When I went to sleep on Tuesday, I had enough points to redeem for three business class trips to London from Philadelphia, when I awoke on Wednesday, I had enough points for only two tickets.  The points were still in my account but their value magically disappeared overnight due to British Airways’ devaluation of their Avios program.  It was enough to bring me to tears, but just like “there’s no crying in baseball”, you can’t get too emotional with points as their value is fleeting.  While I know this, I still can be sad and feed my feelings with cookies (and wine). Reading all of the blogs (this is a good analysis of winners and losers), I’m trying to figure out what this new world of Avios will look like on April 28th. I’m also still mourning the demise of USAirways as a Star Alliance member (a year ago) and all of the points redemption opportunities that existed (luckily my swan song redemption was epic RTW). Paging Pity Party for One!

The points landscape is changing so rapidly, while there are “free points” (not really) being thrown at you from every credit card sign up angle, the airlines (and hotels) are deciding that your loyalty (and mine) isn’t really of value to them.  Of value are the high-end fliers (first and business) and expensive tickets being bought (usually business class travelers whose companies are footing the bill).  So pay more get more, pay less, get a portion of less for less. The division between coach and aspirational luxury continues to widen as the coach seats continue to shrink in width.

While I’m a big LOSER in the British Airways devaluation given all of the changes to Silver members especially, those of us who actually fly British Airways for butt in seat miles. I can’t complain too much, though gutted, as I’ve had a great run in the past few years with British Airways redemptions.

• I was able to fly for 50,000 Avios business class Aer Lingus from Boston to Dublin (this increases to 75,000 Avios now)
• When the devaluation of 2011 occurred, I took the advice of The Points Guy and One Mile at a Time and redeemed 80,000 Avios for a business class ticket on LAN from New York to Santiago, Chile to Easter Island to Lima, Peru and back to New York (that routing increased to nearly 160,000 and will probably increase again).
• Upgrading from World Traveller Plus (their economy plus section) for 20,000 points plus the cost of the WT+ ticket when it was under $2,000 (now it runs close to $2,800 – base of $1,608 plus taxes/fees of $1,168.58!). Upgrades are increasing.

• When I wanted a few days in London after Iceland to use my Hyatt stay certificates from the credit card sign up last year, I was able to redeem 40,000 Avios (plus taxes/fees) for a one way business class ticket home to Philly three weeks ahead of time (that one way increases to either 50,000/60,000 off-peak/peak with the upcoming changes and I need to fight for one of two seats available by planning ahead).
• Using the Travel Together certificate earned on the Chase BA Visa card, I was able to redeem 98,000 Avios (plus taxes/fees) for two business class tickets New York – Paris – London – Philadelphia for my summer trip with my tween niece.

I disagree with those who will say “don’t redeem on BA because of the high fees, taxes and fuel surcharges”. Yes the fees are high, but in Philly, USAirways wants over 200k for a business class redemption so if I have to pay 80,000 Avios and  $1,200 for a business class ticket that normally costs $5,000, I’m ok with that. Living in Philly USAirways (the new American) is a fortress of crazy miles needed to redeem (how I miss the old USAir and Star Alliance points redemptions).

The airlines are flying pretty full nowadays so they really don’t want to give any space to points redemptions but at the same time need to get those points off their balance sheets.  As part of the British Airways devaluation of the Avios program they will add off-peak and peak awards and allocate two award seats on each flight (a total of 9 million available seats according to their website for transparency). This sounds nice in theory but in practice, there used to be alot more seats available on a flight.  Many times when I would search, I would see “6 available seats or more” which is great if you are a family trying to redeem but now there’s only two seats and a whole bunch of folks who want those seats.  Families who redeemed in premium classes internationally or with the travel together certificates are on the short end of this stick with me.

So now that my pity party is somewhat over, this announcement has sent me into hyper travel planning mode.  While I had no direction yet for this year, I don’t want to pay more points if I don’t have to.  I want to take my mom on a trip like I did with my niece last year (travel together certificate) so that will take a bit of work to find, luckily mom is retired and more flexible than an eleven year old.   Ideally, she wants to go to Ireland and the 50k Aer Lingus would be fabulous but in my search yesterday there was nothing available for almost every month I looked.  If you can find a seat, good on ya!  I want to visit Morocco, the Salon du Chocolat in Paris and the Galapagos, can I find a seat?  Maybe this is the year of the Maldives via Qatar which flies from Philly? What to do, where to go?

Moral of the story – feeding your feelings is ok, hoarding points is not.  Find a travel goal, earn points and then burn baby, burn those points for a redemption before the airline (or hotel) throws “loyalty” dust on them and their value magically disappears.  Don’t snooze and lose like me.

Are you a BA LOSER like me or were you not affected by the devaluation?  

Will you look to redeem your points now at the old rates, if so where are you going?