A few days ago, British Airways announced a coming devaluation, announcing that the price of Reward Flights will increase on all British Airways flights and airline partners starting on 12/15/25. They go on to outline what look like relatively minor example price increases, but we won’t know the extent of the devaluation until December 15th.
This appears to be a minor devaluation
As noted at the top, British Airways lists some example pricing from December 15th onward, and the examples they provide mostly refelct a relatively minor devaluation.
Interestingly, the page noted that the changes will affect both the Avios and cash elements of the fare, so expect the carrier-imposed surcharges to increase along with the Avios price.
Examples given include increases of about 10% in Avios and 10-20% in the total taxes & fees. For instance, they note that a round trip off-peak economy class from London to New York will increase from 50K + 100 GBP off-peak to 55K + 120 GBP. Peak dates go from 60K + 100 GBP to 66K + 120 GBP.
On the business class side, the increase is 10% in Avios (160K round trip to 176K round trip) plus around 10% additional in cash (taxes and fees go up from 375 GBP to 399 GBP).
We don’t yet know whether the examples provided are accurately reflective of the overall changes, but if they are, this seems relatively mild as changes go. Obviously, none of us like to see prices rise, but a 10% increase with a little bit of advance warning is better than an overnight substantial devaluation (like the one Turkish pulled last week). A bit more advance notice would have been nice, but some notice beats no-notice.
If you have British Airways awards you plan to book, it might make sense to prioritize those in the coming days before prices change. Note that if you make a change to your destination, cabin, or seasonality after December 15th, you’ll be subject to the new prices, but you can still chage time or date (as long as there isn’t a change of season) without a re-price.
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Upgrading an existing cash booking with Avios (PE to Business) remains the sweet spot. They are not award winning redemptions, but when TATL Business JFK-LHR is more in the $3.5-$4k cash r/t range these days, if you end up paying ~$2k cash plus 48k avios r/t (24k avios each way), it’s not a terrible deal. I think it’s a better deal than booking BA through AA where you’re paying ~$1.7-1.8k + 115k AA miles r/t.
I have not read that they are messing with the upgrade with Avios “chart” – hopefully that stays the same!
>when TATL Business JFK-LHR is more in the $3.5-$4k cash r/t range these days, if you end up paying ~$2k cash plus 48k avios r/t (24k avios each way), it’s not a terrible deal.
Ehhh when I’m seeing $1700 business JFK-LHR with a stopover in Iceland via Icelandair or direct business JFK LHR on Jetblue for $2700 next month it feels like a madeup deal.
Icelandair and its non-lie flat seat stopover does not count. One B6 datapoint also does not count – I can just as easily find a B6 datapoint for next month for $5k roundtrip.
I’m not saying it’s the most amazing deal ever. But there’s value sometimes to flying with a full service carrier like BA (I’m sure the B6 JFK lounge will be something once they get that photo booth working). And ‘upgrade with avios’ is a pathway to an OK TATL deal.
Would I rather book perhaps Virgin for 29k points plus the surcharge? Sure. Do that too.
Lots of tools in the toolbox. Just would like for the ‘upgrade with Avios’ tool to remain non-devalued.
Perhaps I’m just being cynical here considering that BA has made zero customer-friendly moves in the last year or two but I suspect that the listed examples were cherry picked as the least painful to members rather than being typical.