British Airways has increased the price of short haul flights, these now cost an additional 750 miles. This affects zone 1, 2 and 3 but doesn’t affect zone 4-9. For example the pricing for zone 1 is now as follows:
- Off-peak Economy: 4,750 Avios (was 4000 Avios)
- Peak Economy: 5,250 Avios (was 4500 Avios)
- Off-peak Business: 8,500 Avios, (was 7750 Avios)
- Peak Business: 9750 Avios (was 9000 Avios)
It’s always frustrating when airlines make devaluations, especially no notice devaluations when there has been a global pandemic preventing people from traveling for 12 months.
Hat tip to Head for Points
They didn’t devalue the flights, quite the opposite.
It is not clear to me why now would be the time for airlines to devalue. This is just going to encourage people to cash out their points/miles and/or cancel their airline cards and/or balk at the idea of stockpiling airline miles, which is a key source of revenue for airlines.
That’s the point. Loyalty programs always want to reduce their liability reserves for future redemptions.
Management probably thinks fewer people will notice the devaluation if travel is down.