Originally Posted by
orbitmic
Towards the start of the main thread, several of us pointed out that the reason why BA's move was risky is because for many airlines - and notably for BA, loyalty programmes work as an insurance policy, which makes people tolerate product and service flaws which they would not otherwise, and stick to the airline in contexts of negative externalities (economic, operational, etc).
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I agree that was the traditional thinking but with alliances (particularly those using a common reward currency) there is now a lot of latitude to move carriers without losing the benefits of loyalty to a single airline. Would I use BA to fly LHR/SYD - no, because it requires an en-route stop anyway and QR offers a better product which also suits my sleep pattern. Would I use QR to JNB or MLE - no, because I don't want an intermediate stop in the middle of the night. Ditto for using BA to pretty much anywhere where there is no non-stop competition. For me, Avios and tier points don't come into the equation - believe it or not, I'm simply trying to get from A to B in the most efficient way.