BAC possibly isn't as good as before, but is it still better than the competition?

I'd say yes. Avios are, of all the airline loyalty scheme points, probably the most valuable because they are the most versatile. I earn Avios from my regular flights on three different airlines as well as from Nectar but I pool them in BAC because that's often where the best redemptions are (although Loganair also offer some extremely good value redemptions). Virgin points, by contrast, are pretty much useless, especially with their dynamically priced redemptions.

Subjectively, I think it's nonsense but I suspect most of us here will consider that BA slighted us with the changes. Objectively, BAC is still pretty good. The earning is not quite as good as it used to be but points redemption is still pretty good, and the 241 in J having better availability than usual is still a very compelling aspiration offer.

In my industry, almost all awards are pay to enter, pay to attend and pay to win. The ones that aren't pay to enter are still pay to attend (and no-one ever wins if they don't attend, funny that) and you can also only win if $MajorIndustryEntity has proved your worth. You can't win if you've done it off your own back and proved it commercially is good without any external support which is almost my entire business model for my public facing stuff

The issue is that the voters are being asked one question but are answering another.

They are being asked to name the "best airline loyalty scheme" but, assuming a lot of the comments on here and on HfP are correct, they're answering the question which asks "with which program do you find it easiest to earn & burn miles/points"?

The two are not the same and you cannot simply choose to ignore the status earning element of a program when deciding whether it's the best program going. "Best program" means the best program when everything is taken into consideration and if you're not considering a major part of the program when casting your vote, you're not voting for what you've been asked to vote for.

I suspect most of the viewers over on that website are primarily interested in collecting points and claiming free flights. Rather than attaining status.

I'm not personally familar with this particular award, but is it a bit like the FIFA Peace Prize?

Ft has .used to have its own awards. In fairness the process was not much better than this. You had to pick the best featured for each programme, then choose top airline (and hotel and car etc) scheme based on those best features.

I think popular votes have a value if they are done as equitably as possible (which for the reasons KARFA mentions is often not the case with many of those) but to do them in a user friendly way, one should enable the stick just as much as the carrot.

As such, personally, I would say that best airline loyalty programme and best airline loyalty features only are worthwhile i f other categories include worst airline loyalty programme and most disappointing changes.

praising best practice is useful, but you don�t advance customers� rights by simply kissing airlines/companies� you know what�s.

Most BAC members have no status and perhaps are not even interested in one. "Best programme" is in the eye of the beholder. People are answering the question on the basis of what constitutes the "best" for them. If status or ease of attaining it is not on their minds, then they can't possibly take it into consideration. Moreover, there may very well be people who think that BAC is the best for them even for the purpose of attaining status. Unless the question lists specific criteria of what constitutes the "best programme," I don't see why people are answering a different question to the one asked.

Given your well documented support for the changes brought about by the BAC (via your comments on this board) and your propensity to take the opposite point of view of anyone who writes something negative about the BAC, I'm really can't be bothered to bite this time.

You must have confused me with someone else - I never supported the changes brought about by the BAC. I was very happy with BAEC and was as shocked when the news were announced as anyone else, but it does not stop me from trying to see things through the eyes of others.

I am sorry I did not realize that only negative views were allowed. We don't have to agree on everything, you know. No need to get personal, thank you.

It does make the awards pretty meaningless if they're voted on by people who mostly don't know what they're voting for. I agree with KARFA's earlier comments on how these awards ceremonies as nonsense just aimed to boost the ego of those attending.

Who said anything about what views are and are not allowed? And there was nothing "personal" in what I typed. I simply made the point that for the reasons stated, I have no interest in debating this or anything else to do with the BAEC/BAC with you. I believe that's my prerogative isn't it?

That was the whole point of my earlier post - why would someone think that people did not know what they were voting for? If I were asked what constituted the "best airlines loyalty scheme for me," I'd answer on the basis of my own criteria, unless specific criteria were given by the organizers. It sounds very patronizing that those who voted had no idea what they were voting for because they did not take into consideration something that is dear to someone else.

That's the point though, you can't really have objective awards unless the people making the decisions are familiar with all the options in the shortlist (and that the shortlist is drawn up by someone who is knowledgeable). Use a food example, when I was growing up I thought my local chippy was the best, it did nice fish and chips and I only had the other ones in the town to compare with and they were rubbish in comparison so if there was a fish and chips awards then I'd vote for my local because that is what I know. It doesn't really help people discover which place does the best fish and chips because it's unlikely I'd have tried any of the others in the shortlist.

This year HfP say over 5000 have voted and in the previous awards in 2023 they said over 6000 have voted. It seems a decent turn out but in the comments Rob mentioned they have around 100k unique readers so in that case it�s a participation rate of circa 5%

This could be like the 2024 General Election. Turnout was low because people couldn�t see anything worth voting for. I participated in the awards vote solely because of the prize offered, there really wasn�t much exciting to me in the loyalty world over the past few years

Sigh, another desperate attempt to stay relevant...