British Airways and Iberia are following the industry trend, and are switching to revenue-based points accrual. There’s hardly anything surprising here, and of course it’s being spun as a positive (because remember, there’s no such thing as a negative change in the airline industry!).
Continue reading: British Airways & Iberia Move To Revenue-Based Avios Earning
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
JESUS SAVES!
I've been praying to Him for eons to make BA's program go revenue-based, and I've been clamoring for it to BA for over 20++ years, saying to BA "I don't want to earn lots of bonus Avios based on distance and class of service, I want to earn them only on the money I spend! So if I spend less money for a first class ticket instead of buying a full-fare first class ticket, then I demand FEWER and LESS ENRICHING REWARDS!"
And BA listened!
BA RISING!
(Barf)
If taxes, fees, and charges truly are excluded, then that means the "fuel" surcharge as well, right? So it's more or less 10 avios per roundtrip flight as, on paid tickets, the price of the ticket is something like 1 EUR/GBP and the rest is all kinds of funny surcharges. Doesn't create much loyalty now, does it?
One wonders how long Alaska Airlines can afford to hold out as a miles-based program ...
Hang on, what does this mean for Avios redemptions on both Iberia and BA? Any word on that?
AA's fares usually have a significant chunk of "carrier fees" embedded in what is effectively a tax dodge. That spend does get calculated as Points/Miles. (it's government or airport fees that are excluded.)
@ Daniel from Finland -- It hasn't been officially clarified one way or another, but I would hope/assume that carrier imposed surcharges do earn Avios.
According to Head for Points, it’s been clarified and surcharges will be excluded (see comments under the HfP post).
It seems people are willing to share an opinion without even investigating. SkyPesos, SkyPesos. I would encourage critics to use BA's mileage calculator tool to determine the number of Avios earned for a given route, cabin, and tier status. Then, do a simple calculation on fare (net of taxes and fees) multiplied by tier status multiplier. From Iberia, we can assume Blue = 5X, Bronze = 6X, Silver = 7X, and Gold = 8X. Assuming Silver status, doing the math for a number of routes in discounted business class, 1) long-haul international wins (in some cases quite substantially), 2) very short intra-Europe wins, and 3) mid-range intra-Europe loses. Frankly, anyone traveling from the US to the UK is going to be better off under the new system. But, clearly, some people gripe just to gripe.
Would be interested in analysis on what this means for Qatar too, given avios are interchangeable.
Not long ago you could buy iberia/ba avios on sale and transfer to QR.
Should we expect revenue earning and dynamic avios pricing on Qatar soon?
Does anyone know what, if anything, this does for taking trips on BA or Iberia and crediting the flight to a partner? In other words will I still get that 3.5 x actual mileage when I credit my BA business class flight to ALASKA?
Small print states:
*Applies to net spending, including ancillary purchases and carrier imposed charges but excluding taxes and fees.