BA is mistaken if they thinks that BAH adds to their loyalty programme. The limitations of BAH, e.g. rigid holiday itinerary, limited choices and the downsides of booking through a 3rd party, means that the most likely people who will book through BAH are tourists who don’t chase after elite status (probably also don’t travel a lot), love the BA brand and like a convenience of a package or a one stop shop. Since these people do not chase after status, the loyalty programme is pretty much rendered pointless, so if BA cannot provide a better product than others, they will lose the business. I also don’t see a ton of corporate customers using BAH due to reasons like contracts/statuses with hotels & car rental co, or simply the hassle of dealing with a 3rd party. So it really isnt helping to retain customers or encourage people to spend more.

Also, as some posters mentioned, BAH isnt even acting as a travel agent, so I’m not too sure what is the value add here? How can they stand out to other OTAs who have much more and varied inventory, and a better IT system (user experience)? The margin is also probably not much given the competition and that hotels and car rentals companies have been trying to get customers to book directly with them. This coupled with the fact that everyone is getting more tech-savy, I expect BAH to be a shrinking market. So this seriously sounds like a bad long term strategy; instead of improving your core business which is already lagging competitors, you are trying to get into another business which is shrinking and you do not have experience or advantage.