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Trips to Sofia and the like are now dead and I suppose TP runs will not be the same anymore.
I must admit I only did once such a thing to get Silver by flying to Prague for a long WE in CE. It was a nice break.
Never got to do one of those Budapest to Hawaii TP runs some did. Will miss having to explain in the office why I had to take a few random days off haha.
Seems the new way to maximise spending may be using BAH where taxes are also taken into account (because that’s what it is down to now, just the £ spent. So no more “I need 40 TPs, what should I do?” … just go and spend £40).
So my question to the forum is WHAT ARE YOUR BEST BAH TRICK? (i.e.: is there a cheap hotel somewhere we should be adding to make any flight a holiday? Or car rental for one day somewhere it is cheap?)
I am sure if we get together we can replace Sofia flights with something even more convoluted that will make BA wish they had never brought these changes over hehe.
Trips to Sofia and the like are now dead and I suppose TP runs will not be the same anymore.
TP runs might be a thing of the past, but trips to Sofia and the like are certainly not dead – there is plenty of life left after BA 😉
A cheap hotel doesn’t give you diddly squat.
The only way to accrue decent teir points under the new rules is to find a dear hotel and stay a long time. Three weeks in a grand a night suite and you are gold
It’s already been pointed out oh BAH bookings to only put only the person going for status on the flights, so they get all the tier points, rather than splitting them between everyone.
A cheap hotel doesn’t give you diddly squat.
The only way to accrue decent teir points under the new rules is to find a dear hotel and stay a long time. Three weeks in a grand a night suite and you are gold
It earns you TP on the taxes which otherwise don’t qualify. Not huge in isolation, but do it enough and it will add up.
I’ve just added a £3K hotel booking to a £75 flight to a completely different destination, which was quite satisfying.
A cheap hotel doesn’t give you diddly squat.
The only way to accrue decent teir points under the new rules is to find a dear hotel and stay a long time. Three weeks in a grand a night suite and you are gold
It earns you TP on the taxes which otherwise don’t qualify. Not huge in isolation, but do it enough and it will add up.
3k nearly half way to silver , unless you have to share it with others
I’ve just added a £3K hotel booking to a £75 flight to a completely different destination, which was quite satisfying.
A cheap hotel doesn’t give you diddly squat.
The only way to accrue decent teir points under the new rules is to find a dear hotel and stay a long time. Three weeks in a grand a night suite and you are gold
It earns you TP on the taxes which otherwise don’t qualify. Not huge in isolation, but do it enough and it will add up.
3k nearly half way to silver unless you have to share it with others
I’ve just added a £3K hotel booking to a £75 flight to a completely different destination, which was quite satisfying.
Some tging going wrong with quote.
My response , 3K nearly half way to silver unless you have to share it with others
Exactly, from spend that would otherwise have earned nothing. A potential sweet spot is earning TP on expensive hotels, where the price through BAH is competitive and you would have been spending the money anyway.
AndrewT
Seems fairly clear. I am just thinking about my monthly expense reports. Unfortunately I am not doing corporate travel on the scale I used to, but even relatively light corporate travel would work with your model. Won’t last forever, but a way forward for a few earlier in their careers, for now. Bit of a no brainer not to think of a holiday every single day, so to speak. And certainly not to fly anywhere unless in a holiday mood even if one does have to work.On another topic the five day requirement on the recent BAH thing didn’t use to always fit my corporate pattern.
The 5 night requirement is dead in the water going forward so if you want to spend £10k on F to NYC with 3 nights at the most expensive hotel in BA’s portfolio, then that will get you half way to gold.
I discovered the trick of booking BAH’s for one person several years ago – we were travelling as 2 adults and a child with 1 or 2 241s earned each year. I’d book one adult and our son on the 241 and a BAH for the other adult, who would then get TPs and avios for the trip. When the double TP BAH’s started around 2022 I inadvertently got to Silver on the back of one CW trip to GCM and got hooked on the free seat selection, etc!
I did wonder if BA, confronted with a rush of solo bookings, would move to block this route to status, however on reflection I don’t think even they would want to alienate high-spending single travellers.
Do BA read this? Maybe anyone who replies to this thread should take to mumbling
I doubt they can keep up with the current outpouring of responses to the changes. And they’ve clearly earmarked BAH’s as their golden goose.
But that’s where it doesn’t quite make sense. These changes are apparently being driven by BA not IAG, and BAH is Avios Group not BA. So while they are obviously selling BA flights, none of the hotel or car hire spend goes in to BA’s bottom line.
I discovered the trick of booking BAH’s for one person several years ago – we were travelling as 2 adults and a child with 1 or 2 241s earned each year. I’d book one adult and our son on the 241 and a BAH for the other adult, who would then get TPs and avios for the trip. When the double TP BAH’s started around 2022 I inadvertently got to Silver on the back of one CW trip to GCM and got hooked on the free seat selection, etc!
Curious, with the BAH booking for one adult, wouldn’t that mean the hotel would be expecting only 1 person, when in reality 3 would be turning up?
But that’s where it doesn’t quite make sense. BAH is Avios Group not BA. So while they are obviously selling BA flights, none of the hotel or car hire spend goes in to BA’s bottom line.
I made this point the other day on a different thread. The BAH bottom line is most likely to get hammered and won’t have been factored in to the calculations made at the BA parent level. I’m sure there will be a knock on in profitability at Avis etc as well but BA won’t care.
If you think of BAH as a travel agent. They make circa 10% commission on hotel booking. BA will make circa £2000 profit on a 20K holiday. So it’s not a daft idea. Gold benefits couldn’t be sold for £2000
@PPC, this is the LAST time I am going to explain this 😂
When you book a BAH, you get the option to select your preferred category of room. I always notify the hotel in advance who will be checking in, but if I’ve booked and paid extra for a suite which sleeps 3 people, they are unlikely to object when 3 people want to share it!
When you have older kids and don’t want to share with them, book an extra room separately. Or pick a hotel which has suites with a separate living area and sofa bed. This has the added advantage that you can get your status benefits on the extra room. (Though Hilton properties tend to honour some of the benefits anyway, like upgrades and free breakfast for goods).
@PPC, this is the LAST time I am going to explain this 😂
When you book a BAH, you get the option to select your preferred category of room. I always notify the hotel in advance who will be checking in, but if I’ve booked and paid extra for a suite which sleeps 3 people, they are unlikely to object when 3 people want to share it!
When you have older kids and don’t want to share with them, book an extra room separately. Or pick a hotel which has suites with a separate living area and sofa bed. This has the added advantage that you can get your status benefits on the extra room. (Though Hilton properties tend to honour some of the benefits anyway, like upgrades and free breakfast for goods).
Thanks @NorthernLass. I normally do AI holidays, in fact just booking one for end of year as I’m typing :), but would definitely keep this in mind. Its amazing what one learns from these forums!
I made this point the other day on a different thread. The BAH bottom line is most likely to get hammered and won’t have been factored in to the calculations made at the BA parent level.
IAGL will also make less money selling Avios to BA for flights made on BA but not credited to BAEC/Qatar/Finnair/Iberia, thus less profit there, and IAGL will also loose if BA (and other Avios partners) just sell fewer flights — which they undoubtably will. I wonder if IAGL is already reporting to IAG their anticipated lost sales and profits for 2025. I can only imagine they have modelled it.
@PPC, it’s not about trying to get something for nothing – I’m always totally transparent and proactively offer to pay any supplements or extra taxes. Most of the time they’re not bothered. In Athens last October we had to pay extra for my OH’s breakfasts but that was fine – the objective was for me to be on a BAH while my OH was on an avios booking, he was not trying to get free breakfasts at the hotel’s expense!
If I add a car to the package, I use Avis, as you automatically get a 2nd driver free, and there’s no requirement for them to be named on the booking as long as they accompany you to collect the car with their licence.
I would definitely not try to do this on an AI, unless I had written confirmation from hotel beforehand that I could pay to bring a guest, lol.
It’s all a bit academic for me atm, though, because I’ve no need to take any paid travel with BA for quite some time, if the news on status turns out to be as bad as it currently sounds. I’ll be gold until 30/4/26 and if I then don’t get a soft landing to silver we’ll probably have enough avios to fly in J for another year (very possibly on QR and IB). We also have a healthy stash of VS points and an annual cc voucher. And after that, who knows what the IAG landscape will look like?
Definitely not thinking of doing this on an AI BAH but rather for future non AI trips
IAGL will also make less money selling Avios to BA for flights made on BA but not credited to BAEC/Qatar/Finnair/Iberia, thus less profit there, and IAGL will also loose if BA (and other Avios partners) just sell fewer flights — which they undoubtably will. I wonder if IAGL is already reporting to IAG their anticipated lost sales and profits for 2025. I can only imagine they have modelled it.
There will be a quite a drop off in what BA pays IAGL for Avios since elite members have the higher earning rates.
It’s all a bit academic for me atm, though, because I’ve no need to take any paid travel with BA for quite some time, if the news on status turns out to be as bad as it currently sounds. I’ll be gold until 30/4/26 and if I then don’t get a soft landing to silver we’ll probably have enough avios to fly in J for another year (very possibly on QR and IB). We also have a healthy stash of VS points and an annual cc voucher. And after that, who knows what the IAG landscape will look like?
Same. I have enough avios to fly in J for a long time, and I’m getting gold before April so that should give me F lounge access for a year. Shame this is all changing now that I’ve started doing corporate travel – I would’ve been gold for a few years to come, alas…
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