British Airways Not Releasing New Single Partner Award Chart Until November 16

So much for transparency-British Airways has confirmed on Twitter that it is NOT releasing its new single partner award chart until November 16, when it goes into effect with the other Executive Club changes. When British Airways announced changes to its Executive Club frequent flyer program (which is rebranding as Avios) in early September, it was pretty selective in the news it released. What was notable, at least for U.S.-based flyers, was the complete silence in the announcement that single partner awards would be affected. It took some questions by Ben and other FlyerTalk members to uncover that there would be a new award chart that unifies BA only, BA + partner and partner only awards–which will mean that partner only awards, currently a great value, will be increasing. By how much? Nobody knows, although for the past almost two months, U.S. flyers have been asking British Airways to release the new revised reward chart.

 

Anyone who was planning to use BA miles to book a Cathay Pacific, LAN, or other BA partner award post-November 2012 can tell you how frustrating it is to not know by how much awards will increase; should they just drop everything and somehow move their trip up to be pre-November 2012, to take advantage of the current award chart, or take their chances on what the new award chart will be? Many travelers, including me, decided to simply go ahead and book using the current reward chart; see our post Time to Redeem British Airways Miles for Cathay First Class.

 

Well, it now looks quite certain that British Airways is NOT going to release the new unified award chart before it actually goes into effect on November 16. Here's the Twitter exchange between British Airways and TPG:

 

 

 

So given that single partner awards will increase in cost (only question is by how much) some of you may be asking–how is it that British Airways could claim that 97% of routes would require fewer Avios points for an award than BA Miles currently require? This is only my conjecture, but I'd guess they limited their analysis to flights BA actually flies, and simply ignored partner flights for purposes of the analysis. They certainly know that savvy U.S. travelers get the best value out of the program by flying Cathay Pacific or LAN, avoiding British Airways and London Heathrow entirely, but do you really think BA is keen to continue a loyalty program perk whereby U.S. members use BA miles (not to mention practically free ones, via the BA Visa signup bonuses) to fly on other airlines?

 

Let's put it this way–do you think it was an accident that British Airways promoted a 50% transfer bonus for AMEX Membership Rewards points to British Airways miles, which ended just one month prior to the new Executive Club/Avios announcement? You can't blame AMEX for this one, as it probably wasn't aware of impending British Airways Executive Club changes, but you can bet British Airways had already worked out the contours of the Executive Club changes when this promotion ran. No wonder there are several travelers trying to get the Membership Rewards points that they transferred to British Airways transferred back, in light of the upcoming devaluation.

 

The upshot of all this? If you haven't already, take a good look at your British Airways miles, and consider whether you can use them on a single partner award prior to November 2012. Unfortunately, it looks practically certain at this point that British Airways is not releasing the revised award chart until November 16, when it goes into effect, so you have 3 weeks to book the high-value awards that may have prompted you to acquire British Airways miles in the first place.