BA Miles to be devalued
 

An insider told me that an announcement will be made at the end of the year that BA miles will be devalued.
This might be an across the board % reduction and or a time limit to spend them.
Times is hard at BA so they think pi****g off the Executive Club loyal customers is the way to go. Way to go Willie....

KLM/AF did the same from April 2009 on the FF (FB) program. No value to be a FB anymore.

Better trow the loyalty out the door, buy a lounge card and take the best priced/value tickets instead= much better and cheaper then the "award hunting"

I am convinced that the good old South African governemt (pre-1994) had a 'Ministry of Bad Timing' which determined the worst possible time for any announcement or policy change.

I often wondered what happened to those people, obviously they are now working for Willie W.

BA P***ed me off long ago to the extent that I hope never to fly with them again, even though I have miles left over.

On the other hand this might just be a rumour without substance.

BA mess about with the exec club from time to time, invariably for the worse. Biggest own goal was under Eddington. The really heavy flyers in the club got a free silver card for the spouse - that benefit was withdrawn

Result - other halves all flew with best value/most conveniant airline instead of BA end of. Excellent marketing move as it ensured wives/hubbies occasionally flew the opposition and got to compare the product - all for the price of a coffee, biscuit and a chair in the exec lounge for an hour.

You couldnt make it up

It was worse than that......
 

BA made a promise to a group of business travellers that had held gold cards for some time. It was that after X years, (I think it was 5) of holding a gold card earnt by travelling with BA, they could have a permanent Silver card.
Surprise, surprise, they refused to honour that. Therefore, lots of prople who had used BA for rather a lot of flights suddenly found that BA told terminological inexactitudes and had become thoroughly dishonourable.
As a previous poster said, as an anti-marketing device, you couldn't make it up.

Became convinced some time back that BA policy towards Gold card holders was based on a belief that as they were all regular travellers on the airline anyway, it could treat them how it wanted.

One thing will be for sure. Any change to Exec Club benefits will probably favour the airline more than the Gold card holder, however it is dressed up.

Shame really as I have a number of friends who fly for BA as both flight deck and cabin crew. They are just as frustrated at the way bean counters are ruining this once excellent airline, as anyone else :ugh: Rant over.

Thats the real tragedy, it was an excellent airline.

I was a Gold Card holder for some 15 years. Now I'm silver, and most of the renewal has been down to Dragonair sectors (whose Business Class product is wonderful, by the way).

Does anyone at BA care? Not as far as I can see, because no one has bothered to contact me to ask why I'm no longer the frequent BA flyer I once was. And I'm not really surprised.

I have 500,000 miles and can never ever use them. As an ex BA Black Card holder I became so p....d off with the inflexible Air Miles programme that requires you to book so far in advance that I siwtched to an airline that cares and its executive programme is outstanding. Virgin Atlantic. BA are determined to loose their most valued customers.

Fully endorse the positive VS comments above and have similar positive experiences with an airline that many BA staff still laugh at. It's about time someone looked at the Flying Club mileage benefits, quality of lounge product, limo service, complaint handling, in flight entertainment system, general ambience and crew attitude, proper fastrack security at LHR and priority bag delivery whether on outbound or inbound flights. Maybe start to question whether BA could be learning something from this.

It was my birthday last week. A birthday card from VS Flying Club with the offer of some celebratory miles for my account. A little touch, perhaps, but the sort of thing that people remember. Never, in 10+ years of BA Gold membership, have I had anything similar.

My travel with BA has dropped off dramatically in recent years as I have also switched to VS on routes where there is a choice. And yet none of the BA marketeers seems to have noticed that a very frequent flyer is now a far less regular traveller and thought to contact me to ask the reason why.

Haven't a cluebackseatjockMy guess is this: They can't ask you the question - because they do not have the staff. Of course, they might not want to ask the question and their mgmt might not want to ask etc. there are many possibles.

From observation of BA and 30 years of modern so called mgmt, I suggest that the Mileage system will have been computerised to reduce it's costs and the staff looking after it are minders. The problem is almost certainly top down and is typical of old thinking. Don't forget that, in 25 years time PPRuNErs will be criticising VS for their old thinking and praising some new carrier ... but for now? BA are in their end game.

They are getting useful for last minute flights within Europe. Just rough figures, so don't try and pick them too pieces because if you do you are missing my point, but when booking a week in advance..... Loco might be after £125 one way and BA £200 one way. However you still find good availability when using BA miles, and they still stick it to you with their deceptive fuel surcharge, but total cash price for late bookings now tends to be less than the locos.

Never used to be like that, but the BA fuel surcharge is dropping and the LoCos are getting more expensive. .

And as for why they never contact frequent fliers, probably because they have already decided exactly what you want. They will probably also tell you that devaluing miles is what the customer wanted and they will have a specially designed questionairre to prove it.

I would have no trouble using them.

How can you not use them? BA redemptions are always pretty easy to get as long as you plan properly. Of course there are always some routes which are harder than others during school holidays etc;

As for the devaluation rumour - very unlikely.

Depends what you mean by 'devalue'. They (together with other airlines) have a track record of devaluing miles, though the last time BA did this sort of thing a few years back they called it an 'enhancement'. An enhancement to them, a devaluation to their customers.

Do non-redeemed frequent flier miles sit on their balance sheet as a liability? Their balance sheet is truly dreadful right now, probably technically insolvent if you properly value their pension fund liabilities, from an accounting point of view it might make sense to devalue the miles.

I wish I could use them to book a real "free" flight like I can wish my Swiss Miles & More....i.e. also cover the taxes.

Looking at BAs financial news today and losses, I rather suspect Paxboy may be right as to BAs demise. And that will really devalue those miles - by about 100%

To clarify, I don't think BA is closing now and would hesitate to put a time on it other than to say that, if they are still here in their present form in 10 years (max) then I would be surprised.

Likewise Microsoft. BA rose slow and will close slow, M'soft rose fast and will close fast. Some companies/people/countries/political parties buck the trend but very few.

I've never had any problems using my BA miles and am off to Miami in October in Business Class thanks to them.

Also had a very nice letter from BA a couple of years when, after several years in Silver, I was due to drop down to Blue; instead, BA let me have another year in Silver as recognition of all the years I'd been a customer.

Absolute hysterical nonsense. :rolleyes:

Absolute hysterical post.

Neither manintheback nor Paxboy have said this will happen in a particular time frame.

In my opinion, Paxboy's view (which he has expressed for quite a while) is realistic.