malioil

I mirror a lot of what others on here are saying. I am 40 TPs below Gold at the moment, and will qualify soon. In the past I have gone out of my way to fly BA, even if U2 offered a cheaper and faster alternative, as I enjoyed the lounge access and avios. In other words, BA actively kept my business with them through BAEC, even when their competitors offered a more competitive product.

Now, the situation is different. I already have booked a few sectors on U2 ex EDI, as paying extra in fares + flying through LHR is not worthwhile for a total of 20 TPs and a pitiful amount of avios on a short haul segment. In other words, if U2 offer the route I want direct, I'm probably even ready to pay a premium for it AND buy an easyJet plus card. I already have a Priority Pass that I hardly ever use (by virtue of keeping all my flights on OW) that will come in handy.

While I will qualify for gold this year, I will not do so next year, and the new Silver card is simply not worth me chasing. As I spend most of my time between Scotland, Bahrain and Hong Kong, it just so happens that QR, CX and BA make the most sense, and as a result I am likely to keep flying these carriers, hence getting TPs and qualifying, but if another airline offers a more attractive package off I go. In fact, if I find it hard to qualify for at least Silver with the new rules I'm most likely to stop flying BA all together and use an airline that uses a terminal that allows Priority Pass access.

In other words, British Airways have lost my loyalty- I will no longer choose them first, but what is more convenient to me on a flight-by-flight basis. I spend about £25,000 a year flying (with all but 5 flights on BA/OW partners), so I doubt they will miss me, but a good chunk of that business will now, I'm sure, be heading the way of EY and U2. Will book my next EDI-BAH service on EY in J, and apply for a tier match once I get my BAEC gold card. EY's J product is superior to CW in many ways, and is priced at £2,100 vs £3,800 for BA on the dates I want... overall I'm a bit cheesed off.

The only reason I'm not switching all my business to KL or LH is, as has been repeated on her previously, their FFPs are also quite dire.

Tripophile

Our flying pattern has been frequent short-haul leisure trips from Gatwick on BA, with occasional CE flights to maintain Silver status, and an annual long-haul on BA, using an Amex 241 voucher. This has provided the benefits of lounge access on all trips, extra luggage allowance and good avios earnings, for limited outlay.
However, we just took Easyjet flights for the first time in years, on a trip to Madrid from Gatwick. With a bookable lounge, exit row seats and priority boarding, it was absolutely fine.
So our plan now is allow the BA Executive Club Silver memberships to drop and explore more of the greater range of destinations served by Easyjet from Gatwick instead.

jcm9000

Nah. It is annoying the required avios increasing, but if that kind of thing annoyed me i would have stayed with the aadvantage program as that was just better for redemptions (and lack of taxes...). I have 160k now and have no idea what to do with them anyway. Losing tps on cheapo y, dont care. I just fell from gold to silver, i'll miss the larger bonus, but i still get lounge access (which i would anyway since i pay the differential to fly j), still get the same planes, will still be annoyed by the ridiculous fast track lines on domestics, will still get 140 on l/h and will still get my moneys worth of booze on board. Frankly i should switch back to the aa programme, but i still like my ba status for no rational reason other than very easy qualfication for choosing seats at booking.

MPH1980

I'm in a difficult place. When I read the reports this morning - I thought 'ah - it's ok for me' and I was ok with it.

That was partly because I checked the UUA costs and missed that the calculation was changing - so I thought WTP->CW was the same - now I know it's up 140% in Band 5 (my primary travel band).

Having said that - my primary route is LHR -> East Coast (JFK/YYZ) with some west coast (SFO normally) and Dallas. I'm allowed to book premium economy for all that. I could do Premium Eco on VS for JFK and SFO ... and PE on AC for YYZ - but then I'm splitting my points. I might get to 35k if I was lucky on AC and maybe Silver on VS.

If I stay with BA - I get Gold by consolidating the travel - and that gets me lounge access and seat selection. Both important to me in this equation. I wouldn't be able to burn AC miles easily anyway ...

ramops

I booked a CE trip in the summer to try out BA, never flown them. I was quite sure that I would stay loyal to BA and book more even tough I have never flown them, the perks they offered is not offered by any other airline. I was fine with the new CE seats since that was a huge let down for me (6' tall) however when I heard these changes comming up I decided that the trip in the summer will be my last one with BA. Might consider a switch to *A now.

What are the chances that BA would revert these changes? 0 percent? Would they revert the changes in 2 years or so like last time?

Chokkoubin

I definitely won't make any special effort to fly BA anymore. It's the loss of 100% earning on economy tickets that's really put me off. As someone who would only buy economy tickets for personal travel, that was a huge bonus that, for me, really set BA and the exec club apart from their rivals.


In a way it's alright though - now I feel a bit more free to simply buy the cheapest ticket, so I imagine I'll be seeing a lot more of Norwegian and Easyjet, and probably AF/KL and (gasp) probably VS too!

manymany

I won't change. The enhancements don't really affect me I think, I'm only a leisure flyer.

I started collecting avios so that I could Uua from WTP on my 2 or 3 Far East trips I do every year. Thanks to this forum, I discovered even better value from the Ex-EU fares in CW. Last year I did two Ex-EU runs to BKK and then at xmas went on QR and reached gold. Each fare has been similar or a little more than WTP so it's a no-brainer, for me.

Just yesterday I bagged my Songkran trip for April from AMS and back via HKG for £1.3k. Exactly the same price as WTP was direct. And today after the sale WTP is £1.4k!

I know everyone has different circumstances but this works for me.

SEW247

Just burnt through a load of Avios for my honeymoon to Asia; to KUL in F and back from HKG in J on a 241 so really happy I got my HKG return leg booked up on Monday - hopefully I won't now be stung for extra Avios????

I also like the way they admitted that on some flights no redemption seats in F and J were released!

My GC expires in October and tbh there was not much chance of me retaining G status due to my new job (started today!) meaning no more travel. The Mrs has GC until mid Jan next year and won't hit 1500 TPs either.

So, we'll both be relegated to Silver, but I guess we'll still have lounge access until Jan 2016 and we still have 1.1m Avios between us with 2x more 241s to be earnt this year.

In conclusion, we'll now run down our Avios carefully using 241s in F or J and probably only use BA to travel to YYC (WTP and Avios upgrade to CW on way back from YYC, WT on way out to YYC on day flight) where we go once per year as the only other option is Air Canada. As for Europe, once we lose lounge access I can't see us ever using BA again unless they are as cheap as low cost carriers.

It's a sad day.

MrsBiggles

I'll still have my annual treat ex-EU CW flight to Vegas. However, as I did take advantage of many cheapo ET tickets, I'll now stop giving BA shorthaul preference and rather look for the best offer around.

So probably end up Bronze, but at least the seat reservations open up 7 days in advance. Might do a couple of HBO to stock up on Avios while I still get the better bonus.

HighlandExpress

Based on current bookings, I'll retain silver this year. But I only fly for leisure, so after getting enough avios for an F return I may have to reconsider programmes.

mikeday1983

No I wont

Beansprout

No. I live next door to LHR so the domestic changes don't affect me. In fact, I had no idea people in the regions got free feeder flights! (Bear in mind longhaul does still).

The increased UuA rates were inevitable I've feared but I've got a stash of avios so any that I do should still represent good value, and I can earn more than I can spend via Amex (business spend!).

The increased rates for going very far - eg west coast US or SYD - do make me think again about whether it's worth spending for such trips, and thus if it may be better to investigate alternative carriers, but on the other hand the extra availability may prove useful. Until everyone cottons on and the current glut disappears, of course...

I do however prefer these changes to upping the TP thresholds for Silver/Gold since I can maintain Silver easily enough, but couldn't maintain, for example, 2000TP/year for Gold.

Maybe BA will improve/update their premium products in line with the enhanced Avios programme?

jmc1K

In all objectivity, what this represents is the end of the crisis-era system of using and abusing FFPs to achieve premium travel for a low price.

BAEC was the last outpost of mileage runners and cheap F and J travel. This is the first shot to the undoing of that across the board.

I've already shifted my spend away from BA on anything but I fares and redemptions. The devaluation of Avios basically means that I'll no longer bother keeping anything other than bog standard Gold on BA, and will otherwise direct my spend towards more premium carriers.

The daft part of this is that BA can't justify the move with their J or F product. They are so thoroughly mediocre other than cabin crew that BA should have realized that they were basically the discount consolidator airline for people who wanted a semi-premium experience on a budget.

Now, there's just no reason to fly them.

Calchas

Ever heard of YQ?

BA is not a great programme for cheap F and J travel.

Buster

I agree with this. We were already considering moving away from BA because of the degradation of service before these changes, and were only sticking around because of the value prop of using BA miles combined with the 2 for 1. This, I think, just hastens the move.