BahrainLad

Gosh. Whoever thought that a frequent flier scheme with "Executive" in the title would be aimed at frequent flying executives?

simons1

Dunno. Maybe they have now figured out some leisure travellers/non executives also have value? If you moved to a scheme based on spend people might find a different level of status.

Tafflyer

Well, I only ever fly J or F long haul, book discounted fares, and used accumulated Avios to do the same. Except nothing was ever available. Now, it costs even more Avios but still nothing is available. It was little more than a raid on the wallet because they feel they can get away with it. Thank goodness we don't have to credit to BAEC.

Globaliser

To fly in a WT+ seat with WT+ service?

I have a sneaking suspicion that that's BA's primary aim in selling WT+ fares, and that that's what the vast majority of purchasers of WT+ fares primarily expect in return for paying the fare. After all, those who haven't developed a deeply ingrained cynicism about flying and who don't think they're too grand to sit in a seat that doesn't lie flat do often like the WT+ product; as an example, see http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...-out-good.html.

callum9999

Because they didn't "give up" the avios, they sold them.

Theres no logical reason why ba can't run their own scheme in that fashion while continuing to bulk sell them elsewhere.

Amtexfly

Some interesting reading in this thread. As someone who has only just got into the miles collecting game it's disappointing that the WT+ > CW UuA deal is no longer such a good proposition as I haven't had a chance to milk it for all it's worth . Being realistic there was no way this could continue, despite what some of you think of CW, BA cannot have one of their premium products completely devalued like this. If you want cheap business class seats at least there is still the option of Ex-Eu. As far as I can tell the price of BA business class seats from the UK are in line with other airlines.

I'm more disappointed that the 2-4-1 vouchers are no longer amazingly good value but mealy 'good'. I ran a little comparison with Virgin Atlantic yesterday and the difference is minimal.

Only1BD

Hi drmish1; we did our first First to GIG on Fri Feb 13th this year. A 2 hour delay meant that we passed midday and could therefore enjoy the non-breakfast menu in the CCR (which was excellent), and we were able to dine later on in the flight without any pressure from the crew to eat early on in the flight. IIRC we had a chap whose initials were AT and he was outstanding, as was his colleague (MM). As ever, much of one's on board experience is down to the crew, but we were looking to sit back and relax, and did just that.
If your crew and flight are half as good as ours were, you'll have a great time! Am hoping we get the same crew to IAD in Jul on the A380...if only!!

TPJ

I believe this is an universal trend to award less miles for low yielding classes. In 2014 the following airlines went this path:

- OW: AA, BA
- Star: TK, SK, UA, A3
- ST: well DL and AF/KL were already crappy

And there changes are here to stay...

callum9999

Are you sure AA have? After noticing that the previously generous full TP/Avios for deep discount US airways economy with Executive Club has ended (I assume they won't honour it like they have done with the BA changes?) I looked into crediting them to AA and they still earn 100%.

d3vski

Do not panic...should everything go as expected on Thursday, with the Ed and Nicola show running the country for the next 5 years, the economy will tank and BA will reverse the Avios devalution as the premium cabins go empty.

mrow

AA haven't reduced below 100% for any of their metal regardless of fare class, they have started awarding bonuses to premium fares though.

jato

Me and Mrs. jato have hugely benefitted from WT+ to J UuA back and forth on SFO-LHR. This has not been an easy get recently, especially with a couple of small humans in tow (apologies to our fellow J travelers on one particularly disastrous BA 286 last year; at least the flight-long turbulence helped cover the howling). Everyone I know who has played the UuA game on long-hauls has had the same feeling: too good to be true. I'd look at the Avios deduction on ba.com afterwards and laugh.

WT+ - J UuA was great while it lasted, and surely it was never meant to -- just like every "bargain" in the land of airline miles.

LondonFlight, I feel for you -- that increase on LHR-GIG sucks. I hope there's a good option for you at BA or elsewhere. I certainly won't be doing UuA redemptions as often on SFO-LHR if I can get them at all.

For the other grumbling in this thread and elsewhere about the devaluation, I can't help but think that people are unclear on their goals around airline loyalty.

If you're stuck because your company is buying the tickets, you're stuck. (Unless you're stuck at the back, life probably isn't so bad.)

If you have some flexibility, are you in it for short-hauls? Lounge access? Occasional monster F redemptions? Get clear on your goal(s) and when the airlines change the rules, change airlines.

LondonFlight

Hi jato,

Lounge access, upgrades with miles and long haul redemptions in premium cabins used to be the reason for me to stick with an airline and respective alliance, achieve elite status and enjoy its perks since I first became Gold with Star Alliance back in 1997. I travel mostly for leisure and of course pay for my own flights - the company I work for buys the cheapest available fares, even for top management, and the miles flown go to the boss anyway. I completely agree that if one wants to fly Business, Business must be bought, and that's what I was doing unless I could find availability for Avios upgrades from WTP. I find Club Europe reasonably affordable so I never actually used Avios for short haul, but whenever LHR-GIG was priced above £2k the upgrades with Avios would be really handy to go nonstop, otherwise I'd fly ex-EU. I don't even get enough holidays per year to fly enough to achieve Gold with BA so I was content with being Silver and enjoying not just the Avios upgrades but the 100% mileage bonuses as well. I was indeed only flying BA for the past years, buying only CE, WTP and CW, but it is quite clear with the changes that I am not the kind of client that BA is after.

At this point in life I cannot contemplate the idea and cost of doing Jersey - Honolulu via XYZ tier runs to achieve Gold. I read the other threads where people are discussing how many times they have churned credit cards to collect Avios, while others are spending their weekends on planes to achieve/maintain status, and can only think that the mileage game has actually been blown out of proportion. I understand and respect the ones who do it but I might be just too old for that.

At the moment KL and AF have good offers to Brazil (where my family lives) so I will give them a go. I flew to Rio with Alitalia in Magnifica 02 years ago and was rather impressed. I used to love Swiss back in my Star Alliance days and depending on dates they also have some deals in Business via GRU, as does TAM. I travel long haul with my partner to Asia at least twice per year and for that we may go back to Thai, or whatever is doable out there rather than concentrating on BA only.

What the devaluation of the Executive Club has certainly done to me is to remind me that there are other options out there, and I look forward to flying other airlines that otherwise I would never get to know.

Guava

I guess the upgrade cost really depends on the route in question. For example, JFK-LHR, the most travelled TATL route on the planet just went down from 20K to 18K to upgrade from CW to First. If you connect to anywhere from LHR after flying from JFK, you can use both Concorde Room in JFK and LHR.

Flying from Brazil has the advantage of not having to pay any BA surcharges due to Brazilian laws. As a result, you save a ton of money vs. those of us who depart from North America. I suppose BA decides that they need to recuperate this back somehow, hence, you pay a much higher distance based award cost.

Buying cheap economy class fare to upgrade to business class should cost a lot in miles. Otherwise, there is little incentive to buy business class fares, which will not be profitable to any major airline like BA in the long run.

shaown

Very smart move on AA's part. They raised the prices of many awards (their valuable Anytime awards - but only on PEAK days, i.e. fri/mon/etc). They strongly increased the amount earned on premium fares (Y/Biz/First) - but didn't reduce it on discount fares. So they casual travelers still see cheap awards are possible, and haven't lost any earnings.