Changes in flying patterns since BA Club enhancements?

[points_worrier]

I cannot see a thread on how your flying has actually changed following the BA Club changes. I thought I would reflect how mine has *actually* changed. I am based in the UK.

Since March, I have:

Flights:
– I have continued to fly BA, but reduced. They are one of the major airlines flying out of London, so this is likely to make sense, even out of necessity! Many of these flights are award redemptions as I burn my avios.
– Interestingly, even when I fly other airlines, such as Qatar, I have significant benefit from booking it under the BA code. It is the same price as discount business under the QR code, but both gets lounge access in DOH and additional points in Finnair’s programme (150% vs 125%).

Loyalty programme:
– Not credited one earning flight to BA Club. They have started sending me emails reminding me of the benefits of the new BA club. I really must have missed these benefits somewhere…
– Opened and am working my way up the Finnair programme. It earns 150% of the BA-coded Qatar flights, and I can transfer the avios to BA club to spend for the RFS.
– Continued to earn Avios through credit card spending, credited to BA Club
– Majority of credit card spend avios has actually been credited to Qatar, as there was a 30% HSBC bonus. These were transferred across to BA Club for RFS spending

Overall, I do not think it would make a massive difference to BA’s bottom line in my case, but I have definitely lost any goodwill towards them.

What has changed for others (if anything)?

[masaccio]

Outside work I’ve always booked the best flight for be, loyalty be damned. For work, BA give us significant discounts that make them attractive though even then I often find cheaper alternatives.

The 241 voucher remains a huge incentive to collect Avios for me, but I have never seen the point in twisting my travel plans or paying more for flights just so that I can move through an airport 5 minutes faster or sit in a lounge.

I do like the T5 First Wing and some lounges are quite pleasant places, but not enough to pay.

So no change as I couldn’t give two hoots about status.

[John]

I have been taking a break from airline status since 2023. While I didn’t predict how bad the changes would be, it was obvious something was coming, so I am unaffected by all the angst over TPs. Nonetheless I will never credit a paid BA / oneworld flight to BAC again.

That will not change the revenue I give to BA as I (usually) enjoy flying BA, amongst other airlines that I enjoy flying with. When choosing my flights I have always been guided by overall value rather than blind loyalty. Even when I wanted to maintain BA status in the past, the BAEC only kept me loyal to oneworld. If BA is £100 less than QR or CX etc and both schedules are acceptable, I’m not going to choose the other airline just to spite BA; and likewise if BA is more expensive I would obviously choose the other airline.

As avios is still a good scheme for me I will continue earning with Finnair and/or Qatar and redeeming with whichever is most appropriate. I do suspect BA will do a ‘Virgin-isation’ of redemptions at some point and then the game may be up.

[The real Swiss Tony]

My view: the change in travel patterns won’t be seen until a lot of status levels fall next Spring.

Very few members will be pursuing status in a new scheme whilst using benefits from the old one. We know there’s inertia when it comes to changing things like current accounts.

But once you lose the lounge access, free seat assignments and whatever else, it becomes a free for all. People will be looking at price/other value points and building status side by side.

I don’t think it’ll have much impact on my plans – am BAC Silver by far from a loyalist – although the lack of lounge access on short Y hops just means easyJet etc see the playing field levelled a bit.

[Garethgerry]

Lucky gold for life so don’t care about status

241 is a great incentive, also BA only direct flight to Cape town, so use Avios for that.

Other than that Gold status doesn’t effect my choice on cash bookings not BA loyal. Choice of airline based on convenience ie timing, direct or shortest overall time , also a 1 2 1 layout in longhaul business, price of course, cost of refundabilty, and if indirect EU/UK airline for ease of 261 claim

[Skywalker]

I’m loyal to whatever benefits me, so whilst the BAEC was up and running, it benefited me and so I would fly accordingly to achieve status there and fly with the whatever airline had a nice deal on at the time. But more generally, the focus was BA/Oneworld.

BAC does not benefit me. I wasn’t completely loyal to begin with, so whilst BA’s changes were rather left-field in that they were more drastic than expected, I didn’t feel entirely lost as to what I was going to do next, and nor did I feel this sense of great loss. I quickly made the shift to ‘accept’ but I guess that’s just a personality thing. I will admit to feeling some concern for some of the HfP posters on the very busy threads – some of the posts were worrying.

I am neither wedded nor divorced to the idea of building loyalty with another airline. If loyalty happens to build as a result of the collection of flights that I have taken, then it does – but I am not going out of my way to achieve it, not in the same way I would with BA, and I think that’s the summary element of change in my behaviour.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

My Short Haul pattern will still be with BA as the alternatives aren’t generally acceptable to me for my two main destinations. I’ll actually earn very few nTPs this year anyway as I’m winding my avios pot.

Since I will no longer travel to the US it’s unlikely I’ll be earning any BA status unless I switch to other destinations.

Future long haul trips will go to the best airline for the route and price.

I’m not averse doing ex-EUs and so on.

But remember despite the wailing and keening many of those switching to the likes of IB and AY to collect points and gain status will still be flying BA metal.