Impact of BA changes on RTWers
 

I realize there is a mega thread on the BA forum about the changes, but I thought a thread here focused on the implications for RTWers might be helpful.

I've not thought hard about it yet, but the remaining distance-based new tier point earning rates on Qatar, Finnair and JAL at least still seem decent. Might be pretty hard to get to Gold on one-RTW though, even with lots of distance and heavy Qatar/AY/JAL use.

What is the next best program to credit to if you want OWE from 1+ RTWs per year and decent redeemable miles earning? Qatar? Alaska?

Ironic that the new system incentivizes British Airways Club members to avoid BA/IB/AA on RTWs. Better to fly AY/QR across the pond.
Unless I have misread the new rules, BA status (excepting GGL) can be achieved without stepping onto a BA aircraft. No more 4 qualifying flights.

I don't think BA is focused on RTW tickets as a major revenue source. They don't have dedicated resources to support those tickets, unlike AA. From a corporate travel perspective, the revenue based elite model is great. The BA F lounges in LHR t5 are ridiculously overcrowded. Maybe it'll be more reasonable in a few years.

We embark on a RTW Saturday (6 QR flights) and am intending to move points from BA to QR. I will get sufficient points for QR Platinum and also more Avios. There may be better options but I do not have time and getting QR Platinum is better than getting nothing from BA.

6 QRs on one RTW? So basically US-(DOH)-Europe-(DOH)-Europe-(DOH)-Asia? Or the reverse? Sounds like theoretical Q Suite max :-)

Wonder if we will see some people working up some plans to get BA(E)C Gold on a DONE3, 4 and 5? Might have a go one day if I’m bored as I know how to change mine to get a lot closer. I assume the specialist TAs and those who offer route planning on FT will soon get up to speed………...followed by some Vloggers, along with the sweet spots with partner airlines for max NTPs per £ on certain routes.

Quick query on this - is there any impact from how the new BA NTP collection will work depending on who a RTW ticket is ticketed by? For example if ticketed with BA/AA can they see/use revenue per leg? Or is it purely down to who the legs are flown with and each leg accounted for separately when allocating NTPs?

OSL-DOH-NBO-KGL-NBO-DOH-PER-SYD-CHC-SYD-KUL-BOM-HKG-JFK-DOH-MAN-DOH-OSL

KGL was booked separately and I will get some Avios (RwandAir).

EDIT: In the above PER-SYD is by train.
I make this 609 QR Points and ~86k Avios. Under current BA rules I would have got 1800 TPs and ~75k Avios, but no longer any point in crediting my BA account.

Fwiw my aa ticketed donex which i flew last year credited to baec as distance based for all legs including ib/ba/aa. I think that's partly as the fare saved to ticket was mangled (notionally over $1m) but it shows even if aa tickets there *can* be distance based crediting.

My recent one booked with BA, credited Avios based on the revenue per leg on their flights, and AA, but not on the other OW partners. So I am going to anticipate the NTPs would credit the same way if booked with BA. Revenue on BA/AA/IB and in accordance with the new distance based calculation on the other OW partners. Note: all the flights were prime so no BA codeshares.

Also AA will likely want an over water leg on their metal/codeshare and BA did not appear keen to book me on alternatives where they fly the route, on the basis of never being able to see any D availability on the others when EF said there was plenty.

BUT.....if you had already booked it for travel after 1st April 2025, apparently it will earn as follows for all NTPs, BA or OW Partners, according to posts on X.

‘Flights booked before 13:00 GMT on 30th of December '24 travelling after the 1st of April '25 will earn based on multiplying today's distance-based Tier points by x13.3333.‘

BUT equally...........that appears to contradict the current FAQ?

I was just playing around with a great circle mapper earlier for the heck of it and easily found an DONE3 ex-HND that would get about 23-24k tier points in the new system. It was 19k TPs (50% on D fare) on JL and QR codes alone, so very easily doable in a single RTW.

Just as a point of reference, the JL and QR flights I had on my example were HND-JFK (JL), LAX-DOH-DUB-DOH-CMN-DOH-MNL (all QR codes, MAD is nearly the same distance as CMN if you prefer Spain to Morocco), then a final CMB-NRT (JL code, UL operated). I had some intra-North America on AS and also MNL-KUL-CMB on MH / UL codes. Just avoid all AA, BA, and IB codes, not difficult because I do the same thing when I put together my own RTWs and credit to AA, those have been punitive for us for a while now, glad we're not the only ones feeling the pain anymore.

Yes, it is doable to earn BA Gold if you avoid the AA/BA/IB JV. I was looking at my current AONE3 and saw that it was possible, but a tad more difficult. And A earns 40% while D earns 50% of milage. What !!! But how can one get AA to do the ticketing, considering they want an over the ocean segment? Book with JAL? That is the $64 question.

DONE4 ex-OSL at same price as DONE3 ex-TYO yielding 29K TP's

OSL-DOH-SYD-HND-SIN-HND-BKK-HND-JFK-ANC-LAX-NAS-LAX-DOH-DUB-DOH-OSL All QR and JL except the NA segments which are on AS (25% mileage) One earns 17K TP's thru the HND-JFK segment, so can adjust as necessary for one's own comfort.

Easy peazy. Lots of ways to do that. On my current DONE3, I have the following consecutive QR flights: LAX-DOH-CDG-DOH-LHR-DOH-BKK.

On a DONE4, if you want AA to ticket, you might consider GRU / GIG / EZE / SCL (maybe they still have MVD too?) for your intercontinental segment, leaving TPAC and TATL for JL and QR codes. I don't know if the more northern South America flights that aren't labeled as Flagship would count or not (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Guyana), but anecdotal evidence from last year says that the deep South America flights with Flagship service should count.

As a BAEC Gold who has been earning family status on a couple of RTW trips/year, since COVID, I agree with the consensus here - i.e. the RTW tickets are broadly unaffected from these changes, as long as you avoid as many AA/BA flights as possible, and focus on QR and other 50% earners. (My last DONE ticketed by AA definitely had the $$ amounts posted to my BAEC account for Avios earning, so will of course do the same for my RTW, and those $$ numbers were not great). Just a shame that ticketing via AA means transparency, at the "cost" of dealing with competent RTW staff....

I did a quick calculation that even without deliberate TP earning manipulations I'd be able to get my Gold on two RTW DONExs/year fairly easily, which is fine and in line with my current practices - and going out of Japan is cheaper than GBP20k/year. The reduction in AONEx earning is probably a good reason for me to avoid this temptation too.... :P

(and yes, I am very grateful to lose the 4xBA flights minimum, no need to trouble myself with too much BA except for status)

I’ve also been ticketing with AA and have gotten Avios consistent with the old tier point calculator on QR and JL at minimum (these were prime flights, not code shares). This was just this month. That makes me hopeful that tier points for QR and JL will also be distance-driven, even when AA tickets.

Depends on where you're crediting. Credit to QRPC and AA flights do fine, earnings calculated by mileage, not revenue.

You're entirely right. In this case I am going to continue to credit to BAC (and BAEC before April...) as I am not that far off lifetime status (though a lot further than on the 30 December), and it suits my travel patterns well (living in HKG, using the CX F lounges with OWE status, doing plenty of intra-asia CX flights, but also 2xRTW tickets a year with the family - that all combined should keep us all as Golds for a few more years)

Maybe to be explicit for anyone who will come to this thread in the future: When booking a RTW ticket using the AA RTW desk, there is visibility to British Airways on the implied/calculated spend for AA flights, which prior to 30 December 2024 was used for Avios earning, but will, post April 1, also be used for New Tier Point earning of course. The implied spend doesn't however get passed over on for example QR/CX or other tickets on the RTW (as they don't have a data sharing agreement with BA clearly). As Dr. HFH says, you can credit this to non-BAEC/non-AA FFPs and there is no visibility (but they may calculate things differently)

Here is a simple example of what can be seen. Note those very low GBP amounts won't be good for your new Tier Point earnings. In this case:
BOS-LAX / A (Transcontinental). Old TPs == 210, NTPs = 399 (Implied value at 13.3333x == 2800)
MIA-BOS / D (Domestic First). Old TPs == 40, NTPs == 193 (Implied value at 13.3333x == 533)

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...497afe0b15.jpg
Example BAEC posting from an AONE ticket using AA flights - note the calculated GBP values

So you may find it better to post any of your AA/BA flights to a different airline rather than "waste" the miles and Avios.

Just for fun, I threw together a possible DONE4 ex-OSL that I believe should hit at least 20k BA nTP .. plus, it includes AA overwater segment thus can be ticketed by AA RTW desk.

OSL-DOH QR
DOH-LHR-BOS QR-AA
(insert up to 4 N.A. segments on AS/AA)
DFW-SYD QF
SYD-HND JL
HND-BKK JL
BKK-HND-SIN JL
SIN-HND-CDG JL
CDG-DOH-OSL QR

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...eaed91496b.png

This is a very useful thread, thank you. Please can I check my understanding.

- I intend to book a DONE4 ex-OSL and credit to BAC to earn nTPs
- If I book by AA RTW desk (much the easiest) and therefore have an AA ticket, I will need to avoid AA/BA where possible or else be credited with nTPs on a revenue basis
- The only BA/AA leg I intend to have is MIA-LHR which I will book on BA metal as an AA codeshare
- That will give me the required AA flight that will allow me to book with the AA RTW desk
- For other flights, I will book AY, QR and JL thus attracting optimal distance based earning in D class at 50%. Plus a couple of flights on QF which are unavoidable in Australia domestically
- Alternatively I could book with another OW carrier (ex AA/BA/IB) and then AA flight(s) would provide distance based nTPs.
- If I did book with another OW carrier (ex AA/BA/IB), is there one you would recommend who has competence with RTW tickets? Or should I go to a TA?

For my journey, I estimate that will earn around 19,000 nTPs. This will (hopefully) bring me to BA GGLfL during the trip and I will then be free from needing to worry about nTPs and the new ridiculous thresholds.

Thank you for your help.

Use a travel agent if you aren't booking with AA RTW desk. YMMV.

Bright star,


Your summary looks right to me. Maybe some day the AA RTW desk will share the revenue splits for non-AA/BA flights with BA and then the NTP earnings for those flights will disappear, but it seems not yet.

I gather from what I've read here that Cathay is the second best airline to book with. But it's a distant second, and a TA may be better. There are a few on this board who book RTWs. Fam, please post your experiences.

Minimizing the AA/BA/IB flights seems to be the best way forward. But since one cannot escape having 1 AA trans-oceanic flight, how many new TP's would that be ?? Any estimates? FOr those who have credited some AA flights to AA, what type of numbers are we seeing, 200, 500, 1000, etc?

Out of the three 50% nTP carriers, prioritizing AY then JL and QR for the last if wish to maximize avios earning at the same time. Booked mine with CX, was happy with it and for sure they are not as good as AA RTW desk but I guess the goal here is to avoid as much AA/BA flights as possible

could you expand on your CX ticketing experiences considering that QF agents are not experienced with these tickets? Have you had to make any changes and which CX office did you interact with? More info would be helpful for those who may prefer to avoid AA.

I booked through QF (unfortunately) and got the following:
- AY - nTPs distance based
- JL - nTPs distance based
- AS - nTPs distance based
- AA - nTPs spend based - albeit with a terrible FX rate :/

So, seems to be working as intended.

I've got some AA trip credit to burn, will try and rinse it on my next RTW. Hopefully the same logic will apply to the non-AA sectors

As based in HKG now so working with CX is quite pleasant so far. Though most of the general hotline agents don't seem experienced enough to handle such complex ticket/changes. So you need to expect them to call back by their "back office" team within 48hours after they verify your itinerary and quote properly.
It's a similar experience when you make changes, even a simple one. I have made a simple change to rebook myself from a QR code flight to an AY codeshare(booked on the same QR flight but with an AY code yielding more Avios). The general hotline staff was unable to re-ticket it straightaway, so the case was sent back to the back office team to process.

In short, hotline staffs are nice to work with and fairly helpful and do have some idea what is a RTW ticket about but most of them don't have sufficient knowledge/access right to manually work with this type of ticket when system fail to do auto-price so chance for last minute changes are slim as you need to leave some lead time for them to process it.

I've made maybe 5 or 6 changes. There is a back office team who know their stuff but you can't talk to so you have to either call or whatsapp and convince your request to be passed on which is usually OK but sometimes a bit iffy as the team you're talking to don't understand xONEx fares and sometimes confuse it with other fares. With some patience and some HUACA it's not been an issue.

I've settled on WhatsApp and it's taken ~2-3 days each time. I was able to make a late notice one day change which they gave priority to. Date changes are of course the easiest but I've done a route changes too. IIRC I was emailed a payment link for that. All in all no issue if your changes are not last minute and you're able to stay calm.

IME, the only restriction on AA that I could do without is that one over-water segment has to be AA marketed. I typically do eastbound DONE3s, so that means either U.S. to Doha or Tokyo to Boston. U.S. to Doha is easy to get QR metal with AA codeshare, and for Tokyo to Boston, I really don't care for the J hard product that JL flies on this route, so I take AA metal TYO-DFW-BOS. The AA J hard product is far superior, and I just take my own food with me.

For me, the benefit of dealing with the AA RTW desk on the phone and thus get instant answers from knowledgeable and experienced agents far outweighs the disadvantage of flying AA TPAC but having to book and manage the booking essentially by email.

We are planning our second RTW for March 2026 and will probably use a travel agent again (not using AA or going through the US so can't use AA to book). Our first three flights are with BA so I guess our travel agent will use BA for the booking. Am planning to part with my wife when we get towards the end of our trip in Asia (she will go home from SIN) and to take an additional 4 flights to rack up my TPs. If the RTW tickets are booked with BA will I still get TPs based on distance (proportion of) when using airlines such as CK, JL and QR or will BA base on ticket costs if the ticket is booked through them?

EDIT: in case you are wondering, first three flights on our RTW are OSL-LHR-GIG-EZE

LHR-GIG is the one that matters, as it is the first inter-TC flight, so the travel agency system will default the ticketing carrier to BA. However, the agent may choose another ticketing carrier as long as that ticketing carrier's flight is included in your itinerary and if the ticketing carrier is okay with that.

If you are ticketing BA flight numbers on the codeshares then it's based on GBP.
If you are ticketing Cathay (CX), JL, or QR flight numbers then it's based on distance.
It doesn't matter if it's a BA ticket number 125xxxxxxxxxx.. it's the marketing carrier that determines how things are credited.

https://www.britishairways.com/conte...flights#others

Thanks, I was hoping that was the answer. My concern was that BA know the ticket price.

BA's website specifically said how they credit. It's only revenue based for AA BA IB marketed flights.

For flights marketed by oneworld or other air partners, you'll earn tier points based on a percentage of how many miles you fly, as well as your booking class and the cabin you fly in, regardless of when it was booked.

There are no changes to how you collect Avios on our partner airlines.

British Airways knows exactly what you have paid for the RTW.

regards

dutch_122

I hope they follow their own rules and don't exclude RTW. Be good to hear from anyone on a RTW booked with BA since 1st April to confirm that TPs are awarded based on distance (apart from AA, BA and IB).

I booked a QF ticketed, BA credited DONE in Feb. Flown in Mar/Apr. Non BA/AA segments from 1-Apr credited as distance. I could see the total ticket cost in BA MMB (even with no BA segments). AA segment credited as distance% weighted £ (so absolutely nothing in TPs).

A couple of people PM'd me after this to ask about BA segments - rather than replying one-off:

There weren't any BA segments on my trip, but I could still open up the booking in BA MMB - I had one small necessary AA segment, which credited as spend pro-rated, which I guess is indicative of the way BA segments would land. But given BA and AA have huge surcharges, and now the TP/Avios credit is minimal, I'd avoid them wherever possible. There are enough codeshare options that booking w/ a TA might mean you could maybe fly BA/AA metal if you needed to and get QR or another airline with better nTPs. Feels like a good way to avoid some of the nonsense given there's no longer a minimum BA segment count for Gold :)