As flagged by One Mile at a Time, British Airways has raised the price of American Airlines and Alaska Airlines award travel up to 3,000 miles. Redemptions now cost as much as 11,000 points more each way – and that comes after a price increase that was put into effect just seven months ago.
- Flights up to 650 miles cost 12,000 Avios one-way in economy now (3,750 point increase) and 24,000 in business (7,500 point increase)
- Flights 651 – 1,150 miles cost 16,000 Avios one-way in economy (5,000 point increase) and 32,000 in business (11,500 point increase)
- Flights 1,151 – 2,000 miles cost 18,000 Avios one-way in economy (3,500 point increase) and 40,000 in business (11,000 point increase)
- Flights 2,001 – 3,000 miles cost 20,000 Avios one-way in economy (4,000 point increase) and 50,000 in business (8,000 point increase)
One of the best uses of British Airways Avios has been short haul travel, especially in economy, that doesn’t add fuel surcharges. A few examples:
- Short distance flights within the U.S. on Alaska and American
- Short distance travel within Australia on Qantas
- And some intra-Asia travel (though some does involve surcharges)
American Airlines Economy
When British Airways distance-based pricing went into effect 13 years ago, members got outsized value on short trips while long distance premium cabin travel became super expensive. But the value of those shorter trips has eroded. Initially the shortest flights were just 4,500 Avios, but then a surcharge was imposed on US airline domestic and short-haul travel.
With the caveat that British Airways now has redemption prices all over the map, pricing many things ‘off chart’, here’s what the BA Executive Club partner award distance-based pricing mostly looked like prior to December:
| Distance | Coach | Premium Economy | Business | First |
| 1 – 650 | 6,000 (7,500) | 9,000 | 12,500 | 24,000 |
| 651 – 1151 | 9,000 | 12,500 | 16,500 | 33,000 |
| 1152 – 2000 | 11,000 | 16,500 | 22,000 | 44,000 |
| 2001 – 3000 | 13,000 | 25,250 | 38,750 | 51,500 |
| 3001 – 4000 | 20,750 | 41,250 | 62,000 | 82,500 |
| 4001 – 5500 | 25,750 | 51,500 | 77,250 | 103,000 |
| 5501 – 6500 | 31,000 | 62,000 | 92,750 | 123,750 |
| 6501 – 7000 | 36,250 | 72,250 | 108,250 | 144,250 |
| 7001+ | 51,500 | 103,000 | 154,500 | 206,000 |
You no longer get great value compared to U.S. programs redeeming for U.S. travel. And BA hasn’t had superior value in long haul premium cabin redemptions for many awards. You’ll still frequently get short-haul value in other regions of the world, however.
BA’s points are easy to get, since they have a U.S. co-brand credit card and partner with most transferable bank currencies in the U.S. I view them as a program you transfer to for specific redemptions, not as a store of value.
You can, of course, transfer points from BA to other Avios programs (like Iberia, Finnair and Qatar), and each offers their own pockets of value.
I often use Avios for domestic AA flights, this is a bummer. Is it possible that we’ll have a bigger selection of flights for redemption? That would be some consolation, and at least we’d be getting something (better selection) for the higher price.
Blame the Tories for losing today….
AI this 8s a change in price and should not affect inventory
@D A. Blue Labour were always gonna lose to Red Conservatives. It was just a matter of by how much ( please don’t confuse that for being pleased BlairV2 took power btw)
However playing devil’s advocate. The change preceded the GE & the new lot need to learn to tie their shoelaces before they can get to the office and pile on the taxes
A few years ago, I would have been devastated. But considering how hard it is to find domestic award space on BA nowadays, given aA often make low-rate “Web Specials” not accessible to partners, finding an AA seat on BA is like a needle in a hay stack.
Just another reason not to do business with them
Simply I’m done
Best wishes to the their ponzi scam program buh bye
Even the 7.5 k awards were impossible to find
There was never a 6k bc u had to acquire miles by flying to get the “discount”
Program sucked
My 100k miles useless
I’d rather have Rwanda RWF than anything like uk GBP. The whole country sucks including the flag carrier
This hurts especially bad because BA was my go-to for using transferable points to fly AA. With BA being less-competitive, what are the best ways to use MR/UR/Cap1 points to fly AA?