Indeed, this thread is becoming a bit of a model of 'how to create rumour? 101':

- Take a small nugget of truth (in this case: Nicci tells us that BA only awards, BA+1partner awards, and one partner only award will be harmonised into a single scale)

- Give it a random and dramatic interpretation ('it will now cost as much to fly LAX-HKG as to fly LAX-LHR-HKG. Thank goodness there are no round-the-world awards or the rumour would have been a single LAX-SFO will now cost the same as a round the world LAX-LHR-HKG-SFO )

- Ensure you do not give people (in this case Nicci) a chance to reply to your artistic mental constructs about the new award chart

- In fact, do ensure you undermine her credibility in advance just in case she tells you your hypothesis is plain wrong ('BA always lie', 'they are trying to sc**w us', 'they have been deceptive in the past and still are now' or whatever)

- Strengthen the rumour by using self or reciprocal quotation as evidence (quote an FB maybe in another forum and say FB is always well informed ^ so this is quasi-certain, then quote the other forum in FB claiming it has been said that it is almost certain that...)

- Add a bit of action drama by mentioning vast exodus of members, class action lawsuit, lies (oh dear why is it that on FB people always love talking of 'lies' every time something ends up not being the way they wanted??)

As others have mentioned, the rumour people have created could prove completely false or somewhat true. What is sure is that sooner rather than later, full charts will be published and then people will get plenty of chance to comment/complain about what is happening. The 'September musings' thread should show us that rumour is not always true or well informed and that it is much easier to comment on facts than build a card castle out of imaginary realities. As noted above, I remain a sceptic about the other changes to be announced and will withhold comments on the new 'club' until we know everything, but I'd never pre-empt what they will consist of.

Oh, and at the risk of sounding boring, I personally feel uncomfortable and unhappy when our forum switches to some weird war on national characters. I find it totally unhelpful, not fun, not entertaining, and intellectually miserable. It is a fact that people who live in some areas will benefit more than others from the new system but I would have thought that a community like ours should know better than to use such differences to reinstate some petty wars, be they US vs UK, Europe vs US, UK vs rest of Europe, Australia vs Asia or whatever.