Originally Posted by
Raffles
A key driver is whether people who have requalified for 25/26 but have zero chance of requlifying for 26/27 continue flying BA in 25/26 (because they get their status benefits) or if they defect now to try to build status elsewhere.
Since, for short haul at least, the obvious defections are to easyJet (no loyalty scheme) then I reckon BA will keep getting the business for 12 months and the drop off won't show YET.
BA Holidays will be the first sign of trouble I think. No point booking there (unless price etc works) for beyond 1st April. That's IAG Loyalty's problem though, not BAs, except to the extent BAH is buying up seats from BA.
Looking at it from our household, we can get most/all of the perks on other carriers by booking higher class of service and not worry about status with any carrier. Our travel is premium leisure SH & LH, we'll just go for the best deal with the best service offering.
We have requalified Gold for 25/26; many of our flights into 2026 will be on BA but we are/will be burning our Avios and CVs whilst we have status, run the balances to zero. Will soon downgrade the Amex card as well, save the annual fee. Would be interesting to know what the Avios burn rates look like over the next few months.