Last week British Airways offered a status extension to On Business customers. On Business is the loyalty scheme for small and medium-sized businesses. On Business has three levels of status that are different from the main Executive Club Scheme. They are based purely on how much you spend, with the first tier from 0-£29,999. The levels are cunningly called On1, On2 and On3. In an email to their customers British Airways said,
We know that the COVID-19 outbreak is an unprecedented global challenge for you and your business. At this uncertain time, we’d like you to know that your company’s loyalty to British Airways is greatly appreciated and never taken for granted. With that in mind, we’ve taken some important steps to support you and give you confidence during this difficult period.
Your tier status
We’re pleased to let you know that your On Business tier status will be protected this year. That means, if you do not spend the amount needed by the end of 2020 to remain in your current tier, you can be assured that your current tier status will be maintained until the end of 2021.
Yet for all their other customers there is no official concession for status unless your year ends in April, May or June. In those cases, British Airways will give you a 30% reduction for the number of tier points required to renew. They also appear to be waving the qualifying flight criteria in some instances.
Will BA bend to keep up the competition?
BA is lagging way behind most other airlines in terms of status extensions. Here is a summary of what some of their major competitors are offering:
- Virgin Atlantic – extending status for Gold and Silver members by six months
- Turkish – extending status for elite members by six months
- United – extending elite status to all current Premier members to the end of the 2021 program year.
- Delta – extended for the whole 2021 Medallion year, which ends on 31 January 2022
- American – all members will have their status extended until 31 January 2022
- Cathay Pacific – giving bonus points every month equivalent to the amount needed to maintain status
- KLM – Flying Blue Elite members with a qualification period ending between March 2020 and February 2021 will be extended for another 12 months.
- Finnair – 6-month status extension
- Iberia – nothing official yet but some members have been offered a one year extension
- Emirates- existing Emirates Skywards Silver, Gold and Platinum members can requalify for status by getting 80% of the usual tier miler required this year.
- Qatar – extending status by 12 months for all current elite members whose status is due to expire before 31 January 2021
- Etihad – giving elite members a monthly bonus of tier miles equivalent to the amount they would need to earn every month to maintain status. They have not ruled out a further extension in the future.
- Lufthansa/Swiss – Nothing yet
- Singapore – giving all KrisFlyer Elite and PPS Club membership statuses another 12 months at the end of their membership year.
- Qantas – Elite members with a membership date between March 2020 and February 2021 will retain their current status for an extra year
The only major airline in this list that is behind BA is Lufthansa/Swiss. Their handling of the crisis has not been great in TLFL’s opinion what with no concession at all to Elite status holders and refusing to give refunds until the “end of the summer”. You can read about our experiences here.
There are two ways of handling the status extensions. More commonly, airlines are giving a blanket extension which creates the feeling that the airline cares about their customers. Airlines are relying on customers remembering that the airline was generous in times of crisis. However, long term this is a gamble. If you don’t have to worry about maintaining status, perhaps this is the time your customer decides to give other airlines a try to see what they are missing. With plenty of low fares to choose from currently, why not go with the lowest fares if you don’t need to worry about maintaining status? This is particularly true for customers that fly business and first, since many of the status benefits are included in premium cabins anyway such as lounge access.
The second and more business-savvy way to do it is to offer a bonus amount of tier points per month while customers are unable to fly. Alternatively, there is the BA method to provide a reduction in the percentage of tier points needed. The end result is the same. It gives your customers a proportionate decrease in the flights required during the period of travel bans. This should at least make customers feel the airline understands their problems, if not giving the same warm fuzzy feeling of a proper extension. Once it is safe to travel, it encourages people to start booking again with the airline to maintain their status.
British Airways have at least given a concession of 30% to people who are just coming to the end of their year. If you still fall short of this amount, I would advise you speak to BA. If you can prove that you had enough tier points flights booked that were cancelled by BA, they do have some flexibility. BA have said that they are continuing to monitor the situation and will review the situation regularly.
My feeling is that British Airways will continue down the current path with the concessions reviewed quarterly. Whether the reduction in tier points is increased as time goes on will depend mainly on how quickly travel resumes. As it is highly unlikely that travel will return to any reasonable level before the autumn, I would expect them to increase the reduction in tier points needed to 50% for July, August and September renewals. But that is purely speculation.
What do you think BA should do/will do? Let us know in the comments below or on social media.
4 comments
Iberia is even worse than BA, so far pretty much nothing. As the Iberia’s year ended on March 31 for everybody, it seems that for customers that were very close to renew (missing around 10% of TPs) and called the airline, they were manually renewed. But that was analyzed on a case by case basis. I’m currently IB Platino (OW Emerald), that only needs to be renew every two years (expiration date in March 2021 in my case); but without traveling for the next few months, I’m going to struggle to renew it…
That’s a good point. I will add IBERIA to the list. Hopefully if you speak to them they might be sympathetic.
I have decided to let it go from BA. I am on the July expiration date. I have emailed BA a few times and the reply is: we will make a decision soon. On the other hand, I have applied for a Turkish Airlines membership match through here and they have been very generous. I still have not taken a flight with Turkish Airlines however my membership has been extended until December 2020. With that in mind, I would consider booking a flight to keep my status with Turkish airlines. I recently received an email from TA offering a two months free online magazine subscription. BA has done very little to show any appreciation to keep me as a customer.
The american carriers AA, Delta and United really put BA to shame. Many conferences and expo are being cancelled, so many of these corporate seasonal trips are unlikely to happen.
My trips in April were meant to renew my silver for the next year and I don’t think I will be flying in the 2nd half of the year (no holidays booked or work related conferences running) and my ec year ends in January.
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