This is the real problem with this strategy and Rob at Headforpoints has pointed this out well. As much as I get the BA wants to displace Expedia argument, it doesn’t make any sense at all in combination with what they’ve done to thresholds, since the main travellers that would be happy to book more through BA Holidays are the ones they’re pushing away!

- High spend corporate travellers will be forced to continue to book hotels through their corporate travel agent, so unless BA is planning to buy a corporate travel agency to add to BA Holidays, no dice here. On top of this, BA Holidays is unable to offer status benefits as a further blow, which will prevent BA capturing a lot of the leisure spend of these travellers outside of work
- Small business owners have just been told to get lost by the new thresholds
- The very wealthy in West London spending £65K on a holiday to the Maldives often won’t even be booking it themselves, their PA will be. Assuming they are booking it, they will probably go to a specialist luxury travel agent who can ensure they get the right layout of villa at Cheval Blanc and arrange the amenities they want in the room, not book it online through a faceless website that doesn’t currently even properly list the room type due to IT limitations. Are you really telling me they were booking this Maldives vacation through Expedia before this change came along and now they’ll use BA Holidays?
- Middle class leisure travellers not tied into a hotel program who probably were happy to book through BA Holidays have just been told to get lost and won’t retain Silver any longer

I don’t think any of my friends who don’t chase status have even HEARD of BA Holidays. People booking through BA Holidays I would guess are largely those who used the airline and found out about BA Holidays through that. The sequencing of this change feels totally off to me.