orbitmic

The thing is: BA seems to think people fly either always F/J/C or always Y. Virtually all people I know who fly a lot of J and even F also regularly fly Y. Stick with BA for those and if you are flying HBO, you get no extra baggage, no seat selection, and a clear message from BA that in their view you are a HBO passenger before being GGL and that if you want to get any intention, you need to accept to be blackmailed into buying a ticket which you do not need: same flight, times, conditions, but inclusive of checked bags you know you will not be taking.

So let me return your argument: when you fly J, why bother to stick to BA anyway, bar mild laziness: you'll get the same advantages with anyone (especially as most airlines get you free seat selection in J regardless of status anyway) so sticking to BA for the sake of it makes little sense.

When flying Y, your advantages matter, so unless you choose to just go cheapest/most convenient on both your J and Y travel, if status matters to you at all, it probably makes more sense to organise your predominant J travel around building up the FFP status that will give you the best perks for your Y trips, and if that is not BA, to switch accordingly.

Blueboys999

Spot on in my book.

I recently returned from a multi segment trip to to Far East all in J & F on a variety of carriers. There wasn't a single instance when status mattered at all.

In contrast, status is more than handy when I'm not in a premium cabin although for those like me who rarely find themselves in airports with F facilities, OW Emerald is largely unnecessary. I'd much rather have mid-tier status with different alliances.

Oaxaca

Well, that's one way of looking at it, but not in my case. The less attractive BA makes the benefits of my "shiny status card" in SH Y, the less need I have to retain status. That makes me more likely to choose another carrier on my reasonably lucrative LH flying. I've just booked QR for a trip to Australia as a result, costing BA £5-6K of sales, and in future I will be more likely to go outside OW also. Once I've retained GGL this time round, I'm unlikely to seek it again, especially with what is rumoured to be coming. Maybe I'm an exception / minority, but it's only a clever balance if their LH premium cabins stay full, and not with ex-EU sale fare pax.

And BTW, something has changed for business class, Avios earning/redemption.

rosswill

I won't be switching, but I will be altering my flying pattern. I fall into the category of those who try and fly PE or J long-haul, but also do a fair amount of short-haul Y or Domestic where the status perks of choosing seats, fast track, extra luggage and lounge access are very welcome.

I know I'm not the highest valued customer for BA, choosing discounted fares and using Avios to upgrade from PE to J when available. I can't help feeling though, that if enough of us low value contributors quietly (or noisily) disappear from their order books, they could go from a very profitable company to one with an outlook that looks a lot less positive. Sure business and first will prop them up, but if they were so profitable, BA would surely operate more business class only flights, so I guess they must make money on the lower travelling classes and reduced priced fares also?

I'll make BA gold this year but probably won't try and retain next. Since the changes were announced, I have flown China Southern to Asia on the 787 which was a great experience, in J at least, and will book with them again for a trip coming up shortly. I also have a long-haul Virgin PE booking in a week or to as well. All losses for BA.

I see this pattern continuing as I look for best value and above all convenience, over chasing status miles as I had done before, albeit foolishly perhaps. Previously I would be happy to route through a gateway city or to add extra segments or time to my journey, or even pay a marginally higher fare to travel with BA. No more.

Wozza2404

Because GGL is important to me. I've said before that if I "only" had a Gold card, I'd likely be singing from a different hymn sheet.

As it stands, I can get reward seats on pretty much any flight I want via my Jokers (ok, 4 J seats to MCO on the first Sat of the easter hols might need a little planning, but generally it works out). I can cancel reward bookings with no fee, and I can gift a Gold card to my wife; meaning Flounge access for our family of 4 (or indeed 5, should it ever become such).

Those perks require GGL requalification, so for me, I need to stick with BA/OW.

Plus having Emerald status does hold some weight when flying in the only territory where I regularly fly Y; Australia.

nanyang

Isn't that a problem for BA though? If a frequent flyer would only "pay a marginally higher fare" in return for frequent flyer benefits, then they might just concentrate on driving down prices to fill their planes?

orbitmic

I think that makes a lot of sense in this particular case and might also work well with your specific flight routes, so it seems that it makes sticking to BA despite deterioration a good move on your side.

For many - including many GGLs, it is however conceivable that alternatives might be worth considering. For heavy flyers, for instance, I would argue that HON actually offers significantly more advantages and a far more luxurious travel experience than CCR card (let alone GGL alone).

For many "regular" GGLs, a TK Elite Plus card might well be worth it. Not only do you remain able to gift an elite card, but while you do not get formal jokers, you get 50% off paid companion business class tickets, which can effectively bring many of them down to the price of taxes on BA award tickets and leaves your miles balance intact! *A also has much better award availability compared to OW making the point of jokers relatively marginal in the first place. And in my view, the IST TK lounge is quite a bit nicer than LHR GF.

Calchas

You get 50% off J tickets!?

rosswill

Guess this is the choice they are making. They will have calculated commercially my "marginally higher fare" is not worth having, even though it's countless times throughout the year they could have it. Then there's the travel of my colleagues which is often influenced by my own travel arrangements, largely depending on who is paying the bill, the family holidays etc. all not worth securing.

I can't help feeling one day they will be looking at falling revenues and wondering where all their customers went. Probably be proven wrong though as usual!

orbitmic

Sorry it should have read "50% off paid companion J tickets". Corrected my post to reflect that!

Wozza2404

I don't disagree. However you'd need to fly East almost exclusively to make TK work for you; transiting in IST to fly from London to JFK is never going to happen. That was part of my decision to move away from EK.

These changes don't particulalry affect me, and as such my "loyalty" hasn't been challenged. I fully understand there are many many others who feel aggrieved, though. Plus I know people will say "redemptions will cost you more", but recently I booked a LHR-LAS (CW but sat in F seat) //LAX-LHR (F) and using a 241 and a GUF it cost me something daft like 87k Avios. So personally Id happily see Avios costs double again if it meant the taxes and fees were waived. But again, many others will disagree, I'm sure.

orbitmic

But it does not mean that and most likely won't, and for that matter, it is not a give and take situation and BA are clearly not interested in 'negotiating' any compromise.

Redemptions will cost you 25-50% more indeed, and taxes and fees will not drop a single penny. They may indeed increase further but there is no reason to expect that fees will decrease in any shape or form if they do. In that sense the question of who would agree/disagree on a miles/fees trade-off is just wishful thinking (or pure abstraction) IMHO.

On the rest I agree with your formulation: each of us can merely assess how we are affected by the changes, how we expect further developments to occur, and whether BA is still a convincing proposition or not within that framework and to what extent. As mentioned, it is clearly a good option for you so worth sticking to. On TK, the difference with EK is obviously alliance so going West, the question becomes whether UA, LH and the like are acceptable alternatives for a given traveller or not, and if so, what would one need to gain to justify it.

Behindthecurtain

Honestly, the changes will have zilch affect on my flying patterns. DME-LHR, BA are the best by a country mile and the UUA is almost 80% available.

Living part of the time in the UK with LHR the closest airport, it makes no sense to look at the lies of LTN to fly from.

Going to the U.S, outa Russia BA are way ahead of the competition, even including MEA3 as the Timings are appalling on the MEA3.

Going east holiday flights normally, I use Qatar,Finnair, Cathay and JAL as the flights are either shorter as no 3 hour flight in the wrong direction or more convenient as I live 20 mins from SVO (Finnair)

Short haul I chose whether to go from LHR or DME/SVO/VKO, and prefer to go to European meeting from Moscow as I can do a full day and both Y and J on SU/S7/UN are better than any EU airline, so no change there.

As to BAEC, yep I will stay with it, getting my Amex 241, BAEC GUF2, Tesco and Kaligo Avios, using it for UUA and getting MsBTC her AA domestic flights to visit friends on her quite long US Stopovers.

With all these folks dumping (or saying they will dump) BAEC, I expct emptier lounges and more UUA's, so that suits me too.

I will still stop at Gold and not push for GGL, as the 5000 points is too much for me (2 x 3000 was doable on work flights but as that changed its too far away and I was never sure I could either make it or if it was better than BA G + *A G) and will most likely keep the Agean Gold current instead, even with the new 4 legs on Agean rule which I can do with long weekends on cheapie Y fairs.

As to the spending changes, Moscow UUA does not change much at all and Ms BTC and I travel Russian Holiday times not UK times and can be flexible, so benefit from flying non peak (or Non Peak IB redemptions) and rarely used the free UK Leg other than maybe once or twice a year to LBA, which to be honest was more of a pain than going home dumping stuff and getting GNER the next day.

Even the so called "enhancements" to CW/ET make no difference, as I don't fly CE/ET much and tend to redeem in Y in the US mostly or J on the three class transcontinentals.

I fly BA when the times are right and the service / seat is better, which going west out of DME to the U.S. it (or codeshare AA via LHR or HEL) is actually, enjoy the Flouge for what I want which is cooked breakfasts, evening hot comfort food, the odd glass of red wine and am not anywhere as nit picky on flight crew differences as many here are (MsBTW would murder me if I was LOL) and I fly others when going east.

Don't get me wrong. In saying this I have no criticism for those that walk away from BA/BAEC because of the changes, those that do have different priorities, travel patterns and locations and losing things like the free uk leg or increased costs at school holidays combined with UK departure pseudo tax would maybe have made me reassess if I were in their shoes.

xenole

BA holidays is a reason I fly CW over another OW airline sometimes. It's handy being able to book something months out without having to pay out £2k or so then and there (especially now whilst I'm on holiday and the next one is in 3 weeks and won't give me time to sort my credit card out should anything nice pop up price wise)

LTN Phobia

The changes made no difference to me, except perhaps the redemptions but probably offset by higher earnings on some of my flights, and maybe indirect benefits through possibly quieter lounges.

I won't be switching, because I only fly BA when it's convenient for me for whatever reason anyway, so it's not as if I am going out of my way to fly BA or OW.