Originally Posted by
techie
If VY and EI do not find it in their interest to provide those benefits to you, why would they incentivise you to travel with them?
For the UK-Ireland market, there are far more choices on EI than BA. But there's little reason to choose EI given the lack of tier points, lounge access, and business class options, unless there are no other reasonable options. In November I had no choice but to fly EI for DUB-NCL-DUB. I still ended up in row 1 by myself, and managed lounge access at both airports with Priority Pass, but I would have been happy to pay a business class fare within reason if one was offered simply to have the tier points.
Originally Posted by
FrancisA
I would say be careful what you wish for. The biggest issue would be lounge access on low cost intra-Europe routes. The easy solution would be to remove it from all IAG carriers up to and including band 3. Introduce same rule that BA has about no additional status luggage on HBO fares and you have probably just saved the IAG Group a lot of money and now all its airlines can afford to be OW members.
That addresses the OP’s concerns about TP/Avios earning, but I sense it might not be everyone’s optimum solution!
Ha, fair enough, to be clear I would of course prefer existing BA benefits applied across all travel on IAG carriers. I've never flown on an HBO fare in Europe simply because I'm not usually able to pack that light for what is usually a 2-3 week trip across the pond.
Originally Posted by
Worcester
Also OW is really there to entice business travelers. Vuelings & Level are aimed at the leisure market. The economics of both don't really mix.
Completely agree about Level and I think it's fine to ignore them in this context as long as they are not part of the JBA and tickets on them are not offered by BA or AA. There are numerous routes for business travel where Vueling is one of a few options, and there's really no incentive for a BAEC business traveler to choose to fly them. And of course intra-Europe OW travel options have become very poor (connect via LHR, HEL, or MAD only, none of which are centrally located).
Originally Posted by
daftboy
To pick up just on that point, certainly the IAG investor presentations do quite clearly demonstrate that the portfolio of airlines are run relatively independently.
Yes, Willie Walsh as CEO of the parent group entity (and his colleagues) will have a strong influence on how those businesses are run in practice, but that is not inconsistent with BA/IB/EI/VY and Level operating quite different strategies focussed on their main markets, which then provides IAG with access to a much wider range of customer segments while broadly maintaining individual brand consistency (leaving aside how some of the current BA strategy impacts its brand positioning)
Where commonality is pursued is much more on the “back end”, so procurement of aircraft and their components, IT systems, Avios as a reward currency etc, all of which are in IAG’s control, rather than alliance related activity, which are not wholly within the parent’s control.
I guess my impression was that they present them as running somewhat independently, but the skeptic in me doesn't 100% believe that's the case.
I know IAG has been working to standardise the shorthaul aircraft configuration (not in a good way for passengers). I understand the concepts of customer segmentation and product differentiation. But for the supposedly more valued customer (people who typically fly in business and first class and frequently), why not make it simpler for such travelers to get benefits whenever buying service from an IAG carrier? The main argument has been made that the cost to implement outweighs the benefit to IAG. Any other reasons that I'm missing?