There’s some chatter in the comments of an HfP article about 80 TP routes of a Tier Point Review taking place which I haven’t seen discussed here.

What do we think might happen - elimination of SH+ benefit? Given the high fares of these routes (e.g. eastern Mediterranean) it would seem a ballsy chunk of revenue to play about with.

On the plus side it would hopefully imply that a switch to revenue based tier points is further away than rumoured…

 

Hmmmm... methinks as usual BA will give with one hand and use the other to take something away. Reducing TPs on s/h will annoy a fair portion of travellers, who despite protestations to the contrary, do have a choice of other airlines and alliances.

 

what is the claimed basis for the speculation on HfP? (not that speculation requires a basis of course)

 

For anyone interested, this is in the comments to the article on removal of earnings on QF codeshares.

I have no inside knowledge, and the hints are from people who seem to have had some sort of internal insight, but I guess my take on this is to look at the strategic objectives of IAG Loyalty and see how changes might build towards those. I know I'm a stuck record on this, but the strategic objective is to leverage credit card associated income and wallet share from wealthy customers on whom the loyalty scheme has a lot of marketing information, and they will be looking for revenue in excess of £5Bpa at very high margin. Strategic execution is about setting an objective and building a ladder to get there, and you don't insert unnecessary rungs because this eats resources.

Does removal of 80TP routes help with that? Not particularly. It may counter the "Why would I spend £20K to earn 200TPs when I can do an ex Manchester to Sofia and get the same for £300?" line. It puts more pressure on people to find other ways of earning TPs and shifting spend perhaps. But I can't really see the link to strategy. It's possible that the airline part of the business is concerned about number of status holders and want to throttle some of the earning back, particularly when it can be doubled up with a holiday. But I can't see that as part of the overarching IAG Loyalty game plan.

It's much more likely they'll want to apply an 80/20 revenue rule and go spend based. Be under no illusion that if IAGL want it, it will happen, regardless of what BA or BA customers think, though BAEC is the largest scheme and has a little bit of clout.

It's pretty clear we're on the cusp of big changes anyway. You can't do anything about these, so it's futile to worry about them. I haven't booked anything yet to earn from next April onwards, I have concentrated my earning to get GfL before that. There will always be interesting trips to do, there will always be deals, and if my existential dread is focused anywhere it's towards the incoming UK government and the high probability of punitive taxes on aviation sooner rather than later.

 

well, not to dispute the overall analysis, and that all aspects of BAEC are always under review and subject to change, it has at least let me find where the suggestion is:

it's not an "offer". I suspect this person is wholly confused between the BAH double tp offer, and the pretty much permanent (well certainly since 2010 when my travel history goes back to) sh+ tp earning. and just to add my own understanding, the BAH double tps offer has been extended multiple times now and i believe they are looking to make it permanent.

also i always like these kinds of comments in another post

reminds me of the economist who predicts every year that there will be a recession. at some point they will be right, but it doesn't mean they know what they are talking about

it is a fact of life that ffps have changes from time to time, and they are pretty much always in favour of the airline and not the members. anyone who has been around for a few years doesn't need a crystal ball to predict that.

 

I read a comment somewhere cant remember where that the QF/Emirates changes was just a mere trimming.. I guess time will tell and if/when changes happen we can have a multi page thread to whinge about it running side by side the plethora of does this get me double tier points and how can I get xx tier points.

 

I would say the double tier point offer on BAH was a significant benefit for certain canny leisure travellers, along with the points reductions /extensions post covid. These measures have certainly benefitted BA and BA Holidays as well.

First check-in this morning was heaving with holiday makers (including us), with 52 in CE on our flight to an sh+ destination, while we are slumming it with jokered b class tickets I'm sure many up front are on a holiday booking.

 

won't the QF/EK issue be something which is for QF to decide tho? i can't see why it would be a part of any internal BA/IAG loyalty review of BAEC?

another thought - historically have any of these people claiming inside knowledge ever been correct? does anyone remember someone accurately predicting membership year alignment? i am not saying those making statements are trying to be malicious, more that they have heard something from a mate who's wife works at BA and has heard something from someone else - the information is usually so mangled by that stage it loses any semblance of truth even if there was one to start with.

crewmours and galley gossip are rarely accurate

 

Would be fascinating to hear BA's internal discussions on this.

I think the most important TP changes will be coming shortly and will have little to do with actually flying.
This was certainly alluded to by senior staff present at the Hyde Park event who said the TP earning on Amex trial was a success and are well aware that AA is fast becoming a credit card company with an airline attached (as opposed to BA who were well known for being a pension fund with an airline attached, although say what you like about Liz Truss but she has cured an awful lot of DB pension scheme deficits...).

Really interesting article about Delta who made $2Bn from the Amex cards last year and who now seemingly have little to no actual requirements for segments/flying to gain status:To earn Delta elite status in 2024, simply earn enough Medallion Qualifying Dollars (MQDs) for your desired status tier. Here’s what each tier requires.

• Silver Medallion status: $5,000 MQDs
• Gold Medallion status: $10,000 MQDs
• Platinum Medallion status: $15,000 MQDs
• Diamond Medallion status: $28,000 MQDs

In general 1 MQD is given for about $10 of actual spend.
I can only imagine that if BA were giving away Gold Guest List status for £250k credit card spend there would be many people who found that easier to attain than the ignominy of actually having to sit through 3k TPs worth of flights every year, particularly if it also applied to e.g. the BA business Amex credit card spend.

Totally agree, I have been saying this since it happened, particularly in light of the number of "things" that actually were being predicted on here at the time (myself included ), none of which came true!

Anyway, this is me officially predicting permanent credit card spend TP earning from April 2025.

 

Much harder for BA to copy the credit card model in Europe where interchange fees are capped. Obviously they can do it for US customers though.

 

The thing about leaks and inside info is that generally those who know things also are easily identifiable and know how to G-STFU, so to speak. The people who know things are happening without knowing exactly what is a larger group, and some of them will want to wave their appendages around by dropping hints.

The fact of there being discussions - unlikely NOT to be the case tbh - does not necessarily mean there are outcomes. But you can judge direction of travel. And on the one hand you have BA management saying double digit revenue growth is difficult, it'll be at airline margins which are thin, and we need investment in IT and customer experience; and on the other hand you have IAGL saying here's £5B incremental at 45% or whatever it is, all you need to do is allow us to rejig earnings a bit and work with Amex. So which of those two groups is going to get more c-suite ear-time?

I wasn't at the event, but the people there were saying essentially what I've been pointing out, so it's percolated into BA management. This is in my opinion a business fad, and you don't end up necessarily with everyone winning, some of this will go horrendously wrong for airlines because they're all going after the same pot of gold. There's also a comment about whether the schemes are "jumping the shark" on HfP, and there is a point where it's not worth participating. When all this shakes out, Avios are an easily devaluable pseudo currency worth about 0.5p per point in convertible value. Why bother?

 

https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/0...ommentsContent
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This more specifically is what I was reading.

 

I could completely understand the F redemption restrictions.
Most of my F flights nowadays have full cabins from weeks beforehand, suggesting that they are full of paying customers, and not involuntary upgrades.
Makes sense given the vastly reduced number of F seats compared to the past too.
If it slightly increased F availability for GCH and up it would probably be welcomed by those groups.

Having said that, a restriction to e.g. using GUFs to book in F would be most unwelcome!

 

As the old proverb goes, restrictions on First redemptions for thee not for me

 

Just to clarify the below, Delta you must fly. Those MQD's that status is based off are for dollars spent on Delta or SkyTeam partner flights.. Its $1 = 1 MQD... So you have to fly Delta or Skyteam.
American of course went to the status based on spend model.. So you can have a spend on anything/everything without flying and earn status with them..

I am guessing all airlines will continue to tweak (or start) making it more conducive to spending more on the affiliated cards to equate to status.... There is too much money on the table not to do it apparently.