BA Moves To Revenue Based Avios Earning

British Airways has recently released details on its move from cabin class and distance-based Avios earning to revenue-based Avios earning. The changes see a fixed amount of Avios earnt per £1 spent (with some caveats) depending on your status level. The changes will kick in for any tickets booked from the 18th of October onwards. BA claims that ‘This is a simpler and more transparent system’ but how does compare to the previous way of earning Avios? Is it really ‘simpler’ for the average traveller? Let’s jump in and take a look…

What changes in the move to revenue-based Avios earning?

Historically you received Avios based on the number of miles flown & what cabin you fly in (check BA’s calculator) with the following elite status bonus…

• Bronze – 25%
• Silver – 50%
• Gold – 100%

Under the change to revenue-based Avios earning you will now earn Avios based on the COST of your ticket. Sounds simple right? Well, it’s not… BA is basing the Avios you earn on the NET cost of your ticket. This means any taxes and external surcharges are deducted from the cost you paid before BA calculates the Avios you’ve earnt.

This can make it very difficult in advance to know exactly how many Avios you’d earn from a flight as the taxes and external surcharges can vary massively and form a large part of cheaper, economy tickets. Previously you only had to use BA’s calculator to work out how many Avios you will earn… with this change… you’ll probably need to do the same again! Not particularly ‘simpler and more transparent!’

The status bonuses are now in terms of Avios earnt per £1 spent…

• Blue – 6 Avios per £1
• Bronze – 7 Avios per £1
• Silver – 8 Avios per £1
• Gold – 9 Avios per £1

The only upside is that you will now earn Avios for money spent on seat selection fees and additional baggage fees.

Why is the change being made?

According to the official BA press release the change is being made in response to customer feedback. The change sharply decreases the amount of Avios earnt by flying for most customers, the only customers that really benefit are the ones on expensive tickets, perhaps they were the only ones to fill in the survey!

Whilst it’s being described as a ‘simpler and more transparent’ system we feel for the average traveller this is incorrect. It can be very difficult to work out what parts of the price you paid for your ticket is actually eligible to earn Avios. Instead, this change seems to be aimed at people in finance who would easily be able to correlate a return based on money spent.

Even from a loyalty perspective, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, on routes where BA has to compete with other airlines earning a ‘decent’ amount of Avios would sway customers to fly with BA. If you are earning peanuts you’ll likely focus on the other elements of the airline experience (where BA can often fall short) when making up your mind about who to purchase your ticket with.

But like it or not it’s coming soon…

When does BA change to revenue-based Avios earning?

The changes kick in for tickets booked from the 18th of October onwards. Tickets booked before this date will earn Avios under the old earning rates.

Conclusion

You can read more about BA’s switch to revenue-based Avios earning on their website here. It will be interesting if they have to make any concessions like Iberia did to stop customers from deflecting to other carriers on certain routes. What do you think of the changes? Let us know in the comments below!