British Airways Executive Club has devalued short haul partner awards on Cathay Pacific and Japan Airlines, and the way that the program is going about it is both frustrating and strange.
Continue reading: British Airways Partner Award Devaluation: Frustrating & Strange
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I’m willing to bet everything that I have you’ll start to see all the partner awards be at the similar (or worse) redemption rates as the carrier your trying to use them on.
You don’t think TPG pointing to millions and millions of people out how much of a better of a deal it is to use Avios for AA than AA itself is going to cause a similar change ?
None of this is a surprise to me. Unfortunately, this is a problem you guys helped create. Things may change when the loyalty world leaders start to see people just lose interest in constantly changing up credit card and airline travel strategy to keep up with this cat and mouse game so to speak. But I doubt it will be anything like it was in the glory days when you would ride CX first just for fun on the weekends.
“Unfortunately, this is a problem you guys helped create”….hear, f-ing, hear! Thanks to all these bloggers for ruining what anyone with half a brain took advantage back in the day. I flew a RTW ticket on Continental for 90,000 miles back in 2006, in addition to other great redemptions. Then all these guys started blasting this info all over. Ben, like your blog, but please stop with the indignation about airlines devaluing their awards. You and the others helped lead to these devaluations. And they don’t have to provide any reason at all, not that I’m happy about it, but the boo-hooing over them changing the redemption rates is comical.
I'm beginning to wonder if all these changes and the broader 'aligning' of award rates has something to do with oneworld's stated aim of being able to redeem any miles across the alliance on any award \ upgrade. By making awards across similar distanced broadly the same across all partners, it helps to create equivalence across the currencies for these cross alliance award types (similar to how Star Alliance airlines have a whole alliance award chart).
This is exactly the reason why you should only buy miles if you can book a ticket straight away.
Interesting that this change was made to devalue short haul Cathay Pacific and JAL at a time when either hub is hard to reach for foreign tourists. For instance what uses would I have from Hong Kong that is short haul that isn't mainland China!
Ben, I've also noticed that BA seems to be limiting economy availability on short-haul ex-US flights, including within the US and to the Caribbean. This used to be a sweet spot for BA, especially from MIA to the Caribbean, based on short distances. Now, business and first availability is abundant, but economy is very hard to find. Who wants to pay the inflated rates for domestic first seats? They are basically forcing premium cabin redemptions at unattractive rates.
So, looks like the old BA arrogance is back, in their lack of even acknowledging adverse changes after the event. Well it was merely mildly suppressed; you can never get rid of certain traits when it is firmly embedded in a nation's very DNA !
Let's hope it doesn't herald a resurgence of the snooty senior cabin crew.
That's the risk with holding too many AIRLINE or HOTEL points.....
However, some of their rewards are still pretty good compared to other airlines.
British Airways appears to have either restricted or eliminated eligibility for economy-level redemptions on JAL beyond October 31.