Originally Posted by Airways45

There has been a lot of anxiety, frustration and speculation around the recent BA loyalty changes, particularly around GGL retention and Gold members potentially dropping to Silver.

It may actually help to look at the new structure through a slightly different lens. The programme appears to have moved away from loyalty as a milestone and towards status as an annual spend overlay.

In other words:

- If you happen to spend enough in a given year, you unlock some additional benefits — the extra “Easter eggs” associated with tiers like GGL.
- If that spend does not repeat the following year, the status simply falls away.

That is not necessarily irrational. Airlines are commercial businesses and aligning status more closely with revenue contribution is perfectly logical. But there are a few nuances that seem to be missing from much of the discussion.

First, not all spend represents the same type of value to an airline. A large proportion of high spend sits inside managed corporate travel contracts where airline choice is largely predetermined. Consulting firms, banks and large multinationals frequently operate negotiated airline agreements and route deals.

The classic example is the weekly London–New York consultant travelling in premium cabins. On paper that looks like a very high-value passenger. But the reality is that:

-airline choice may be dictated by corporate policy
-the contract may include volume incentives or year-end rebates
-the traveller themselves may have little or no discretion over airline choice

So the programme may sometimes reward gross ticket value, even though the airline’s net revenue contribution may be materially lower.

By contrast, another category of traveller has something quite different: Discretion. They can actively decide where to direct their travel spend. This is where the behavioural implications of the new model become interesting.

If someone now sits materially below the new thresholds — whether a GGL short of retention or a Gold member who previously might have stretched to renew but now expects to fall to Silver — the rational response may simply be to stop optimising for status.

-Redeem Avios instead of buying tickets.
-Spread travel across airlines.
-Treat BA as one supplier among several.

There is another factor that may also influence behaviour. The hurdle for GGL has been raised significantly, but the benefits themselves have not really been enhanced.

Compared with some other top-tier airline programmes, the incremental privileges remain relatively modest. If the qualification threshold rises but the incremental value remains largely unchanged, some travellers with discretionary spend may simply conclude that the status is no longer worth actively optimising for.

Another interesting observation is that Tier Points themselves now appear conceptually secondary. If status is effectively a proxy for annual spend, Tier Points become more of a translation layer than the behavioural currency they historically represented.

In the previous model travellers actively optimised routing and fare choices around Tier Points. In the new framework they largely appear to be a mechanism for converting spend into status. That may well be intentional. But it subtly changes the psychology of the programme.

One of the more notable aspects of the transition so far is that BA appears to have taken a relatively passive stance. Other airlines often experiment with:
-near-miss offers
-short extensions tied to a challenge
-buy-up opportunities
-personalised spend targets

At the same time, some competitors have been actively status matching BA elites. BA seems to have chosen not to respond aggressively to this so far. Whether that reflects confidence in their customer base or simply a different strategic approach remains to be seen.

It is also still far too early to know whether the outcome will be a genuine exodus of elites, or simply a reshuffling of who holds status.

One subtle question that may matter more than anything else is this:

Is the programme optimising for gross passenger spend, or for incremental airline revenue that would not otherwise have been captured?

Those two things are not always the same.

Loyalty programmes historically worked best when they influenced share of wallet and discretionary behaviour, not simply when they measured spend that would have occurred anyway.

The irony is that loyalty programmes historically existed to influence discretionary behaviour. If most high spend now sits inside managed corporate contracts, the real behavioural leverage may actually sit with travellers below the threshold rather than above it.

The interesting thing to watch over the next few years is whether the programme evolves further as BA and IAG Loyalty observe how behaviour actually changes.

None of this necessarily means the new model is wrong. It may simply represent a shift in what the programme is designed to do. But it does raise an interesting strategic question:

Has The Club programme become better at measuring spend than motivating incremental discretionary behaviour?

Curious how others, particularly those involved in airline loyalty programmes or corporate travel contracts, view the distinction between captured spend and incremental behaviour.