The writings have been on the wall when American Airlines would adjust British Airways & Iberia miles earnings in economy class (after BA & IB did that for their frequent flier program members earlier this year).
American Airlines has now published new miles earning charts for both airlines that will take effect February 1, 2016.
You can access American Airlines British Airways chart here and the Iberia one here.
British Airways:
Iberia:
Conclusion
This change unfortunately doesn’t come as a surprise. I was waiting when the earning changes would take place when AA briefly had these charts up on its site for few hours couple of months ago.
The earnings changes are especially ugly for both British Airways and Iberia deep discount economy where they go from 100% to just 25%.
You can still continue earning 100% award miles on BA and Iberia miles as long as you book them under American Airlines codeshare. Of course there could be changes coming to miles earnings on discounted AA flights as well.
Isn’t it the airline we fly that determines how many miles we’ll earn in its own and partner programs? So can’t really pin this on AA as your headline suggests. Agree that with the recent changes with Avios earnings this was be to be expected. As chance would have it, I have an O-class transat flight on BA in early February (purchased before the Avios changes) but fortunately booked these as AA codeshares so I’ll still earn 100% vs 25%. Dodged that bullet…though I find when I book as BA flight numbers on YYZ-LHR I get a comp to WT+ which doesn’t seem to happen when I book with AA flight numbers.
This is why I’ll never switch to OneWorld. Seems the common trend that any economy fares except near full fare earn jack in OneWorld programs. Even paid business class earns less in a lot of OW programs than other alliances.
It isn’t a surprise, and it’s more incentive to travel Premium Economy.
Advance fares on Premium Economy aren’t that much more expensive and if you have OneWorld Sapphire status you then have a good chance of upgrade to Business anyway.
I’m not the greatest of fans of BA – the old 747 that flies me home from Kuwait to LHR is a shed with wheels in economy, but needs must.