I think people are making the bah change a lot more complicated than need be because of very abstract numbers, notably when they say « Ł500 for 1 pax you get 500. Ł500 for two pax each gets 250 » because the point is if you book for several people it will cost a lot more as you add a second, third etc plane ticket.

in the old system, you’d get tps for flights only - each passenger would get tps for their own flights based on distance and that was it. Now, in effect, each pax still gets tps for their own flights, but based on spend instead, and the only thing that changes is that you additionally get tps based on other bah spend (hotel or car or both) and think of that part as equally shared between the travellers. of course the value of those tps on extra spend depends on what else you buy: if it’s a Ł15/day car rental a share of that will be half a peanut, if you are booking the presidential suite at the Ritz it will amount to a lot more than you’d get from the flights alone.

of course in the meantime 1) the double TP offer is discontinued so if you compare to the relatively short period when we got that most people will lose out unless booking bah with cheap flight component (eg discounted y) and expensive hotel and 2) the while earning scheme is now badly devalued anyway so what you get is badly devalued on bah too but that’s nothing to do with the sharing element, just with the new programme being rubbish.

To me, even with the bah double tp promotion, booking a bah was at best a tangential proposition. That’s because I’m diamond (previously plat but still) with Accor, Hilton and a few others and I value the perks and rewards of the hotel programmes more than the extra tps I didn’t really need anyway. I have booked some double tp bahs but really only when going to a place with cheap non alliance hotels to book into, or when I’d book a second room direct with my perks whilst letting others use the bah room.

with the changes, I’d consider booking a bah totally useless, but not because of the sharing, just because bah hotel rates are not great anyway, typically a lot worse than booking direct, and booking direct is vastly more beneficial both in terms of perks and rewards. The better/more expensive the hotel, the worse the bah value proposition gets too as hotel programmes are systematically a lot more generous and as you tap into hotels covered by Virtuoso, FHR and the likes which give significant perks (free breakfast, free upgrades, free hotel credit etc) as well as being cancellable and paid later. I would add that as I menti on bed many times, I find that the bah level of service has gone down the drains too - way more rigid/unaccommodating than before, balance due a lot earlier than before etc.

So BAH has moved from « mostly no » to « are you completely deranged? » for me with the new earning system and the end of double tps, but wholly unrelated to the sharing mechanism which is in no way new.

It’s just that now you share crumbs instead of sharing the loaf.

TBH I've wondered just how sustainable the existing program was. One Business return in QR to say Singapore and then eat and drink as much as you want in lounges for short haul flights to/from the UK, extra baggage, blah, blah, blah. These pages full of advice on how to game the system and get status for the least possible expenditure. Guesting strangers into the lounge, (I know the Mods stopped that here but it still happens elsewhere).

I may be unpopular here, but I'm surprised it took this long to reform. As they say, other airlines are available.

And if the other airlines loyalty programs aren't as good, that kind of explains why BA did what they did. I enjoyed the ride while it lasted, but frankly I'm not that surprised.

IMO, something which is really valuable as Gold is the additional award inventory.

The flesh is weak. 🤷‍♀️

Could I add cretinous to that?

I am at the uncommon crowd, already booked flight up to Oct 2025. I booked 3040 tp already, with only 1 f trip with 4 segments using BA to satisfy their 4 segments requirement. However, I have several cx and mh short trips "booked" as well !
So, if they announce prior to my booking, I would adjust these long hual to aisa using BA instead of AA to satisfy the GGL BA marketed flight. Now, I will have 40k new tp, but no where close to 32k sending on BA. And I don't think I can just cancel all these tickets with incurring hugh panelty. And all those small trips, which will means almost nothing in new tp calculations, I probably need to credit to another one world carrier.

credit to CX or MH maybe given your flight “loyalty” clearly favours them?

It was quite clearly sustainable given the amount of profit IAG is making.

be my guest!!

I'm not surprised they've changed it, but I am surprised at how brutal the threshhold for Gold is. As for "gaming" the system, that implies that people were not abiding by the rules, but if the rules allow it then is it actually gaming?

In the cold light of day this may make commercial sense for BA if most of their higher spenders don't abandon ship, on the basis that BA offers the best connections out of LHR. In my case, my destinations are a mix of Skyteam and Star strongholds, and mostly short haul, so concentrating on a single alliance other than OW is likley to be more hassle than it is worth, and despite the understandable anger on here, I imagine BA's thinking is that ultimately people will not cut off their nose to spite ther face. However, what I think is likley to happen in reality for me is that I will still use OW and re-qualify to silver, but also give more premium business to other alliances, so overall spend will almost certainly go down. If what I do is replicated by many others, then I strugle to see how that works for BA, but they must have conisdered this scenario, so I guess they believe it will. The part of me that isn't still annoyed by this is now quite intrigued.

I was wondering about that, headlines were that "British Airways owner’s annual profits soar to Ł2.3bn on leisure boom". The article stated that

"IAG reported an annual profit of €2.7bn (Ł2.3bn) after tax, on operating profits of €3.5bn (Ł3bn), with high fares and premium leisure travel compensating for smaller numbers of business travellers."

It all makes sense now

Could be more like Icarus.

Quite. The whole approach - alienating leisure travellers, whilst seemingly reliant on them - seems totally bonkers…

And the BA Club will be called the BA Snub.

My initial reaction to all of this is extrememly negative - having been a GC holder for over 10 years, based on personal spend and mostly UK-USA and UK to Australia trips, it really feels like a kick in the teeth.

Especially as the majority of my flights have been purchased directly with BA.

I will miss the First Checkin/security, the QF and CX First lounges and Oneworld benefits on internal US and Australian flights.

For me I cannot see ANY upside to this change, and particulary resent the timing of the rollout. Not a happy new year at all.

are they really alienating leisure travellers though when the goalposts firmly put earning TPs through BAH at the front of the new scheme? It’s a gamble for sure but could be quite clever…