Major restructuring (devaluation, for most) of BA On Business announced

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• The_Real_A says:

  21 Feb21 February 06:02

  Working for one of the worlds largest tech firms, our travel policy is Economy only – even long haul.

  OB is used for upgrades for those those with medical certificates and for last minute travel when cash price is above threshold.

  • N says:

    21 Feb21 February 08:52

    That seems a very reasonable use of them.

    I work for a large company with an outsourced travel department, and have no idea who gets ours – but I know it’s not those who have to do the travelling.

  • Mike says:

    21 Feb21 February 14:00

    I’m surprised that a large company would be part of OB. Mine has an agreement with BA for a corporate discount. Would they collect OB points on top? If not I’d ask: what business would choose OB over a sizable ticket discount?

    I don’t know how it’d work for economy tickets, buy my company gets >50% off the website price for business/first.

    • The_Real_A says:

      21 Feb21 February 23:03

      Our business flights are to well served locations, so the direction to our travel dept is to purchase “lowest cost” at the point of buying the ticket.

• Danksy says:

  21 Feb21 February 06:50

  Interesting, I’ve got a few OB points lying around, this may prompt me in to action!

  I booked return business class flights for two from DUB to HNL recently, but they haven’t been credited to my OB account yet (flight not until July) I wonder if they will credit at new rates or old rates… The flights were booked when the old T&Cs were in use!

  Cheers

  • Michalis says:

    21 Feb21 February 07:15

    So for a £2500 cw flight to let’s say LAX will you get 2500 points if you are a tier 1 company. While you can earn for the same flights 26000 avios as a gold. Sounds reasonable!

    ok OB redemption rates are lower but that’s maybe 2X-2.5X lower.

    Now you would earn around OB 5000 points and it would cost less than half to redeem for the same flights.

    Makes the scheme as a small business completely worthless if you wanted to actually get some long haul redemption ever.

    • Danksy says:

      21 Feb21 February 09:45

      @Michalis, you get OB points and avios!

      • Michalis says:

        21 Feb21 February 10:18

        I know that. I am just comparing how ridiculous the earnings are when compared to avios earned on a flight.

        I am just saying how worthless the scheme is now for a small business.
        You need £50000 spend to get a CW ticket. This seems hardly an incentive to use BA OB. The spending needed before for the same was probably at most between the £10000-£15000 region.

• Keith says:

  21 Feb21 February 07:03

  In essence what this means with devaluations of both Avios and On Business points is that the tips and suggestions from H4P (and its followers) becomes even more important. I am a very recent ‘finder’ of this website but have added a Gold Amex card so did the Mrs (subsequently cancelled) for ‘free’ Avios. Have taken advantage of the Dublin/Hawaii in biz for £1040 (any other H4P going on July 10?!) and I will now sign up for the hotel recommendation and 70 AA’s per review. BA are making the earning and power of their currency much harder and I for one look forward to seeing and hearing about how the H4P team and community are going to make sure that we are optimising the earning and spending opportunities. I do see this as a bit of a game, they’ve changed the rules half way through the match, time we sent on our ringer to exploit their weaknesses!

  • Danksy says:

    21 Feb21 February 09:48

    Keith, we are going on July 6th.. doing 4 nights in Honolulu, thanks to IHG “intothenights” then 4 days on big island thanks to SPG points from Amex, then back to HNL and probably spend some cash on St Regis for 5 days. All connecting flights via AA points 😀

• Luke Atkinson says:

  21 Feb21 February 07:06

  The corporate card bonus of 2500 onbusiness points just became a lot more useful then

  • Danksy says:

    21 Feb21 February 09:50

    Missed the 2.5k OB points is this for getting a corp Amex?

    • Danksy says:

      21 Feb21 February 09:53

      I just read the T&Cs… Requires £25k p.a spend… “2. 2,500 Additional On Business Points: Companies will receive 2,500 On Business Points per British Airways American Express Corporate Card Plus Cardmember who achieves a spend threshold of £25,000 on the Card within a 12-month period commencing on the Card issue date or an anniversary of the Card issue date.”

• Zoombie says:

  21 Feb21 February 07:47

  I was most interested in this: “A saving of ‘up to 5%’ on the ticket price will be available if you choose not to earn points on your bookings”. Signing up for a useful every time if small discount seemed interesting. I found this:

  “As part of the new programme members will be offered greater flexibility through the option to choose member only discounts on selected flights, instead of earning points. You will be able to access member-only discounts on many of our flights worldwide, of at least 5% off the fare. To choose a discount when available, simply select that option at the time of booking.”

  That says 5% or more not 5% or less, but it also says “selected flights” and “when available”.

  • Rob says:

    21 Feb21 February 10:35

    You’re right, I misread that. Will correct.

• Daniel says:

  21 Feb21 February 08:14

  I agree with the analysis that the small operation is being told it is not wanted.

  We have a series of long haul premium econ flights booked for the summer period. The value of the points earned for each of these have effectively been halved. Before the devaluation we would have got 1320 points to JNB but now we will get 1150 while the points needed for the redemptions have more than doubled.

  Immediate impact the long haul redemption being saved for is now out of reach! Not happy at all!!!

  Longer term it will mean moving away from BA and looking more at low cost and the PartnerPlus scheme for the office as they have much lower points requirement compared to the new scheme.

• Simon says:

  21 Feb21 February 08:49

  I used to work for an organisation which used OB for the few times that we were confident enough to book a long haul non flexible ticket – normally everything was booked as flexible in case we (well, the senior colleague I supported) were needed back at base. Meant that I could go CW when the policy for a cash ticket would have had me in economy.

• Roger Wilco says:

  21 Feb21 February 09:23

  Large corps are unlikely to be part of OB, they’d have their corp rates. OB is a SME programme.

  I treat OB as something “extra” and used it a few times in Europe when Avios redemption was none and cash prices high.

  • Lady London says:

    21 Feb21 February 13:46

    Taking both the Avios and the On Business changes into account, these can only work if BA is very confident it has a tight hold on its corporate customers. If there is a backlash then top corporate customers can be assured their BA sales reps will really open the cupboard to give them even better discounts and deal than those major corporates get now.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.