Originally Posted by cmanc

Reading about the changes and the thread it's pretty clear that BA is deliberately changing the loyalty program and is very aware of the negative feedback it will receive but is calculating that the changes will have little to no impact on revenue or margin.

I don't follow the airline industry very closely but generally paid attention to Delta and BA given these are the two airlines I used for business travel and accumulated miles and status over the years. As GfL and DL Plat for Life don't really feel the need to chase status anymore so my perspective maybe different than others.

FWIW looking from the outside at the impact of the DL changes last year and the switch to only revenue based status it's true that they took a lot of negative feedback from their skymiles members that required them to walk back "slightly" some of the changes. For example based on feedback they "reduced" the $ amount needed for Diamond from $30k USD to $28k so about 22,000 GBP. However Delta's revenue and margin performance didn't crater and infact have been strong despite their IT meltdown with the crowdstrike debacle and some slowing of passenger travel. All the while they have continued to devalue the program through 2024 and at their most recent analyst day they were highlighting how they are now selling domestic FC seats most of the time instead of complimentary upgrades to skymiles members (one of the strongest benefits for many years of being top tier DL Diamond), meanwhile they also generate somewhere around $7B from their Amex relationship and even with top tier status things like lounge access on domestic is not provided unless you have a specific Amex card. Reality is BA has gone someway to this model with these changes and may go further.
IMO probably best for everyone to reset their expectations on what an airline "loyalty" program provides and the silver lining is that it does "free" you from the making decisions based on earning status/avios etc. and travel decisions can be made based on schedule, cost, inflight product, connections, on time performance, ground service etc. and TBH looking at BA for my needs I'd rarely choose them based on these criteria and others will now have the freedom to evaluate whether BA meets their needs.