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BIG NEWS: British Airways is ‘changing’ the cost of Avios redemption flights on partner airlines

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A worryingly vague email has just been sent out by British Airways to anyone who has recently booked an Avios redemption on a partner airline.

It says:

“As you’ve previously used your Avios to book reward flights with our global network of partner airlines, we wanted to let you know about some changes we’re making.

From 30 May 2019, we’ll be changing our Avios prices on reward flights with some of our partner airlines.

Don’t worry if you have an existing Avios booking with a partner airline. It’s still valid and you can make changes or cancel it if you need to*. Our new Avios prices will apply to any changes or new bookings you make after 30 May 2019.”

Here is the special page of ba.com it leads to:

“From 30 May 2019, we’ll be changing our Avios prices on reward flights with the following partner airlines:

  • Alaska Airlines
  • Air Italy
  • American Airlines
  • Cathay Pacific
  • Finnair
  • Japan Airlines
  • LATAM
  • Malaysia Airlines
  • Qantas
  • Qatar Airways
  • S7
  • Sri Lankan and
  • Royal Jordanian Airlines

The price of Avios upgrades on American Airlines only will also be changing from 30 May 2019. You will pay the difference between the Avios prices of your booked cabin and your upgraded cabin.

Don’t worry if you have an existing Avios booking with one of these airlines. It’s still valid and you can make changes or cancel it if you need to*. Our new Avios prices will apply to any changes or new bookings you make after 30 May 2019.

There will be no change to our Avios prices for reward flights and upgrades with British Airways, Aer Lingus, Iberia or Vueling. The Avios prices for our other services are also unaffected, so you can continue to benefit from spending your Avios on our wide range of hotels, car hire and experiences.”

This is, to put it mildly, not exactly informative.

The email is also untrue because as HfP readers know there ARE changes to Avios pricing on British Airways, which BA has already started to implement.

Avios partner pricing changes

As far as I can see, the new pricing is not available anywhere on ba.com.  The reward calculator only has the current prices.

My best guess, as part of BA’s continual efforts to make the Avios programme too confusing for anyone without a PhD in Mathematics, is that we will now have three levels of pricing:

off-peak for flights on BA

peak for flights on BA

pricing for flights on partner airlines

What is NOT clear is whether the current sector-by-sector pricing will remain as it is, or if we will move back to origin-to-destination pricing where the cost is driven by the overall distance and not the cost of each individual leg.

I don’t see a huge amount of logic to this.  All I can think of is that – because taxes are generally lower on partner flights which don’t touch the UK – BA saw an opportunity to whack up the cost because they still look a bargain compared to ex-UK flights.

Anyway …. the little we know can be read here at ba.com.

PS.  On the positive side, if this is genuinely the only change which is going to be made to Avios in the medium term then it won’t impact too many people based in the UK.  We have already seen, for example, BA charging higher taxes and charges to US residents flying to the UK compared to UK residents flying to the US.  I wouldn’t necessarily believe that though.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (107)

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

  • BJ says:
    29 Apr29 April 17:16

    For those heading East: if it continues to be sector by sector, and the zones remain unchanged, Finnair will become increasingly attractive relative to other partners due to their being insulated by many of their longhaul East-bound flights falling into zone 6. To save both cash an avios AY exAMS might prove to be a good option if one found it difficult to find their way to Helsinki to start from there.

    • Lady London says:
      29 Apr29 April 17:47

      I think they will whack up the minimum Avios for the shortest routes. They did that for domestic US routes already.

      Then I think they will proudly say they are leaving Y mileage required alone (we know better from the zone 3 sneaky changes) or some other thing about keeping mileage bookings accessible at the bottom end.

      Then they’re going to whack up J and F costs, but especially J, on any partners. They’ve buried QR by providing their complete list of partners, but QR will be a prime target.

      They might even have the cheek to whack up transatlantic avios whilst saying “and our current taxes and charges for these will remain unchanged”.

      Please British Airways prove me wrong
      RFS gone, and the rest gutted..

      • Rob says:
        29 Apr29 April 18:02

        RFS has not gone anywhere, at least under the current Zone 3 prices. Some people will actually prefer the new way of pricing.

      • BJ says:
        29 Apr29 April 19:23

        There has to be a limit to what the can get away with though, at the end of the day we can get miles-earning revenue flights to the States and the Far East from as little as £1000 in business if we are flexible, and no trouble at all in the £1500-2000 range. I doubt they want to damage avios as a going concern but they are increasingly reliant on avios in the hands of dummies and I’d like to think that is a diminishing pool.

  • Neil Donoghue says:
    29 Apr29 April 17:23

    And here comes the devaluation! Right on time

  • Josh Greenberg says:
    29 Apr29 April 17:30

    AA cut way back on inventory months ago. Very little or no premium transcon avalability for since.
    50k + $5.60 for first on the three-cabin JFK-LAX was a great value for a ticket which routinely runs $2,500+.

    The JFK-MIA redemptions in first for 15k have been the real sweet spot out of New York. Amazing deal. I will miss those.

  • Andrew says:
    29 Apr29 April 17:39

    I don’t understand your ‘PS’ positivity – most of the One World airlines fly from the UK and many of us choose to redeem Avios on their more superior business class products – QR, CX etc. So actually this does have a big impact as BA will achieve what they want probably which is for us to redeem our Avios on BA metal rather than with OW partners.

    • Rob says:
      29 Apr29 April 17:46

      I think if this is as bad as it gets – and nothing else happens for the next 2-3 years – then it is survivable.

      The problem with BA is that I doubt it appreciates, although it will see the drop in third party revenue, how much more difficult it is getting to pick up Avios from non-flight options (Tesco, Amex etc) and therefore there is ALREADY a devaluation on the supply side.

      • BJ says:
        29 Apr29 April 19:08

        How about those domestic connections for 2020 pricing up with the additional sector avios: a genuine glitch or something being loaded into the system that were not yet supposed to go live?

      • Thomas Howard says:
        29 Apr29 April 22:03

        According to the IAG annual report 115.1milliard Avios were earnt and 86.4milliard were redeemed last year. Using Robs value of 1 avios = 1p and assuming it costs BA as much to issue as redeem each Avios (ha!), AGL provided £287m of positive cash flow in 2018. Could this go negative if we all struggle to earn as many Avios next year and have to use more to make the redemptions we had planned?

      • Mikeact says:
        30 Apr30 April 10:38

        Maybe, but even a Million or so Avios doesn’t necessarily go too far nowadays. Two long hauls for two, up front to the Far East, or the unobtainable Sydney, and you are quickly depleted. Do you spend them now or wait for a rainy day ?

  • BJ says:
    29 Apr29 April 17:42

    For those heading East 2: Don’t forget to lock in those regional sweet spots including Bangkok to Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur to a whole bunch of zone 1 & 2 destinations, Japan domestic etc.

    • meta says:
      29 Apr29 April 18:57

      The problem is that domestic JAL flights are not released in full until 2-3 months out, so unless you have immediate plans, you have no option. I was planning to book some flights for next year’s trip with Avios. Now, I am think I am going to use more shinkansen as paying cash comes out the same. If others start thinking the same, I can’t see partner airlines being happy about a drop in revenue.

      • Lady London says:
        29 Apr29 April 19:12

        Rest assured British Airways will be keeping any extra cash required. Partner airlines might see a drop in usage of their award seats by BA passengers but BA would have only paid an interline type price for those anyway..

        • Rob says:
          29 Apr29 April 19:44

          Exactly – and that cost is so low, you can only assume it is a desire to collect more surcharges via BA flights.

      • djfost says:
        29 Apr29 April 19:29

        Might be worth taking a look at JAL Explorer Pass if you haven’t already. Not a pass per se, but a cheap fare available for foreign travellers. 20TPs in Exec Club for each HND-ITM one way…

        • Jerry says:
          29 Apr29 April 21:16

          ANA also has a tourist pass for Japan which can work out cheaper than using avios with JAL despite the low taxes. We’ve done this and recommend it.

    • Marcw says:
      29 Apr29 April 21:33

      Japan domestic is not really worth it with JAL Japan’s explorer. Of course only valid for non-Japanese

  • Gavin says:
    29 Apr29 April 17:43

    Sounds like bad news for the bargain domestic JAL redemptions which I’ve made use of several times.

  • SammyJ says:
    29 Apr29 April 17:44

    Not so good for those of us who use our Avios for low cost US redemptions like LAX-Hawaii. I guess I’ll be looking more closely at what O can get with Aer Lingus.

  • Arturas says:
    29 Apr29 April 17:57

    Just called BA Executive Club to ask for more details… The fun thing was that agent told me that they are not aware of this email and they told me it must be phishing email I got…. When I told them this information is on their news web site as well, she told me she was going to escalate it… Communication failure….. Fake news from BA:)

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

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