British Airways devalues Club Europe Avios redemptions

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• ChrisBCN says:

  18 Jul18 July 13:41

  Is it just me or have most commenters lost all perspective today?

  • Peter K says:

    18 Jul18 July 13:58

    I believe you’re correct.

    • Danny says:

      18 Jul18 July 14:02

      BA lost its perspective when it downgraded many band 3 routes to band 2.

    • Bernard says:

      18 Jul18 July 14:24

      Depends on where you start from:
      Someone who plans badly and pays the highest J class club fares or part of the carried interest set? Then maybe £100-125 extra per family is just another round of drinks for you.
      For others, £125 matters.

      • ken says:

        18 Jul18 July 15:58

        If £125 matters then don’t fly Club Europe.

        For a 2 hour flight I don’t really see the value other than the lounge.

        If you are going long haul then presumably for a family you have several hundred thousand Avios and happy to pay £300 a year for a credit card, so it hardly ranks with the 2 child benefit cap.

        • Bernard says:

          18 Jul18 July 16:46

          ‘£125 doesn’t matter’
          There speaks the 1% who I hope BA explore the limits of their price inelasticity with.

          After all, there are certain specialist tour operators who will differentially price depending on postcode and how your house looks on google street view. The red trouser brigade get charged what they are prepared to pay, not a set mark up.

          Time BA did the same more aggressively. Then they can keep pricing competitive for more value orientated customers.

        • Rob says:

          18 Jul18 July 18:18

          BA doesn’t want value oriented customers. This is why most short hauls now have 12 rows of Club Europe (and they’d do more if there was a way of getting the catering on and if the legroom didn’t collapse behind Row 12) and why the number of Economy seats on the new long-haul aircraft is pitiful.

        • Occasional Ranter says:

          18 Jul18 July 18:30

          I’m certainly enjoying Bernard’s thought experiment, in which BA becomes the agent of some kind of leisure travel higher phase communism. From each according to his ability etc…

        • Danny says:

          18 Jul18 July 19:11

          BA wanted value oriented customers when Señor Cruz was at the helm though

        • James says:

          18 Jul18 July 19:42

          Entitled much? What a stupid comment

  • Danny says:

    18 Jul18 July 14:09

    And these changes without the courtesy of any notice or email notification, either before or after, just underlies that BA cannot be trusted.

    They hope people won’t notice.

    • Mikeact says:

      18 Jul18 July 15:09

      Remind me ask Sainsbury’s why the price of McVite biscuits have been increased…no notice whatsoever .

      • Danny says:

        18 Jul18 July 15:25

        Remind yourself that a flight purchase can’t be compared to an overpriced biscuit brand?

        • Peter K says:

          18 Jul18 July 15:28

          True, you can’t take back your biscuits after 11 months for a refund of most of the outlay paid because you changed your mind 😁

        • Danny says:

          18 Jul18 July 15:32

          Neither would you get any interest back on that refund…

      • Charlie says:

        18 Jul18 July 20:17

        Not a problem. As long as Sainsbury’s don’t sell you Nectar points today selling McVitie’s biscuits at xx points, then overnight increase McVities’s biscuits to xx+xx% points. If companies are selling their own currency in the £000s, and then devaluing at will, it’s time for greater regulation. BA selling £££+ of Avios is not the same as a Texaco set of stamps for a badminton racket or a Gloria Estefan cassette tape.

• Ian says:

  18 Jul18 July 13:43

  “people are paying this new fee”. – “let’s add it to economy as well!”

  “Oh but now we need to increase CE fee as well – they can afford £49 fee – let’s keep it below £50 to show it isn’t too bad.”

  I can see it now in a month or two……

  • Bernard says:

    18 Jul18 July 14:30

    Given how some shrug it off, BA would be well advised to add a super peak avios period to the bucket and spade spot favoured by those who think nothing of this. Ie double or more the avios needed to beach resorts and Islands in July/August and quadruple the co-pays.
    Same for Cape Town, Barbados over Christmas.

    Peak/off peak is so binary.
    Time for super peak and maybe mega peak too. If Ryanair can charge £500 return that implies 50-100,000 avios for Malaga, Mallorca, etc around peak school holiday dates.

    • Danny says:

      18 Jul18 July 15:31

      I say put the Geneva flights into a band of their own

      • NorthernLass says:

        18 Jul18 July 16:19

        Private jet band. Could also apply to NCE/IBZ/PMI at certain times of the year.

        • Willmo says:

          18 Jul18 July 17:12

          Have you seen how much IB charge for their seasonal regional jet flights between the three cities you’ve mentioned.
          You can’t book a direct one way NCE to PMI or IBZ for under €900.

          Although, funnily enough, a great Avios redemption, with great award space.

      • Bernard says:

        18 Jul18 July 16:53

        Or indeed for any ‘red trouser’ or ‘spa’ destination

    • HampshireHog says:

      18 Jul18 July 17:47

      Jeez don’t even mention ideas that remove top value please

      • Willmo says:

        18 Jul18 July 19:52

        I’ve got a few more of them. Will keep them to myself then.

    • Lady London says:

      19 Jul19 July 14:26

      You mean dynamic pricing?

• Peter K says:

  18 Jul18 July 14:28

  Assuming avios are worth 1p each (not my personal view, but for argument’s sake) then the cost before this devaluation was, in Rob’s example:

  15000 + 50 = £150.50

  Now it’s 15000 + 1250 = £162.50

  Or:

  8500+2500 compared to 8500+3700

  That’s an approximate 8-11% increase in cost since 2013. What else do you know that’s only increased by 8-11% in the past 11 years?

  I’m not saying I won’t factor it into my calculations in deciding if CE is worth the extra compared to other options, but you were fooling yourself if you thought it was going to stay the same forever.

  As for the “no notice was given”, is that such a bad thing? From the comments on this site it wouldn’t surprise me that, if given notice, certain ones would book up many, many redemptions at the cheaper rate “just in case, it’ll only cost £0.50 to cancel”. That would then leave a massively, artificially, depleted stock for everyone else.

  • Bernard says:

    18 Jul18 July 14:31

    Actually, long term airfares are deflationary not inflationary.
    So yes it’s out of sorts – real terms air fares fall, avios devalued

  • Bernard says:

    18 Jul18 July 14:34

    Peter K which BA or IAGL team do you (obviously) work for?
    It’s clear you are on here as some form of social media defence. Defending the indefensible.

    • Peter K says:

      18 Jul18 July 14:48

      Ha ha ha ha. If you’ve read any of my previous messages over the years you’ll see that’s not true 😂 I could just as much claim you work for easyJet 😂

      Using actual facts, the ONS weighted average cost for economy flight costs in 2013 was £435 and in 2022 was £532.

      Just including short haul (non-domestic), non weighted economy figures it has gone from £165 to £188 on average over a year for 2013 and 2022.

      But I guess facts don’t allow for outrage to the same extent 😁

      Source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/adhocs/1203quarterlyandannualaverageairfareprices

      • Danny says:

        18 Jul18 July 15:26

        You’re forgetting the recent addition of 750 Avios to the Europe routes .

        • Danny says:

          18 Jul18 July 15:30

          https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/british-airways-avios-frequent-flyer-b1818898.html

          So this equates to an extra 750 Avios and £12 in cash, one way, over the past 2 years.

        • Peter K says:

          18 Jul18 July 15:32

          Good point. I had forgotten. That makes a difference, but doesn’t move the needle much in the argument overall. It’s not a 40+% increase in overall cost.

        • Peter K says:

          18 Jul18 July 15:39

          Over two years, and the same over 11 years 🙂

        • Occasional Ranter says:

          18 Jul18 July 15:45

          Peter – solid work. There are 2 issues – (1) devaluation of Avios and (2) lack of notice and you have posted hard facts to hopefully dampen some of the hysterics re (1)

    • Mikeact says:

      18 Jul18 July 15:41

      “Defending the indefensible.”
      Total rubbish.

      • Danny says:

        18 Jul18 July 16:02

        Hurray for the BA stooges. Now we can thank all of you when BA brings in more enhancements due to ‘customer feedback’.

        • Danny says:

          18 Jul18 July 16:04

          And during that past 11 years, free domestic add ons were abolished for Europe redemptions

        • Bernard says:

          18 Jul18 July 16:40

          Well said
          There’s a fair bit of Stockholm Syndrome’ here.
          But tbf, the suckers for BA /avios/amex come what may mean they over pay and subsidise the rest of us 🙂

        • Nico says:

          18 Jul18 July 17:14

          Any increase is annoying, but it could have been much worse. Very good analysis with numbers and facts. How much have taxes increased? Apd? Heathrow? Not all BA fault. Unfortunatelly all that is part of the avios game and in a way not so different than a central devaluation a currency! And in there you can’t avoid

        • Danny says:

          18 Jul18 July 23:03

          I also think those that are not complaining…. are those with status and who travel in Euro Traveller #ImAllRightMick

• roberto says:

  18 Jul18 July 15:48

  It’s a small rise totally in line with so many other small rises across the board which does not move my WTF needle more than half an inch.

  Now interest rate rises – that’s something worth getting upset over.

  • Danny says:

    18 Jul18 July 16:01

    Interest rate rises have what to do with BA?

    • Peter K says:

      18 Jul18 July 16:05

      If you don’t understand that then your arguments are dead in the water….

      • Bernard says:

        18 Jul18 July 16:38

        Be careful
        You are aware where BA’s jolco finance charges have recently trended?
        If not, I suggest that avoiding mid interpretation of what happens to uk bank interest rates and what happens at BA and IAG.

• Ian says:

  18 Jul18 July 17:36

  I think this whole debate is very odd. BA is a business, not a charity. It will charge whatever its target market is willing to pay. If enough HfP readers stopped collecting and redeeming Avios and took their business elsewhere, BA would stop no-notice devaluations, seat reservation fees, imaginary fees and charges, and everything else they can and do get away with. But of course BA isn’t worried at all about such a situation, because there are too many people who moan about it here, but continue to collect and spend Avios just as BA likes it.

• gavalar says:

  18 Jul18 July 17:53

  I am a BA blue and will always be that but redeem on CE routes around 1-2 per year and always with 2for1 or Barclays vouchers paying the 50p rate as a family of 5 (across 2 accounts often).
  We are doing Paris olympics this year for £5 (from Inv) you really can’t grumble if you want to help with costs and a family holiday.
  Long haul is more of a decision point as to what’s best value for us but you do get the internal flight for free which is nice points wise for those outside London.

• Julie Willers says:

  18 Jul18 July 18:16

  I was in the middle of booking Amex companion Avios redemption Club World to Tampa showing £900 taxes when the site crashed. When I got back on it was showing £950! When I completed the booking it only charged the £900.

• Eol says:

  18 Jul18 July 18:29

  I think it’s still the best for Eupope redemptions (compared to flying blue where you pay much more taxes and miles). I often go for the middle pption when redeeming flights as the 0.5p tax isn’t good value points wise anyway.

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