Speedbird876

The changes to the Executive Club are starting to sink in.

One of the points was this:

So are you planning to make extra cash bookings before then to earn points at the old rate?

Are you planning to extra redeem flights before the 28 April cut-off?


I guess that many of you are planning to do this. If so, happy days for BA. They reduce the benefits and they get an increase in sales (in the short-term, at least).

cysyuen

Well I think lots of us will actually book or redeem flight before the due time comes.

For me I am waiting for the March sales (if there is any) between EDI-HKG and if there is one then... I will book one year's worth of trips!!

layz

Problem for me is I tend to only be able to book tickets at short notice. On the other hand it means it's rare for me to encounter any on the 25% fare bands.

If I could plan ahead I would certainly do so though.

I wonder how well the systems will handle the bookings as well as the confusion when someone may see one flight post at 500 Avios, then a few days later a flight on the same route (booked after the cutoff) earning only 250 then it goes back up to 500 (as that flight was booked before the cutoff).

When I see EC I think East Coast (trains) and as they've had their own rewards enhancement announced (due to the new franchise) I keep getting the two mixed up. The East Coast changes actually affect me more than the BAEC ones, the BAEC ones aren't too bad from where I'm sitting.

paul4040

No to cash bookings, and sort-of to redemptions.

My travel profile means I don't suffer overall from the changes. Since last autumn I've been burning points as soon as I've earned them. Until April my priority is to redeem on domestics (using the unlimited stopover sweet spot). This is because these are the only bookings where if I paid cash I'd be in the lowest economy bucket, which will come with just 25% earn power following the change. So it makes huge sense for me to save my money on domestic and burn Avios instead, and use my cash budget to travel about in Club. It's kind of difficult to burn points faster than I am at the moment (because I redeem literally the day I'm credited!), but there is now an additional incentive for me to get these bookings in place.

Lovecraft

I already did, I redeemed avios to LAX and Antigua.
Problem is I still have around 300K avios, and not enough work holidays to use them before April 2016.
Oh, first world problems!

headingwest

My strategy is to try and track down some mega cheap longhaul flights for the next few months to take me through the year.

I'm also going to book a few trips from Vienna to some of the places that I haven't yet visited at home (Edinburgh, Newcastle, Belfast, IOM), using Avios RFS bookings.

My Tier Point Year starts in July, and I've got a 1310 TP trip just after that, which together with other flights will take me nicely into Gold for 2 whole years. During that time I'll be using other oneworld carriers as there will be no real reason to stick with BA when the Avios earnings are the same as with Qatar, Finnair, airberlin and the likes. Lucky for me, I'm quite well placed for using these from Vienna.