Reply To: BAEC changes – “2 yrs in the making” and based on “extensive modelling”?

[desh36000]

Rob Burgess wrote:

A mate who would know told me today that the BA sale, which just ended, did not go as well as expected.

The ‘extensive modelling’ didn’t go as far as realising that if Iberia came out with a lower spend target AND continued to offer segment based qualification then BA would have a problem ….

On this – I thought the same thing when the flash sale was announced pushing EU short haul, in the middle of the sale which wasnt a sale. It gave the impression of a ‘everything must go as its expired / past best user by date’ sale on routes which were not doing as expected post announcment. Best prices I saw were like 30-40 off business, not a lot really and not enough to force a button push now as opposed to some other time – but a lot for example in LUX etc weekends super empty (some fares of £61rtn seen).

Clearly there was IMMEDIATE blowback from the Dec30th announcements, and they must be seeing it in hard numbers already for January and projections into Summer/Q3/Q4. Yes there will be a proportion of customers (probably on this website) who were astute and booked XYZ TP runs to USA or ME etc for this summer, and BAJH bookings into June, prior to the 30th – but the rest of the driving sales likely just not there as the news of changes slowly drifted out.

Its clear as day that non BAEC customers pick non BA flights when they get a better deal. If this pushes people into being non BAEC, they are all just going to vote with their wallets – so unless BA are suddenly going to start upping their game, and producing an amazing product with same or lower costs as competitors I cant see how this is going to work out for them.