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I am seriously concerned about BA’s recent IT issues to the extent of its ability to continue to operate as a business. Avios is a loyalty scheme whoes points are ultimately valueless unless realised. BA devalues the points by simply increasing the charges. At this point in time at least you can realise their value by transferring the points to Nectar, for safe keeping without further devaluation.
Nectar has been the best value use of Avios for a year, since the partnership launched, in my opinion. It really confuses me that people still chase reward flights. But it’s a polarised debate and someone will be along in a few minutes to quote back the price of half term ski holiday flights and how they are glad I’m wasting my Avios at Sainsbury’s so it leaves more Avios flights for them.
So it turns out different people have different needs so I guess it’s lucky there are options. 241 makes the long haul redemptions worthwhile for me and I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than shop at my local Sainsbury’s. But that’s me. In another thread I asked what the point of Nectar was and there was nothing that suited how I spend my money.
This isn’t something with a ‘right’ answer. But somebody was along in a few minutes after all. Just not for skiing. Never fancied that either.
If you shop at Sainsbury’s, it’s great. I don’t have Sainsbury’s nearby and I am not willing to travel just for that. I tried online deliveries for a while and every time they would deliver half of the products plus a lot of rotten food. Yes, I got a refund, but then I have to waste time getting the stuff elsewhere.
Regarding reward flights, if you know how to play then the new style 241 voucher is one of the best uses of Avios ever with nowhere near the level of surcharges reported. Plus of course the partner airlines are still very good value.
I think it’s because we’re happy kidding ourselves alongside having aspirational travel objectives.
For example, I KNOW that I pay a card fee, and that every Avios I collect has an associated cost/value (e.g. 0.8p in Nectar, or I could use a free cashback AMEX that gets me 0.5p/£), so for every Avios I collect per £ spend on a fee paying card, it’s actually only a 0.3p “extra” than what I would get for not paying a fee. Then there are sign up and referral bonuses to look at, and 241 vouchers which complicate the maths.
Then you’ve got to realise availability issues for Avios flights, having to plan your travel around what works in Avios rather than picking the dates that work for you necessarily.
And then consider what you would choose to fly… Would you, if you didn’t have Avios, REALLY pay to fly business or first class?
But, ignoring all that, when you find availability in First for “only” £800 taxes each, plus a large number of little digital ones-and-zeroes that you theoretically value at 1p each and then you look and go “oh, that’s £800 taxes plus £1200 Avios, which is loads less than the £8,000 cash value, so I’m SAVING £6,000!”, it feels great. You’ve “played the system”.
Even though you’d NEVER had paid £8k for a flight, and earning those Avios meant you actually missed out on collecting cashback…
So it’s emotion Vs logic.
And that’s what Avios Group want you to think. It’s how they’ve marketed it, and well done to them. They’ve definitely got me several times. And will continue to do so…
- This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
And then consider what you would choose to fly… Would you, if you didn’t have Avios, REALLY pay to fly business or first class?
It is still possible to be logical though. I’ve flown bus8ness for cash with BA, Emirates, Etihad, Sri Lankan, Singapore, Virgin and once with work in Eva because it was cheaper than our standard BA WTP. I’ve never seen a First fare in business class price territory so nope on that, but then I’ve only ever found once First redemption as they’re as rare as rocking horse poop in school holidays.
I don’t personally keep a track of Avios/£ and the last cash CW flight we d8d was JFK as BA Holidays was having an offer during the pandemic and it was a bargain.
There is definitely a case of me picking destinations based on Avios availability though. We are probably doing a Kenyan safari next February because of Nairobi availability. February half term next year is a dessert of availability. Still not a bad holiday choice!
I never had an issue with reward seat availability on longhaul flights and always based my decisions based on where I want to go and when I want to go. However, I do have an advantage that I don’t have to travel in peak periods. In fact, I prefer it that way. For shorthaul, I do sometimes struggle with rewards seats, but the cash prices are also cheaper.
- This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
I never had an issue with reward seat availability on longhaul flights and always based my decisions based on where I want to go and when I want to go.
You’re luckier than us, then. Trying to find First to LAX for three (well, at the time, 2 adults and a lap-infant) pre-Covid – when those planes had First – was near impossible. We eventually found outbound to San Jose, returning from LAX (after initially booking Houston return, then waiting and watching via SeatSpy, and changing the holiday twice, but not to our ideal dates). Covid killed that journey.
Pre-baby, my wife and I flew First to Houston return because that was the only available North America location available within a few days of our ideal travel dates… Don’t get me wrong, it was an amazing flight and an amazing holiday (we drove/flew around the US a bit), but it was not the most convenient jumping off point. Sure, we could’ve flow either PremEc/Ec to where we wanted on the dates we wanted for less than just the tax portion of those First flights to Houston, but we did it because aspirational.
- This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
The emotional logic also extends to legitimising the use of Avios to fly J or F – when you pay a few grand cash for a flight you might be thinking should I save this money for something else but with Avios, until recently, they had no everyday spending value, so why not fly J of F, and after all I’m saving thousands on the cash price! Which is why people like to not really think too much about what they could use their nectar for in day to day living as it takes away that excuse to use them for flights Which in most cases are hard to find and don’t partially represent good value for money.
I never had an issue with reward seat availability on longhaul flights and always based my decisions based on where I want to go and when I want to go. However, I do have an advantage that I don’t have to travel in peak periods. In fact, I prefer it that way. For shorthaul, I do sometimes struggle with rewards seats, but the cash prices are also cheaper.
Would you mind sharing how far in advance you generally book (I think this is the key reason why I struggle with finding longhaul availability) and also the routes that you’ve managed to secure. I simply do not want to book a year in advance.
Perhaps slightl
The emotional logic also extends to legitimising the use of Avios to fly J or F – when you pay a few grand cash for a flight you might be thinking should I save this money for something else but with Avios, until recently, they had no everyday spending value, so why not fly J of F, and after all I’m saving thousands on the cash price! Which is why people like to not really think too much about what they could use their nectar for in day to day living as it takes away that excuse to use them for flights Which in most cases are hard to find and don’t partially represent good value for money.
Perhaps slightly connected to this thought process. I’ve been thinking about securing BA Gold status. However, I’m not sure what the benefits truely are for someone who would travel business or first anyway. You would get the lounge access, priority check in & boarding, extra baggage allowance with any business/first ticket.
It seems this status is only really benefical if travel economy for leisure and your employer pays for your buiness travel.
If you travel business/first out of choice, then I don’t see the benefit of achieving or maintaining status and you are also not tied to travel BA (and there are plenty of arguably better carriers when travelling east).I’ve booked anything from a year in advance to last minute. I don’t do US much though apart from occassionally New York. I’m also not interested in Maldives. In 15 years of doing this, I have pretty much travelled everywhere else. I secured reward tickets to TYO 4 months in advance, HKG 8 months in advance, SIN 2 months in advance, SEZ (when BA did the route) on Lloyds vouchers at 10 months and so on. I also did all of the above at 355 mark. Dubai was quite easy to secure at any point I wanted.
With new 241 vouchers it should be even easier as it opens more reward seats.
If you shop at Sainsbury’s, it’s great. I don’t have Sainsbury’s nearby and I am not willing to travel just for that. I tried online deliveries for a while and every time they would deliver half of the products plus a lot of rotten food. Yes, I got a refund, but then I have to waste time getting the stuff elsewhere.
Hear hear. I don’t know why it is so hard for some people to grasp that what’s works for you might not work for other people.
In my last 4 out of 5 Europe trips there were reward seats in all flights the day that I wanted. In all of these four I got more than 0.8p per avios (I usually shop at sainbury’s, but I also get at least a 5% discount there via job perks, so my valuation should be lower than 0.8p, but let’s keep it at there to make it simple).- This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
Perhaps slightly connected to this thought process. I’ve been thinking about securing BA Gold status. However, I’m not sure what the benefits truely are for someone who would travel business or first anyway. You would get the lounge access, priority check in & boarding, extra baggage allowance with any business/first ticket.
It seems this status is only really benefical if travel economy for leisure and your employer pays for your buiness travel.
If you travel business/first out of choice, then I don’t see the benefit of achieving or maintaining status and you are also not tied to travel BA (and there are plenty of arguably better carriers when travelling east).Gold is more likely to be upgraded especially on routes with fewer business travellers (good luck getting an upgrade from HKG with ‘lowly’ Gold status) which has been very significant for me and the OH on personal travel in that it’s happened a lot, maybe as much as 50% of the time. All-but-one flight in First for me has been via upgrade.
Having a priority line to BAEC has been a huge benefit in the pandemic though right now calls to the Gold line get bounced to a recorded “Go away” message.
Access to First Class lounges can be super nice though business lounge to first lounge is a smaller step in most cases than terminal zoo to business lounge.
Last year before the pandemic I set myself a goal of losing my Gold status because I felt I was travelling too much. I failed but I am pretty sure I will fall back to Silver this year as there is very little chance I will do much, if any, business travel before my BA year ends in November.
Oh and you are supposed to get a welcome on board and your meal first, but in most cases on BA they forget the meal and the welcome is half-arsed.
I’ve just tried to link my BAEC to my new (first) Nectar card. Guess what, quelle fricking surprise, IT DOESN’T WORK! The sign in to BAEC fails when instigated from Nectar, with a long server request code. Apparently I’m supposed to cut and paste this, and send to the “Employee Self Service Centre” – I’m not an employee, I’m a customer (ha ha ha ha).
When trying from my already signed-in BAEC account, it asks me to sign in!! This also fails due to a Bad Request that the server cannot understand.
Is there no end to this awful IT shite at BA?!?!
This is why I want to start sending Avios to Nectar or anywhere else that’s safer and gives better value.
Perhaps slightly connected to this thought process. I’ve been thinking about securing BA Gold status. However, I’m not sure what the benefits truely are for someone who would travel business or first anyway. You would get the lounge access, priority check in & boarding, extra baggage allowance with any business/first ticket.
It seems this status is only really benefical if travel economy for leisure and your employer pays for your buiness travel.
If you travel business/first out of choice, then I don’t see the benefit of achieving or maintaining status and you are also not tied to travel BA (and there are plenty of arguably better carriers when travelling east).Gold is more likely to be upgraded especially on routes with fewer business travellers (good luck getting an upgrade from HKG with ‘lowly’ Gold status) which has been very significant for me and the OH on personal travel in that it’s happened a lot, maybe as much as 50% of the time. All-but-one flight in First for me has been via upgrade.
Having a priority line to BAEC has been a huge benefit in the pandemic though right now calls to the Gold line get bounced to a recorded “Go away” message.
Access to First Class lounges can be super nice though business lounge to first lounge is a smaller step in most cases than terminal zoo to business lounge.
Last year before the pandemic I set myself a goal of losing my Gold status because I felt I was travelling too much. I failed but I am pretty sure I will fall back to Silver this year as there is very little chance I will do much, if any, business travel before my BA year ends in November.
Oh and you are supposed to get a welcome on board and your meal first, but in most cases on BA they forget the meal and the welcome is half-arsed.
Interesting you say that. On FT the conventional wisdom is Gold makes you less likely to be upgraded. BA use an algorithm so few people probably know the truth. The logic goes as a Gold they already have you, whereas a Silver or Bronze given a taste of WT+ or CW is more likely to be tempted in future to part with cash for it. My only upgrade was as a Silver, but in truth I’m sure that was a hugely oversold WT+ cabin.
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