“BA is rewarding 'loyalty' from people whose loyalty is contractually enforced on them. Remove status from those people who DO have a choice of airline - leisure travellers, small business owners - and their reasons for flying British Airways shrink dramatically.” Therein lies the debate we commonly discuss at Loyalty Summit, including the behind-the-scenes internal organisation challenges that often don’t make sense to the public perspective. (And often don’t align with the wishes of the loyalty team). #loyalty #loyaltyprograms #airlines #avios #britishairways Rob Burgess
Editor, Head for Points, the UK's biggest frequent flyer and business travel website with 2.6m monthly page views
It's official - British Airways is moving to tier status based on spend. And the spend targets are huge - earning Gold status will now be very, very difficult, bordering on impossible, for leisure travellers. Here are the new British Airways status thresholds from 1st April: Bronze: 3,500 points Silver: 7,500 points Gold: 20,000 points 1 point = £1 of spending on British Airways-marketed flights. ONLY the base fare and BA-imposed surcharges are included. Airport charges, Air Passenger Duty etc are NOT included. Seat selection and luggage fees ARE included. (Partner flights will earn on a % of miles flown - as low as 2% in some cases!) On a £11,990 fully flexible ticket to New York in Club World, virtually all spend (£11,687) would qualify towards status. On a £387 economy flight to New York, only £189 of spend would count. There are other ways of earning 'points': *Up to 1,000 points per year by purchasing Sustainable Aviation Fuel credits *Up to 2,500 points per year via spending on the British Airways Premium Plus American Express credit card, potentially 1 point per £10? *1 point per £1 spent at British Airways Holidays This is, clearly, a pivotal move by British Airways. It is effectively washing its hands of the leisure market and going all-in to attract the dwindling band of full fare business travellers. Realistically, it will now be impossible to earn Gold for small business travellers, economy travellers or self-funded leisure travellers. Even Silver will be a major stretch. British Airways Holidays may look like an option BUT the tier points are equally split amongst all travellers - spend £20k on a family of four and you get 5,000 points each, not 20,000 for yourself. It's not clear to me why BAEC members asked for this, since it was done 'based on member feedback' but that's people for you. The long term issue remains. Business travellers have their flights paid for by their employers. Many of these are tied to BA or oneworld via a route deal. Many get huge end-of-year rebates which means their headline spend is not what they actually pay. BA is rewarding 'loyalty' from people whose loyalty is contractually enforced on them. Remove status from those people who DO have a choice of airline - leisure travellers, small business owners - and their reasons for flying British Airways shrink dramatically. As a starter, remember that oneworld member Royal Jordanian will give you 12-months of BA Bronze-equivalent status for just $49 if you have hotel or airline elite status elsewhere. See our HfP article on this for the link. Lots more on headforpoints.com if you pop over. (If you're not one of the 3,600 people who subscribe to ‘The Travel Brief’, our free weekly LinkedIn newsletter for UK travel and travel loyalty professionals, click into my profile.) #britishairways #avios #frequentflyer #businesstravel