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BRITISH AIRWAYS is to scrap its popular Air Miles loyalty
scheme used by more than 600,000 frequent flyers. They will
now be offered BA Miles, a far less generous scheme that will
give many members of BA's Executive Club fewer free flights.

For example, under the Air Miles scheme, members had to
make nearly six round trips to Paris to qualify for a free return
flight to the French capital. But to qualify for the same free flight
with BA Miles they will have to make 26 flights.

Experts believe that the beleaguered airline, which announced
disappointing annual results last week, is ditching the Air Miles
scheme as part of a big cost-cutting drive.

One of the major advantages of the Air Miles scheme was that
people could also earn miles when they spent money with
other firms, notably Sainsbury's and Shell. However, under the
new scheme people are not expected to have such a wide
choice of firms.

A spokeswoman for the airline says: "We are no longer sure
that our frequent flyers want to collect points by shopping at
Sainsbury's. They may prefer to accumulate points when they
stay in hotels or hire a car." BA has announced that members
of the new scheme will be able to collect points when they use
car hire firms like Avis and Hertz or hotel chains like Hilton and
InterContinental. More partners will be announced in
September.

Although the BA Miles scheme is less generous when earning
free European flights, BA says that BA Miles will benefit
members flying to long-haul destinations. Under Air Miles, they
had to make nearly 10 round trips to New York to earn a free
return flight. With BA Miles, they will have to make only seven.

Members will have their Air Miles automatically exchanged to
BA Miles in October, unless they choose to opt out. They will
get a special bonus exchange rate of 14 BA Miles for every Air
Mile in their account.

Members can opt into the scheme again in January, when they
will get 10 BA Miles for every Air Mile.

Members can choose to keep their Air Miles in a separate
account, but can not collect them through the Executive Club
after January 15, 2001.

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