend to replace the 2 for 1 voucher with Tier Points, because that would cost them nothing. They probably believe that its quite reasonable for someone to put £15K of spend through a card to give them 33% of the way toward the stratospheric heights of a Silver membership.

  • Rob says:

    21 Mar21 March 16:53

    If you have a double hols booking for April-June the TP you get are the old TP multiplied by 15.

    Trust me that this is ‘fair’ to the extent that your trip will get you the % of the way to Silver or Gold as it would have before, but of course the tier point gap you need to close is far wider than under the old scheme.

    • ATP says:

      21 Mar21 March 18:13

      Yes, once one domestic leg was cancelled we cancelled a £26k BAH double tier points that would’ve got all 5 of us 75% of gold. Since partner TPs were gutted too, the hard cash we’d need to spend on BA for the remaining 25% each was about £25k net of tax. Rather fanciful to think people would put up with that.

      • Nico says:

        21 Mar21 March 21:54

        Hmm, if you would have beebn 75% of gold how can you need to spend 25k each? Thats more than the total

        • ATP says:

          21 Mar21 March 22:48

          I never said each I always referred to totals for all 5?

    • Nico says:

      21 Mar21 March 22:02

      Factor is 13.33, could make a difference to some

    • Rog says:

      23 Mar23 March 09:42

      Hi Rob,

      Apologies if asking stupid question but could you clarify what that means for my situation (this may help other also I hope).

      Booked BA Holiday for business trip to Australia after BA Club announcement – that means I expected T Points to be based on full price and what BA said if I recall correctly.

      BA Flight codes operated on Qatar Metal
      LHR-Doha-Perth return in F all the way

      Do I still get revenue amount (£12.5K inc hotel broken into two stints and 9 nights total) OR, based on your comment, 15* 760 T points which I believe is standard award OR 15* the double amount of 1440?

      If first option then it’s what I expected, second is obviously going cause me to be exceptionally grumpy and third is excellent!

      Thanks in advance.

• W.W. says:

  21 Mar21 March 18:55

  I’ve actually stopped buying BA flights now; seeing how this complete ,complex mess resolves itself, over this next month. Just using-up all my Avios.
  For economists / bean-counters, Price is a ‘number’.
  For consumers, Price is a ‘feeling’.
  Using this concept BA will definitely lose-out with changing their loyalty programme (Loyalty goes both ways). Paying for a 2nd rate product; (Compared with proper 5 star airlines) and not getting much tier-point ‘advantage’. Who will actually continue with BA’s Club? I”m now looking to start afresh with Star* or FlyingBlue.

  • Dogmatick says:

    22 Mar22 March 00:58

    My problems with AF, KLM and LH is that their J offerings are frankly abysmal for anyone tall and they operate through airports that make LHR T4 look like T3 at DXB
    I fly to and from the Middle East all the time and overnight flights via a European hub is a difficult early morning four terminal change from hell

    I’ve been trying them all out originally to move from EY, then Qatar and now finally at BA got gold then told they’re downgrading 💔

    Yes even the staff laugh at how bad the first offering is and that I now need approx thirteen F returns to get gold

    But if you live in England I cannot see the value in getting a European alliance membership other than IB because how will you use it for short haul

    Personally I’d really value an IBPP card in the UK right now, does Iberia have any banking tie up in the UK?

    • CamFlyer says:

      22 Mar22 March 12:47

      As LCY is more convenient than LHR for me (from East Anglia), I can easily fly KLM, Swiss or LH (and occasionally ITA) to most short haul destinations with a connection in the same door to door elapsed time as BA nonstop from Heathrow. And otherwise there is usually a choice of WizzAir, EasyJet, Ryanair, AJet and Pegasus from STN or LTN.

      • CamFlyer says:

        22 Mar22 March 12:56

        [Addendum to the above]
        This was a response to Dogmatick saying that no short haul alliance other than OneWorld made sense.
        For many, it is a competitive market, and gutting the ability to achieve status will definitely move business away from BA.

    • Throwawayname says:

      22 Mar22 March 17:06

      @Dogmatick, there’s no short haul oneworld service whatsoever to BHX or any other airport in the Midlands or the West/SW, and it only just about competes in the North (3 short haul routes from MAN across the alliance – the same number offered by SAS alone) so it’s actually the least useful alliance by far for short haul travel from/to anywhere outside London.

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