Without free flights, will you say “adios” to Avios and Airmiles?

Avios is a damned stupid name, and the times by ten is a pure ploy so they can say ’20 avios’ rather than ‘2 air miles’ and have people think ‘Oooh, that’s more’. Are people really that stupid? (Probably, yes, but I hate the marketers thinking I’m one of ’em!)

I’ve a lot of airmiles, and recently needed a flight… could I spend ’em on a flight I actually needed? Could I heck… though I could pay in something called ‘pounds’. The scheme already had be disillusioned before this change.

I collect via the tesco clubcard scheme, auto-converting. I’m thinking I may well stop doing that after not being able to spend my airmiles.

No more free flights? – but there haven’t been any for years. You’ve had to pay the tax, which is a fairly hefty proportion of the cost of a flight. Not really much difference – just rather more expensive now (hardly a surprise)…

My husband and I collect airmiles via the Tesco clubcard scheme. We have taken short haul flights so far around Europe on BA, but have ‘saved ‘ enough miles for a totally free return flight for 2 people to Barbados on British Airways, where we were going in May 2012. Had our plans not changed 3 weeks ago (we have booked to go to Florida via another airline and paid full fare) our airmiles BA free flights would have been booked and hopefully secure. So – what happens now. Looks like we can still book the flights to Barbados (probably now 2013) but will have to pay taxes and charges which may come to £500. I suppose this is better than £1200 +, but still not what we have been aiming for. I only shop at Tesco and use their Credit Card because of the airmiles offer – if the airmiles scheme becomes unattractive, Tesco and their credit card will certainly lose my business and I suspect they will also lose the business of thousands of current customers. I will reserve final judgement though until I have seen full details of the new scheme. If necessary (if there is a cut off date) we will cram in an additional holiday long haul before the scheme changes, although annual leave from work would have to be worked around. Not good news.

I too have used airmiles collected painlessly via Tesco for many years and had quite a few holidays and flights from them. I originally got 80 miles for 250 points, but this was reduced to 60 and my recent statement further reduced this to 50, so they are not such a good deal as originally offered. I was peeved that there was no notice about these reductions from Tesco.

I think the idea of multiplying the number of points is ridiculous and only being done to confuse and cover up reductions in benefits. Do they really think we’re that gullible?

I too collect via Tesco and their Credit card. I have just been on the ‘Avios’ site to find out what the extra charges would be a return flight to LA. Guess what – I couldn’t get an answer from them. I have used airmiles for this journey (visiting family) right from the start and have always managed to avoid paying any cash at all. This means that I won’t be going as often and very possibly will start to take rewards instead of miles, and save on my shopping instead.
You’ve shot yourselves in the foot BA whatever you call the scheme.

I have collected Airmiles for over twenty years and have used them for free flights to Europe, Thailand and Australia. I have collected these through my dual credit cards with Lloyds and previously with Nat West together with Tesco Club Card +. Tesco reduced the ammount they gave back in Air Miles last year and cut in half the points on fuel and BA decision I feel will be the final straw or “Adios” as stated earlier.

i only fly BA enough to keep a Silver card for lounge entry as the service is so ‘hit and miss’. With the latest change, I see the future (sadly) with the Tesco of the skies – Emirates.

It’s a pity that about half the people replying on this forum don’t know what the airmiles scheme is. You DON’T pay taxes and charges at present making the flights completely free. Last weekend for example I flew to brussells for absolutely nothing, so your correspondent is completely wrong when she says it’s not worth using them for European flights. I’ve previously used the scheme for a number of European flights as well as those to J’burg and Seattle. Why is there no clarity on the website about exactly how much the new flights will cost and how many of the new points will be given as rewards, apart from the initial 1 to 10 conversion?

Just for the record, the taxes and fees were free for about 15 years after the scheme first started back in 1985 or whenever. Then they introduced charges, but it still meant that I managed to fly to Sydney in 2007 for 10,000 Air Miles and only £108 in taxes etc.

Early in 2008 or so the taxes and fees became inclusive again, and that’s still the case right now: 10,000 Air Miles gets you a totally free flight to Sydney.

However, for Sydney they quoted 100,000 Avios with charges totalling a massive £479 so the new scheme will be a total waste of time. Worse still, thousands of people will now NEVER get the free flight of a lifetime for which they’ve been faithfully collecting Air Miles for years. What a disgraceful breach of trust: it should surely count as false pretences !

Needless to say, I’ll soon be cutting up my Tesco MasterCard and be shopping at Waitrose and Sainsbury’s instead of Tesco.

Air Miles says that “the switch brings it in line with other loyalty schemes”.

So they admit openly that they are operating a cartel?

Have been collecting Airmiles via Tesco credit card for several years and have had a number of free flights within Europe. This has been the whole reason for having a Tesco card and shopping in Tesco. Will now start shopping in Waitrose and will apply for a John Lewis card.

Probably will not fly BA either. Pity the airmiles scheme is being altered. Lots of people will miss out.

Guys, there is a team fighting the change, checkout the Fight the Airmiles Change page on Facebook, and their website fighttheairmileschange.co.uk http://bit.ly/nvgupL http://on.fb.me/pWHmvb

I am a member of Airmiles and regularly take flights between London/Johannesburg, London/Paris.
Using the dates 9/11 and 5/12 I have costed return trips on the BA website.

London/Johannesburg £591,83. At present by Airmiles this would be 8000 points for a completly free flight. Value 13,50 Airmiles = £1. Under the Avios scheme this trip will cost 50000 points (equivalent to 5000 Airmiles) + Airline taxes, fees and surcharges of £351,83. From the ticket cost of £591,83 the remaining amount is £240. Value 19.70 Airmiles = £1. In this example your Airmiles will have been devalued by 45.70%.

London/Paris £103.50. At present 750 Airmiles for a free flight. Airmiles value 7.25=£1. Avios points 9000 points (equivalent to 900 Airmiles) + £27 standard fee. In this example the 900 Airmiles have a value of £76,50, or 11,75=£1. A devaluation of 62,20%.

I will now discontinue collecting Airmiles, but will be using my existing points prior to the closing date to avoid this horrendous devaluation and I shall also be looking carefully on whether I continue using the merchants I presently use for collecting.

Collecting airmiles has significantly affected where I shop for a number of years – e.g. Tesco and the credit card I use.
The change in adding taxes etc. to flights will undoubtedly mean I will spend less, as will many others, at Tesco or with my airmiles credit card.

I wonder how these companies will feel if this hits their business?

When i first read the email about the switch to Avios i thought it was a good thing because with Avios i won’t need to pay the 500 compulsory airmiles to fly anywhere other than London. I’m local to Manchester and this seemed like a ridiculous charge to have to pay 500 of my miles before i went anywhere.

After reading this thread though maybe the switch isn’t such a good idea, i would hope to save up and get a free flight at a later date, i don’t mind paying £100 or so for a long haul flight but nearly £500 is obscene for such a scheme.

I have just tried to find flights from Edinburgh to Paris direct expecting the airmiles to be 750 no chance 1250 airmiles are required. Going London Heathrow to Paris direct 750; try Aberdeen to Amsterdam it’s 1250 for direct flights. Are we in the same zone or not? Try finding airmiles flights from Shetland to the UK mainland even September 2012 and all you get is:- “There is no availability in your chosen cabin class for the dates you selected”.

There seems to be a great deal of misunderstanding about the difference between AIRMILES and BA MILES. They are two quite different schemes but it has always been possible to change Tesco Rewards into ‘airmiles’ for either scheme. The BA scheme was only publicised by Tesco when they started their Reward scheme so fewer people are aware that there are two choices. It has always been more effective to use BA miles for long haul and AIRMILES for European flights. Of course you can also collect BA MILES when you pay to fly with airlines in the same group as BA.

ADIOS to AVIOS

I do not expect anything in life for free and living within 1 mile of the Airmiles offices at Birchwood in Warrington I do know people who work there. Unpredictably, people who work there, friends of mine, have spoken candidly about disappointed callers.

I agree BA have made a fatal error and undermined customer confidence. I too have collected and spent Airmiles on trips to the Far East, Europe and North America. I understand some of the logic applied to these changes, but AVIOS or AIRMILES/BA do not take it for granted I will carry on collecting when shopping at Aldi/Lidl as opposed to Tesco means real savings each week – savings which mount up considerably.

Interestingly and by coincidence I have been continually emailed by Ebay, Currys, Hotel Chocolat – amongst others and mailshot/emailed by Tesco offering special points deals because I have turned away. I hardly use my Lloyds TSB Airmiles DUO card.

I should imagine customers of these outfits will cotton on too and eventually the companies concerned will withdraw. It is inevitable and tragic.

New scheme is barely worth it. For long haul you now have pay ‘taxes, fees and charges’ which adds hundreds of pounds to the cost and you may be able to get a cheap flight elsewhere.

For Europe/North Africa there is a ‘Reward Flight Saver’ where you just pay a flat £27 to cover taxes, fees and charges on top of the points. However on many routes you may get the flight cheaper on a budget airline once you count the cost of collecting the points, so it’s only worth it in very high season or on a route with high fares and little or no competition e.g. Tunis, Tirana, Moscow

IT begins to look as though I will never use my Avios points. I collected them as Airmiles and from time to time I have spent them on flights from Glasgow to Orkney, Shetland, Outer Hebrides; & from Manchester to Guernsey. But NOT on flights to European destinations or further afield. I now have 39000 avios and a voucher for a further 3000 . I live in Cumbria. I want to fly to Orkney, from Glasgow but it is impossible to find out if this is still possible with Avios. Similarly, I would like to use my Avios to fly from Manchester to London; or Manchester to Jersey. But there seems to be no way to find out if this is still possible. The Avios website is useless.
Any answers , please? or any solution?

It was obvious when BA announced the outsourcing of BA Miles to Avios points that the IAG (BA) management had grown bored of BA miles as a marketing ploy. Having experienced these types of hand-offs before it is no surprise to see the real value of the residual points to be diluted.

The bad news for BA is that I always punish such management duplicity by withdrawing my custom by demoting BA in the list of vendors. In my case it will cost BA a great deal more than they save with this cost cutting measure and their competitors will gain. My gold card business can easily go elsewhere on most flights. I’ve seen this from hotel chains in the past and they lost as a consequence.

Business managers will continue these games for as long as the bulk of consumers and business customer continue to let them get away with it.

In the past I’ve used airmiles for short domestic ( and therefore relatively expensive ) flights – eg to Outer Hebrides or Orkney or Shetland – all from Glasgow.
Since Avios took over I haven’t looked at the situation closely, because I haven’t needed domestic flights recently; but I did notice how difficult it was , on the Avios site, to get info about such flights.

Paying a small amount is not a major issue – when I first used Airmiles I had to pay some sort of tax, I remember; it’s only recently that money didn’t come into the equation. But I want to fly where I want to fly – which is not necessarily where Avios is prepared to take me. So I will now investigate more closely and if Avios are not giving me the benefits for which I joined airmiles, I too, like others, will be walking away.

Who cares how many loyalty points we have with BA? When you try and convert them to free flights or points plus money flights there is virtually nothing available. It’s just a silly con.

We are now boycotting the organizations that offer Air Miles. Perhaps a Class Action lawsuit would force Air Miles to do the right thing?