British Airways Testing Elimination of Fuel Surcharges for More Miles

by Gary Leff

Head for Points reports that British Airways is testing a redemption option to spend more points on an award ticket in exchange for reducing or eliminating taxes and fees.

He says that this test is happening on the London Heathrow – Chania, Greece route only (a route where there is almost no award space on BA’s 2-3 times weekly service).

  • Normally business class awards cost 20,000 miles + £25
  • However default pricing is now 25,000 miles and £0.50
  • There’s also an option for 22,500 miles and £12.50

To be clear this is not a good deal, you are getting about 2/3rds of a cent per mile value buying down the taxes and fees with this new option. However it’s a way for BA to address, potentially, the insane surcharges they add to long haul bookings that makes the program uncompetitive and nearly completely useless for economy redemptions.

The test appears only to be happening for UK members, or at least not happening for US-based members. Pricing out this route as a US member in US dollars I get off-season 17,000 miles and $40 (no benefit from the plummeting British pound) and peak season 20,000 miles and $40 — without option for more miles and lower cash charges.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Comments

  2. As someone who earns a ton of MR points thanks to business spend on my AmEx, I would rather spend more points at a crappy rate than fork out a ton of real cash for fuel surcharges.

  3. This might be a nice way to make the ticket more flexible? If you cancel it.. would you not get back all the avios and only lose the cash? I can see circumstance where a bad point value might be justified for greater flexibility.

  4. A new ancillary revenue source! It’s a great idea for BA, and given it’s optional, I suspect a lot of consumers will use it / love it too. Wonder if the US airlines will copy it.

  6. All From the king of Rip offs BA
    who has been sued for the extortion in the past for their robbery on fake fees
    Corporate criminals in suits

  7. For the sample fare I’d be willing to do the reverse, £125 and no Avios. How about that BA buttheads?

Comments are closed.