Personally ex-US surcharges (that are now also imposed even when not ex-US) bothers me more but then again BA has incentivized me not to use Avios to fly them long haul for years now and I still get good value from my Avios on partner redemptions. Thankfully for me in the US there are plenty of other options including flying BA on points but not using BA Avios. In the end if I have to chose my poison I'll take the US credit card market and suck up BA (and to a lesser extent VS's) sticking it to us with surcharges, higher points cost, etc. I can work around those easily enough.