HIDDY

Surely it's in the airlines interests to make their loyalty programmes easily understood by the man in the street though? The complexities of the programmes are so vast even their own staff don't know all the rules....nor do many frequent fliers judging by the number of questions posted on here.

kanderson1965

I would have thought it was in their interest to have as few as possible knowing how to claim redemptions as they would rather have people paying hard cash for their seats instead.

olybeast

It's a bit unfair that the report highlighted some idiots who clearly weren't up on the schemes, then say the schemes aren't that worthwhile. Where's the other side of the argument. A layperson who spent a few hours learning how the schemes work then booked F to SYD using a 241, showing that would completely blow people's minds.

It was a bit one-sided to be a 'feature' IMO.

techie

It is true that it is a hassle and not attractive. BA ask for several limbs in terms of surcharges when wanting to book flights to places outside of Europe. To be fair, all airlines want to make miles' redemptions the last port of call because they'd rather people pay the full fee. I'd rather pay extra in miles for surcharges and a small flat fee, but this is not an ideal world.

Fruitcake

For sure there are problems with the BAEC rewards, especially availability, but this report is decidedly unbalanced. Not for the first time, I am disappointed with Simon Calder.

I have found it well worth the 'hassle' to get to know and play the system. I have lots of friends, e.g. at work, who like to travel but who just tend to book, in economy, whatever the cheapest fare is for where they want to go. They are always interested that I never seem to use economy on long haul and get all sorts of good deals and perks, but none of them has taken the frequent flyer 'plunge' as I did, even though they realise the value. It does take effort and commitment and not everyone wants to do it. But that doesn't make it a bad scheme and it clearly can work for the airline and the customer.

bernardd

The point I think HIDDY is making is the redemptions have to be reasonably achievable otherwise there's less incentive to select BA over other airlines when paying for revenue tickets and some other airline is slightly cheaper or offers more direct routing.

And perhaps more importantly there's less and less incentive to choose one of the co-branded credit cards.

HMPS

+1 Well said.

In US finding award space is now a business...several are doing good business.
Rules are complicated and work arounds have to be found. Last year I spent on fees and again will have to spend this year. When a simple trip PVG BOM requires almost twice as many avios / miles than Star A airlines and on top require cash of $ 625 PP ! One has to simply shy away from BA

If you look at these pages, the above two are based on common sense ! Many others are busy blaming the flyers and TV personality. Does anyone realize how much damage has been done to BA at home and wherever the report will be shown ?

If the reporter is an idiot, speak in a forum where it may carry some weight. Expose his "idiocy". Preaching to the choir makes one feel good but does not convince others to go spend their money with BA. True SQ was the one that set off the couple, but it was the BA pax who spent thousands of $ at BA was also negative.

One hopes BA & ALL other airlines pay attention to this report and try to simplify their award systems.

AlreadyThere

I disagree. This program covers two of the worst offenders in the award redemption business, BA and SQ. I think charging more for a "reward" ticket than a paid one borders on the "fr" word. Many airlines remain honest in this regard.

Of course an airline would rather sell a seat than give it away. That's fine, that's what the seats are for. Limiting award inventory and releasing it incrementally is a perfectly valid and ethical strategy. Raising the miles/avios required for an award level is valid as paid seats fill up in the long run.

BUT -- adding phony-baloney surcharges (forgive the Americanism) that make the use of miles/avios ludicrous when a seat is otherwise going out empty is fundamentally dishonest, particularly when the surcharge (i.e. "fuel") has nothing to do with changes in the underlying cost of the commodity whose name it bears.

Concerto

Obviously the guy with Krisflyer points redeemed in economy and got stung by the excessive taxes and surcharges which render most economy awards worthless: an example which shows how the miles sometimes have a negative value. But it wouldn't have taken that much brainpower to research the difference between a paid ticket and an award ticket before clicking the 'buy' button, even for a non-frequent flyer.

Perhaps Simon Calder wanted to take a basic example to get his point across. And, like the BA Gold card holder, I have found it virtually impossible to get award seats on certain routes...even with flexibility of dates.

I agree with HIDDY in that these programmes should be a bit easier to use. Except that would take the fun away for us, wouldn't it?

Disco Volante

Good point. And non-FT reading GCH friends, with families, frequently say something similar about award availability. It's a substantial change for the worse. Ten years ago BA's award availability was significantly better than its competitors'. Telling a GCH that he has no chance of taking his family on holiday using Avios in the school holidays leaves them rather unimpressed.

paulwuk

BA don't fly PVG-BOM, so it's hardly a "simple trip". Why would you think they do?

Ba is a great scheme for people that frequently fly on Ba. The benefits from silver gold and ggl are really good, especially donpared with star-gold

It's a bad scheme for people that dont fly frequently, and when they do they fly Singapore to Bangkok.

I would guess that delta would be a bad scheme if you wanted to fly between Africa and India.

Ba is a mediocre airline, but it has a very good network, and a very good program for it's frequent customers. I can never earn enough miles to go everywhere I want to.

EK competes on the network, but from what I can see has a terrible ffp

KLM looks an alternative, but I'm not sure about their seating.

IAN-UK

Gosh! the smugness level of this thread can become suffocating . While it's lovely to hear how fabulously smart some of our contibutors are, it's unbecoming to rate those interviewed on the BBC programme as fools, and Calder as anything less than professional.


Calder's a first-rate journalist with very clear enthusiasm for travelling, rather than for simply sitting in the pointy-end of aircraft.

He wasn't assessing the wider benefits to be derived from status with BAEC, or any other FFP. Neither was he offering a short course in the tricks involved in the successful booking of redemptions: he could do that, but it would make a different, longer and slightly less accessible programme.

He was simply addressing the con of "free flights" in a couple of the world's leading FFPs. It wasn't a programme designed for the cognescenti of BAEC. He offered a "heads up" to ordinary punters interested in travel, warning them not to expect much return for their miles.

The comment about upgrades was prescient. My point to point redemption in business-class, made today, attracts charges roughly equivalent to the cost of an economy class ticket: essentially I'm paying for Y-class travel on a holiday trip, but getting upgraded to C-class. I'm fine with that, but then, I've got oodles of miles. I'm fortunate: not particularly smart, and certainly not smug.

roberino

No. It's in the airlines interests to make it sound like you can earn miles when you pay for a ticket and get one for free when you redeem. That's the hook that gets people in and creates loyalty. That's why the main message of all the adverts is along the lines of "Earn miles every time you fly and spend them on flights, hotels and gifts" while the mention of availability, taxes and fees in in the teenie weenie small print at the bottom. It's actually bad for airlines' business to have people redeem their miles.

MNManInKen

Not at all. The fact that I redeem avios for RFS and to cabin upgrade generates loyalty on my behalf, which is good for the airline as it means I am more inclined to spend my dosh with them.

percysmith

I'm more jaded. For any new program, I look what the miles can get (as in actual redemption seats, not the redemption table), and calculate a $ value per mile.

Some programs I find are meaningless - JetPrivilege is a bad joke (but then their tickets are cheap so who gives), I've some reasons to fly KE but can't find a program to use.

Although most of my miles are CX I owe no loyalty to it - I've only flown six revenue sectors this year with CX and it's not by choice. Living in HK, most of my miles come from participating in credit card offers - I earned 2.19M Asia Miles off the back of GBP250K spending in the worst case (unfortunately the bank has dishonoured the promotion and the case is with the regulators).