Earlier today I took the blogosphere to task for at least half a dozen sensationalist headlines and blog posts about the sky falling for the British Airways Avios program, my favorite mileage currencies for short-haul flights.
I outlined my rationale for why the supposed Iberia Avios changes didn’t have to mean anything for the British Airways program.
Gary commented on that post that the Iberia changes signaled a real risk for British Airways Avios as the Iberia changes were huge.
Only problem is that there were no changes.
Turns out that Iberia’s little explored Avios program has never allowed the cheap short-haul rates that we love so much on partner airlines, except for travel Iberia, British Airways, and Vueling.Ā So nothing has changed at all.Ā You can still use Iberia Avios to fly on Iberia with low fuel surcharges and you still cannot use Iberia for cheap OneWorld tickets as you were never able to.
Google Cache only takes us back to July 28, but even then you can see the same overpriced OneWorld award chart when using Iberia Avios.
FT member Travellair also sent me this link to the Iberia chart from before the Avios program launched in November 2011.Ā Turns out all they did when Avios launched was multiply all of the awards by 15.Ā They never did have the 4.5K awards on most OneWorld partner airlines, those were only offered systemwide via British Airways Avios and Avios.com.
The only thing that I can see that might have changed is that you can now book partner awards on airlines like American on Iberia.com instead of having to call them up. Not that you would want to considering that a LGA-MIA flight would cost 36K Iberia Avios round-trip (as it always has) versus 15K British Airways Avios round-trip.
And so after a bizarre day of blog posts about changes to the Iberia Avios program that never actually happened, British Airways Avios goes on to live another day.
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21 Comments On "Breathe Easy Folks, The Reports Of The Death Of British Airways Avios Have Been Greatly Exaggerated"
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Kudos Dan for clarifying this I have commented in the other post about this that it’s was a false alarm and turns out its was indeed
Bravo!
Baruch Hashem!
With this news or lack thereof, if I have 125k MR points that I must transfer, where should they go? I want to travel with them so broker isn’t an option.
Tia
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But now BA has a ready plan…..
Gary needs to break headlines. If he can’t pump a credit card he needs to keep people coming back by sensationalizing stories, even if they aren’t true. Meanwhile he didn’t even find the story, someone tipped him to find out what is going on. 12 hours later, every blogger on boarding area is h/t Gary about the doomsday that is Avios.
I agreaa with @Chaim, now the seed has been planted. Such a such. Thanks, Dan, for clarifying!
@Jessica:
There will always be devaluations for miles just like the dollars in your pocket.
Luckily today is not the day.
Thanks goodness we have Dan!!!! Your BIL says hi back š
@Jesus:
Well, he did say you were an odd duck.
I think you mean an odd fish (shark)
@Jesus:
If it quacks like a duck…
Thanks for grounded calm and reasoning during the panic and chaos……and a well written blog! – difficult to read others with poor vocabulary and/or grammar.
@MarkM:
Appreciate that, thanks.
Long live ba avios!
This is bad karma, man. BA reads blogs.
@Osborne Greene:
So because several blogs were running scared about a non-event they’re going to devalue their program?
I don’t follow the karma connection unless it works on the same plane as the ayin horah (evil eye).
Regardless, we have yet to see a mileage transfer discount for a long time on BA with AMEX points š
I am still would be surprised for such a large leap. BA miles have so little worth already, that they would basically be killing the program.
Can someone tell me how to book US domestic flights using British Airways Avios miles? I have a bunch that will expire and could use them to fly to LAX? Thanks in advance.