I haven't managed to read every post in the foregoing, so apologies, but something I haven't seen raised yet is the bait and switch angle in all this:

As an expat anglo -- and long time gold -- I try to balance a reasonably substantial professional work travel budget with my own travel spend, with the aim being to to maximize value for both, across various carriers (with a bias towards the UK because personal reasons). The key to all this is balance: had I been told that these changes were coming at the time that BAEC (re)aligned TP collection dates, I would have immediately changed my patterns towards burning miles on BAEC for personal travel and increasing my status with other carriers going forwards. Why? Because, IMO, given the changes, BA have gone from being a fairly poor airline with a good FF program that I am happy to fly with all things considered (the line I use to explain my travel pattens with colleagues) to a simply poor airline without any of that.

But I wasn't informed, and so I chose to cover the annoying gap BA interpolated between my December TP year end and the April realignment, meaning that I personally paid for some not inexpensive fights in Jan/Feb (not peak work flying time most years for me) to keep what I had assumed would keep an ongoing status relationship going forward. Had BA told me of their intentions, see above: it would have been clear that spending my own money on BA was a poor value proposition, meaning that all those flights would have been avois redemptions.

But I wasn't told, and I bit. First they change the year ends, then I respond to their new demands to accommodate it, and then only finally afterwards did they tell me what they actually had in mind. The slow reveal, which to my mind seems like BA's very own version of 'find the lady'.

How did Jonny Rotten, put it -- "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" Yes, actually I do. Will I throw my toys out of the pram and promise to never fly BA again? Nope. Will I bias my spend away from them? 100%. And will I suggest the same to the colleagues I supervise? Absolutely.

Caveat venditor. None of us likes to feel like a chump. For me, this has changed from a loyalty program to a generator of hostility. I suspect I'm not the only one to carry this sense going forward.


r