British Airways rights a wrong
by: unroadwarrior
British Airways is one of the few airlines that is notorious for having extremely low ‘earn rates’ for their discounted economy fares. I highlighted this in my article Fast Track to Elite Status. I actually earned 25% of actual miles flown as both redeemable miles (RDM) and Elite Status Miles (EQM) on an 15,000 mile round trip. This had made British Airways one of my least favorite airlines to fly. Now, don’t get me wrong, they are not alone. There are many airlines that even give zero miles for some ultra discounted fares.
But wait. Sanity has prevailed Harmondsworth, England. (Yes, that is where BA is headquartered.) They have decided to let the miles go. Here is an announcement from them in a email last week.
Quadruple BA Miles and Double Tier Points
Also, the Tier Points earned in Discount Economy will double from 25% to 50%. This huge increase will help you reach Silver membership, with all its extraordinary benefits, more quickly.
that’s exactly how I felt earning only 25% of the miles flown all the way from USA to India.You can get regular updates via email or RSS by clicking on the RSS link here. I post updates on Twitter and Facebook on the Airline Industry, Airline Miles and other Loyalty Programs.
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In fact BA are one of the few (that I am aware of) European airlines than offer 100% miles on cheap economy tickets.
I know things are different for US airlines.
Euan,
Almost all US based airlines offer 100% miles even on the cheapest fares. I have only seen non-US based airlines reduce the miles earned based on discounted fares.
unroadwarrior, I agree.
However, your following comment is a bit mis-leading IMO as the majority of non-US airlines don’t offer 100% earnings.
“British Airways is one of the few airlines that is notorious for having extremely low ‘earn rates’ for their discounted economy fares.”
[...] next choice was OneWorld. My miles on OneWorld are on British Airways. I was hoping to leverage their newly minted alliance with American airlines. No [...]
This has got to be one of the funniest lines on your site. “I always felt that they took the ‘Blue’ level too literally ’cause that’s exactly how I felt earning only 25% of the miles flown all the way from USA to India.”
That is hilarious. And yes, I see why you’d be “blue.”
I mentioned before that I finally earned enough for a free international (coach) flight with my OnePass miles, but I had also been accumulating miles through the Thank You Network from one of my credit cards. I was 5,000 miles away from an international reward ticket and they changed their structure. It used to be 60,000 miles for an international flight, then they changed it and you have to have one mile per penny value of your ticket or something crazy like that. I went from needing 60,000 miles to needing 140,000 for a flight from SUF (in Calabria, southern Italy) to IAH.
Talk about being blue!
ROFL. Thanks Cherrye…
[...] the minimum 500 miles that they used to award to everyone on every trip. British Airways recently reversed its policy of awarding less than a mile for each mile flown on cheap fares. US Airways was one of the first [...]
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