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I think this merits a separate thread in case readers are booking BAH’s for double TPs without wading through the existing threads.
As of ***September 27th*** –
https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/offers/holidays-double-tier-points
There’s currently a discussion on FT of the implications of this.
The terms do not say “as of” 27 Sep. It says “Information is correct on 27 September 2023” – that’s not the same thing.
What’s changed ?
This?
Bookings can only contain one flight departing the UK, multiple journeys from the UK within one booking will not qualify.
The terms do not say “as of” 27 Sep. It says “Information is correct on 27 September 2023” – that’s not the same thing.
As in, these appeared on September 27th. It’s not totally clear when they apply from, but the main thing is – which is clear from the title of the post – that any bookings made from that date onwards will be subject to these terms and conditions.
This?
Bookings can only contain one flight departing the UK, multiple journeys from the UK within one booking will not qualify.
I think it’s fair to say that BA has observed the excess gaming of the system and will continue to adjust the terms as required. Some people (not I) had already noted the foolishness of airing these convoluted itineraries.
Well, on FT they are suggesting that it’s their chat that has alerted BA! But from what I’ve gathered since finding travel forums, there are hard-core TP collectors who have spent many years detailing their multi-sector itineraries. At some point anything like this seems to reach critical mass and companies decide to take action.
Well, on FT they are suggesting that it’s their chat that has alerted BA! But from what I’ve gathered since finding travel forums, there are hard-core TP collectors who have spent many years detailing their multi-sector itineraries. At some point anything like this seems to reach critical mass and companies decide to take action.
It’s not the multi-sector trips/TP runs that are the issue – as you say they have been around forever. It’s these itineraries (and associated questionable cars/hotel arrangements) in conjunction with the double TP offer that is the problem. Some may be disappointed when they don’t receive the points they expect.
Anyone acting within the spirit will be absolutely fine.
We had someone post on another thread post how they tried to book 10 segments, including SOF and OTP and then car hire in Belfast. They also said they pointed out to BA how these itineraries are discussed on FT. I feel this may have sparked the changes, albeit perhaps brought about from my posting of multi-sectors. A lesson learnt.
Thankfully these changes don’t really affect me or my bookings as I only leave the UK once.
Having now caught up with the FT thread the slight concern is the suggestion that one non-qualifying flight means no double TP on the qualifying sectors. I hope that’s wrong, although my one holiday booked is all BA flights or code-shares.
The first rule of Double Tier Points Club…………..
The more people post about ‘loopholes’ in the system and how to ‘take advantage’ the more these will be closed down.
“Hopefully” the new rules don’t actually apply to bookings made prior to 27/9. I think it may be that non-BA flights won’t cost you the 2 x TPs on the rest, but breaching a term such as the 30-day limit may cost you the whole lot. It should become more apparent over the next few months as people start posting about what TPs they’ve been awarded.
@Angela, I really don’t think BA would have got their act together that quickly, as noted on FT their members have been openly discussing these kinds of itineraries for years.
“Hopefully” the new rules don’t actually apply to bookings made prior to 27/9. I think it may be that non-BA flights won’t cost you the 2 x TPs on the rest, but breaching a term such as the 30-day limit may cost you the whole lot. It should become more apparent over the next few months as people start posting about what TPs they’ve been awarded.
@Angela, I really don’t think BA would have got their act together that quickly, as noted on FT their members have been openly discussing these kinds of itineraries for years.
True, and we will never know for sure. I guess it’s the name of the points game, things can change or end quickly. Nothing can be taken for granted.
Having now caught up with the FT thread the slight concern is the suggestion that one non-qualifying flight means no double TP on the qualifying sectors. I hope that’s wrong, although my one holiday booked is all BA flights or code-shares.
I think that is a distinct possibility now although before if you did a holiday that contained a non-qualifying flight that sector only earned the normal TP and all other eligible flights earned the double TP. I think the idea is to try to reduce the number of creative routings and also to increase compliance with the spirit of the rules. I just hope that the promotion continues until the end of 2024 – my fear is that they end the promotion early.
This?
Bookings can only contain one flight departing the UK, multiple journeys from the UK within one booking will not qualify.
I think it’s fair to say that BA has observed the excess gaming of the system and will continue to adjust the terms as required. Some people (not I) had already noted the foolishness of airing these convoluted itineraries.
Hoover 🙂
But since the widespread use of the Internet and forum/bulletin board type sites this sort of thing will always be exploited to the max. If companies are so lacking in imagination of how something will be exploited they have only themselves to blame. Such things as adding a car you have no intention of using to reduce cost, and/or allow for deposit, have been around BA holidays for many years, if BA really didn’t see where this offer would go they need to seriously revisit who suggests and implements these things, because they clearly lack the skill-set required of that role.I think that is a distinct possibility now although before if you did a holiday that contained a non-qualifying flight that sector only earned the normal TP and all other eligible flights earned the double TP. I think the idea is to try to reduce the number of creative routings and also to increase compliance with the spirit of the rules. I just hope that the promotion continues until the end of 2024 – my fear is that they end the promotion early.
Well I hope punters continue to engage with the spirit of the rules with the same vigour that BA engage with the spirit of the EU261 regulations.
“Hopefully” the new rules don’t actually apply to bookings made prior to 27/9. I think it may be that non-BA flights won’t cost you the 2 x TPs on the rest, but breaching a term such as the 30-day limit may cost you the whole lot. It should become more apparent over the next few months as people start posting about what TPs they’ve been awarded.
@Angela, I really don’t think BA would have got their act together that quickly, as noted on FT their members have been openly discussing these kinds of itineraries for years.
The issue is that the BAH rules also incorporate the BAEC terms which prohibit abuse and ultimately if BA doesn’t give you double points what can you do about it? The date of the change won’t probably matter. There’s no FOS to appeal to and at MCOL some of the itineraries will look ridiculously fake to an independent arbiter and contrary to the explicit or implicit terms. Also, what is anyone suggesting the measure of damages is for not getting double tier points?
Ultimately, BA is in entire control of the process and trying to be too clever by half may cost the double.
I think that is a distinct possibility now although before if you did a holiday that contained a non-qualifying flight that sector only earned the normal TP and all other eligible flights earned the double TP. I think the idea is to try to reduce the number of creative routings and also to increase compliance with the spirit of the rules. I just hope that the promotion continues until the end of 2024 – my fear is that they end the promotion early.
Well I hope punters continue to engage with the spirit of the rules with the same vigour that BA engage with the spirit of the EU261 regulations.
@dougzz99 – I don’t disagree with what you say but BA holds all the cards here. If they choose not to award double points (or indeed withdraw points) the punter is stuffed with no practical recourse. The ordinary punter will suffer no ill effects and should not be supporting the small number of people trying to game this incredibly attractive promotion. It just means similar ones are less likely in the future.Hoover 🙂
But since the widespread use of the Internet and forum/bulletin board type sites this sort of thing will always be exploited to the max. If companies are so lacking in imagination of how something will be exploited they have only themselves to blame. Such things as adding a car you have no intention of using to reduce cost, and/or allow for deposit, have been around BA holidays for many years, if BA really didn’t see where this offer would go they need to seriously revisit who suggests and implements these things, because they clearly lack the skill-set required of that role.They clearly have a tollerance level for people gaming the system as it’s probbaly more work to close the loopholes or they get some benefit from the gaming.
But there comes a point when they decide enough is enough when low levels of gamig become high levels of what is essentially abuse and it’s getting them grief from suppliers.
IHG was happy for years with the AMB/Diamond/Spire thing but there came a point when they decided they’d had enough and decided to do something about it and ended it. Probbaly not helped when people actually called in to ask if the ‘offer’ was still going on!
It’s a shame BA didn’t get the Ts & Cs right first time back when this promotion was launched. Gamers will always play a game if they can.
It’s very unfair to accuse paying customers who follow all the T&Cs (and have in fact considered them very carefully) of “abuse” or “not following the spirit of the promotion” or anything like that. If BA is unhappy with how their promotion is being used, that’s on them. It was their idea. If they didn’t create T&Cs they were happy with at the start, it’s up to them to investigate why. The ways this promotion are being used to extract maximum tier points for minimum cost are a very clear and obvious outcome of such a generous promotion.
Not just in the sphere of airlines/points, but everywhere in life, people will try to extract the most value they can. Companies create overly generous promotions surprisingly often, and the customer/general public should not be blamed or vilified for making use of them within the rules.
It’s a shame BA didn’t get the Ts & Cs right first time back when this promotion was launched. Gamers will always play a game if they can.
It really isn’t a matter of getting the terms right first time; the original terms were simple, very reasonable and I’m sure drafted in good faith. The provision of terms in this manner is good for most of us.
BA should not have to and, as a practical matter, cannot draft terms to cover every eventuality so they rely to an extent upon catch all terms. They have amended the published terms at least twice, more for clarity and the benefit of the ordinary passenger than the oiks who have decided to exploit what was already a generous offer. That’s greatly to the detriment of most of us. BA has clearly spotted what’s going on and hopefully these people will get their comeuppance and lots of attempted ill gotten points won’t be earned.
As a product manager in the B2C software sector I find these T&C cat and mouse games always highly alluring.
Albeit I know painfully little about aviation and said to be prestigeous membership clubs, I have found some resemblance to some of my professional experiences in these T&C loopholes and amendments.
(Not sure if anyone finds the below interesting and/or relevant, but I thought I’d treat myself to the fun of sharing this on this Saturday whilst awaiting my delayed BAH flight.)
[…]
Having been through many subscription and pricing iterations with our B2C software scale-up, at one point we had over 20 versions of legacy subscription tiers with notable feature differences and still significant amount of active users. Often the engineering cost of maintaining if and how a user might benefit from a specific feature across these many different plans clearly outweighed the potential revenue gain of all of those users upgrading to use said feature.At one point we secretly unlocked most of the features that one would have if they upgraded to the non-legacy version of their plan or now a higher plan (we kept the ones locked where it would be little effort to maintain and a “driver” for actual upgrades). The users would still see their legacy subscription in their app and kept receiving periodic emails to encourage them about upgrading. Importantly, our T&C just referred to the main features from one can benefit as published on our website, but also mentioned no abuse. We also tracked how many legacy users “noticed” and started using secretly unlocked features.
Interestingly, over the coming months we noticed that the number of users who were upgrading from legacy plans slightly increased. Leadership made up some BS about why this could have been, but ultimately we have no idea, and for my position all that mattered is that it did not decrease.
There was however also a steady increase in legacy users who were “exploiting” the features that should be covered under T&C and discussing this on Reddit and other forums. Leadership did not mind this so long as it was on “random internet forums” that they don’t recognise and we had enough new sign-ups.
About a year later, one day “bad press” came in about one of our Tier 1 partners “hearing about” this anomaly of lower paying users getting more than they deserve, and how that’s a massive disappointment in our said to be “premier” offering. The features they cited were indeed on higher tier plans, as published on our website, so they were technically not covered by T&C and could be considered “abuse”, but our T&C also didn’t say anything about you specifically not being able to use those (on the lower legacy plan).
We immediately had to drop everything and fix this “major issue”.
We went and patched just the most publicly known exploited holes (not actually the biggest ones or the ones exploited by most users), quietly added them to the legacy T&C as no bueno, and everything was fine again. Similar thing happened once more when a shareholder’s random acquaintance found another hole (with btw completely negligible exploit rates), but overall it was a massive win for reducing tech debt and moving forward.
[…]
Overall, I have no idea what drives these decisions at BA. These days, it really shouldn’t be difficult to analyse the exploit rate of policies like double tier points BAH, especially with the sample sizes they have – though I wouldn’t trust BA IT. I would be very interested how much estimated revenue differences VS other factors like trying to protect the “prestige” of BAEC tiers, more public articles on exploits, and random influential people’s opinion affect their decision to make amendments.
The T&Cs for this promotion have always been ambiguous and open to interpretation, and remain so. BA clearly struggles to find people with basic intellectual capacity or understanding of holidays to draft them. The spirit of the promotion is an irrelevant, strangely moralistic position to take – all that matters is what is possible, especially as BA acts unethically and slyly as a company, particularly in matters of compensation.
Anyone who booked under the previous T&Cs is very likely to receive their double tier points, primarily because BA IT is about as sophisticated as a hillbilly on moonshine. Also, BA can’t retrospectively change the T&Cs and rules you booked under, so they have to award the tier points, and certainly do in practice. I suggest anyone who doubts my contention here should read the FT thread thoroughly and find an example of when BA CS haven’t honoured a reasonable interpretation of the silly T&Cs, when people have appealed.
It’s a shame BA didn’t get the Ts & Cs right first time back when this promotion was launched. Gamers will always play a game if they can.
It really isn’t a matter of getting the terms right first time; the original terms were simple, very reasonable and I’m sure drafted in good faith. The provision of terms in this manner is good for most of us.
BA should not have to and, as a practical matter, cannot draft terms to cover every eventuality so they rely to an extent upon catch all terms. They have amended the published terms at least twice, more for clarity and the benefit of the ordinary passenger than the oiks who have decided to exploit what was already a generous offer. That’s greatly to the detriment of most of us. BA has clearly spotted what’s going on and hopefully these people will get their comeuppance and lots of attempted ill gotten points won’t be earned.
I continue to be confused by your high handed moral stance on people making full use of this offer. I don’t think it’s particularly mature or constructive to espouse stark moral judgements in this manner. Ultimately, BA has a responsibility to define the terms of a promotion clearly and certainly doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt, or a charitable attitude. Their primary focus is profit and they have used this promotion to encourage leisure travellers to chase status, which benefits their business. The vast majority of people benefiting from this offer will not be undertaking “creative” routings and itineraries, but any tier points earned in a more intelligent manner are as legitimate as any other tier points. It seems fairly fruitless and odd to me to introduce an element of moral responsibility in to this, when the system is based on a simple business transaction.
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