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MSE News: Avios vs its detractors - read the opposing views

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"
There's been huge controversy after the Airmiles flight reward programme was scrapped last week, replaced by Avios. Read a campaigner's anger at the change and why Avios says it had to axe Airmiles ..."
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Comments

  • richardw
    richardw Posts: 19,458 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts
    edited 25 November 2011 at 1:48PM
    These schemes are always subject to availability and terms and conditions are changeable, the complainers seem to forget this.

    They can still book under the old scheme "[MSE insert: it's still possible to book under the Airmiles scheme until 16 December]" by calling airmiles. Flights up to mid Nov 2012 may be available.
    Posts are not advice and must not be relied upon.
  • @richardw, Of course they are subject to availability, but when, as Andrew Swaffield claims, 2.2 million people are told they are going to have to pay anything up to £500 - £600 on something which they did not have to pay before, do you not think that out of the 2.2 million people, there may be a surge in people trying to book, therefore the availability was greatly reduced. IF Airmiles had an ounce of decency about them, they would have increased availability as well as giving people more than 3 months to use up their existing miles.

    Also, when he says all customers where made aware, that is not correct, many people have not been made aware, in fact my wife is still waiting to hear from them.

    I have never seen such bad marketing, apart from the Hoover and The Daily Express £10 cruise fiascos

    You are correct, T&C’s can be changed, however, they cannot just be changed willy nilly, especially if it is detrimental to the customer to large extent, there is certain acts and regulations which cover that.

    One other thing Andrew Swaffield has forgotten to mention and probably hopes is overlooked, is the fact that, although he is blaming it on taxes, we are actually paying a fuel surcharge as well, which in many cases, is more expensive than the actual fare.

    This is three schemes merged into one, Airmiles as well as BA & Iberia’s schemes. As Airmiles is a fundamentally different scheme, in so much as collecting methods and spending methods, the Airmiles members have been discriminated against as they are now going to be out of pocket whilst members of the other two schemes benefit.

    The whole thing is a complete shambles, they do not even have the scheme finalised, but launch it, therefore not allowing members to make informed decisions.

    I doubt that Avios will fail as a company just as The BA Exec Club wouldn’t, but having made so many Airmiles members disgruntled, they will not have the customer base they hoped for. Certainly Lloyds and Tesco’s will lose business over this as many people only chose to use them because of the Airmiles.

    I also see that people that used to be pro Avios are now seeing the true colours of Avios shine through.

    It will be interesting to see what happens when/if the airlines are forced to include the fuel surcharges as part of the fare. Will that be another fundamental change to the scheme.
  • richardw
    richardw Posts: 19,458 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts
    edited 25 November 2011 at 3:16PM
    BA has the world's largest fleet of B744 Jumbo jet aircraft in the world with over 50 of them in service,
    it also has over 50 B777 wide body aircraft.

    So that's over 100 wide body aircraft flying all over the world http://thebasource.com/aircraft.html.

    From 25 March 2012 it will be operating seven B774 aircraft every day to NYC JFK, the 8th flight will be a B777 http://airlineroute.net/2011/11/24/ba-lhrjfk-s12update2/.

    Little availability is just a red herring.

    At Dec 10th 2011, flights up to the end of Nov 2012 may be available, which is not indecent.
    Posts are not advice and must not be relied upon.
  • callum9999
    callum9999 Posts: 4,406 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    While I would be annoyed (I find the taxes etc. on free flights incredibly annoying and so rarely actually spend my airmiles with various airlines on flights), it makes perfect sense to change the scheme. I think they should have given you a bit longer to book your next flight, but no other airline runs a scheme where they will pay your taxes for you, so I don't see why BA should be expected to.
  • wiwo
    wiwo Posts: 8 Forumite
    richardw wrote: »
    BA has the world's largest fleet of B744 Jumbo jet aircraft in the world with over 50 of them in service,
    it also has over 50 B777 wide body aircraft.

    So that's over 100 wide body aircraft flying all over the world

    From 25 March 2012 it will be operating seven B774 aircraft every day to NYC JFK, the 8th flight will be a B777

    Little availability is just a red herring.

    At Dec 10th 2011, flights up to the end of Nov 2012 may be available, which is not indecent.

    it is not a red herring. if you were actually a member of airmiles and were trying to book a flight in the mad panic between the announcement in september and the closing date of mid november, you would have noticed that whole months were blocked out of the most appealing routes. airmiles actually are only able to book it seems at most 2 "cheap" seats on each flight before they are blocked off from any more.

    it doesn't matter how big BA's fleet is, if they only release a tiny proportion of availability to airmiles customers. which they well knew was the case before they announced the closure of the scheme (so they well anticipated there would be a mad rush and most people would be forced to go without and carry forward their points into avios). it's all been planned very carefully on their side to benefit them and not the customers...
  • thelawnet
    thelawnet Posts: 2,580 Forumite
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    Whine whine whine.

    I couldn't be happier about it personally.

    The points made:

    * More to pay in cash for long haul

    Long-haul was never a good deal cf. short-haul anyway. Long-haul Club flights are a better deal now.

    To go through the points made:

    * more to pay in cash for European flights;

    This is a weak argument. On balance, European flights are cheaper now than before, some hugely so, e.g., Moscow. Ok there is a cash payment in addition to miles, but given that the miles had a financial value, reducing the miles cost and adding a small £27 charge is fair.

    * uncertainty about non-BA regional airports; [With Avios, there will only be six airports that customers can fly from (Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester and London) in order to get the ridiculously named 'Reward Flight Saver'.]
    Another weak argument. The BA regional airports are now a much better deal, while the non-BA ones it seems will charge fees, BUT the 500 mile surcharge is removed, AND many destinations are now a better deal. For instance Flybe Southampton-Bergerac at 2000 miles now 900 miles plus £64 in fees. Much better deal under the new scheme.

    * unclear availability;

    Seems ok to me.

    * technical problems on the new site;

    Standard. They have made massive changes to the system. They will get over it. So will you.

    * having to share info to join a public forum.

    Boo-hoo, welcome to Facebook.



    Bottom line: the Avios scheme is DIFFERENT. Some things that were a good deal before are no longer a good deal. Some things are now a good deal but weren't before. Work with the scheme, there are plenty of great offers. Stop whining and try and focus on the positives because you are not going to get all the good things in the old scheme and the new one.
  • richardw
    richardw Posts: 19,458 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts
    wiwo wrote: »
    between the announcement in september and the closing date of mid november

    the closing date by telephone is 16th December 2011, by 10th December 2011, airmiles can search for flights for you up to the end of November 2012.

    There's never been good availability on the most appealing routes at popular times, airmiles has always been bad for this.
    Posts are not advice and must not be relied upon.
  • callum9999
    callum9999 Posts: 4,406 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    thelawnet wrote: »

    You're assuming every recognises they have a cash value - I personally don't. All my airmiles are from flying or from Tesco and I don't see them as cash in the same way as I would for actual money. Mainly because those points don't actually cost me anything whereas having to pay for taxes does.

    And as the taxes on long haul flights are often the majority of the ticket price, how have they become better value? My gripe with them - particularly flights to America - is that I can generally find a flight for only a couple of pounds more than the cost of all the taxes and surcharges BA demand you pay on their reward flights - so I've never seen the point in actually using them.
  • victor2
    victor2 Posts: 7,846 Ambassador
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    I see Avios removed the community forum link from its front page as it wasn't getting much complimentary in it. It's still at community.avios.com - what's interesting is the changelog they provide, which includes gems like:
    Merged Surprise - get thousands of bonus Avios"
    NOT. by <username> into Surprise Bonus Avios offer for 2012
    Quite a few entries in the "praise" section disappeared too, probably something to do with them lacking much praise! :)

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  • thelawnet
    thelawnet Posts: 2,580 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    callum9999 wrote: »
    You're assuming every recognises they have a cash value - I personally don't. All my airmiles are from flying or from Tesco and I don't see them as cash in the same way as I would for actual money. Mainly because those points don't actually cost me anything whereas having to pay for taxes does.

    Eh what?

    You never earned 'Airmiles' from flying. That's one of the reason why they have rebranded, because 'airmiles' is a generic term typically referring to earn-as-you-fly schemes.

    Secondly the Tesco points have a definite cash value, you can sell them on ebay, redeem them for other things, use them in store. If you don't recognise their value well that's rather misguided because maybe Airmiles was not the best destination for your points.
    And as the taxes on long haul flights are often the majority of the ticket price, how have they become better value?

    Long-haul is now worse in Economy, but better in Club as the cost is now down from 3x miles to 2x miles, plus many of the mileages have been reduced. Generally for most people it's a negative, BUT the short-haul for me balances out as the long-haul redemptions (which were ALWAYS thin on the ground, no matter what anyone says) were never that good a deal compared with Zon e 1 short-haul redemptions in the first place.
    My gripe with them - particularly flights to America - is that I can generally find a flight for only a couple of pounds more than the cost of all the taxes and surcharges BA demand you pay on their reward flights - so I've never seen the point in actually using them.

    £27 + miles for European/North African flights. You will find this MUCH cheaper than buying the flights with cash.

    Not so for long-haul economy.
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