People have to understand that this has nothing whatsoever to do with BA the airline.
I'd imagine that if you were to get them to speak candidly, BA execs would be absolutely incandescent about this change.
But IAG are in competition for capital with tech companies generating high double digit opbit at scale. Whatever BA do as an airline business generates airline margins in single digits. To grow they have to take on very entrenched competitors with all sorts of constraints on slots. etc. No-one in their right mind would invest significant money into growing the airline part of the business given the differential in ROI.
These changes are about creating an income stream with high margins based on creating a loyalty currency that can be used to create credit card spend. The airline part is mostly irrelevant. This is precisely what I've been explaining for a while, see
Airlines - Wakeup and Smell the Money which lays it out clearly.
LIke I said when the year alignment was announced, that removed the barrier to moving to revenue based tier point earning. And this change has been made as soon as possible afterwards. IAG aren't hanging around. As BAEC members and customers, it's a bit of a sucker punch, people will have TPs booked into next year (the reason I thought this would be announced April 2024 to allow this to work through). My first action when the dust settles will be to abandon a paid F ticket on which I've just paid the deposit to get TPs and replace it with a redemption. I'm 2525 points shy of GFL and have 2500 booked on a round the world in F trip in Jan, so that has to work and I have to make up the 25 TPs somehow. I'm seriously p!ssed off with the change, but I was expecting it and I was planning for it.
The fact is, deals will still exist to go to places you want to go. There may be better deals because airlines whose parent has done this to them will be fighting for business without the prop of brand loyalty. And there will be a plethora of status matches, because essentially all the loyalty businesses are chasing the same people for wallet share. I have *A and Skyteam, I have a priority pass from Lloyds World Elite. I'll wind my avios stash down, cancel my BAPP, and do things differently.
Things change.
There are always new things.