Press Release –Fight the Airmiles Change – 16th September 2011

Here at Fight the Airmiles Change we were delighted to hear Anne Robinson announce  Airmiles are being devalued and Watchdog will cover the Airmiles changes next week.  This resulted in a flurry of online activity and contact from Airmiles members who knew nothing about the changes until they saw it on TV. These are some of the people who were let down by the email system adopted by Airmiles, and who have not received anything in the paper post. We are encouraging anyone who hasn’t yet contacted Watchdog to do so now.

Our great success of the day was the admission, from Airmiles on their Facebook page that only 5 regional airports are covered by BA/Iberia, these are Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Manchester. Considering one of the great positives of their re-branding spin was “No more regional supplements” and the £27 ‘Reward Saver’ we now know this is meaningless for most Airmiles customers. Flights from any other regional airport will be subject to the taxes and charges of the particular airline, in addition to the relevant number of Avios.

We will persist with our other questions and perhaps we may get more admissions. Such as the validity of the much quoted 87%, is this the amount of customers who use short haul or the amount of short haul bookings?  Airmiles have been asked this question repeatedly but refuse to answer.  Obviously long haul flights require a lot more miles, a lot more saving, and a lot more loyalty to the Airmiles partners. A flight to Sydney currently costs more than 13 times the cost of a flight to Paris. A better percentage for them to quote would be the percentage of airmiles used on long haul versus short haul.

We continue to be concerned about Airmiles deleting posts on their Facebook page from genuinely devastated collectors who are asking pertinent questions about the situation, questions that are clearly in the public interest and that do not break the ‘rules’ of their page. Airmiles have been preventing free speech, and this cannot be allowed to continue.

Many of our Fairmilers have been emailing Ian Simkins, Tesco Clubcard Director, and Antonio Horta-Osorio, LloydsTSB CEO. Some have had replies, some haven’t. Tesco have offered a goodwill gesture to some people of between 500 and 1000 Clubcard Points, is this an admission that all is not right? They have, however, stated that they stand by the change, this may have something to do with the fact that Patrick Cescau is on the board of both Airmiles and Tesco.  LloydsTSB are writing to people saying that the CEO couldn’t possibly reply to them, maybe he is too busy playing tennis or scuba diving to worry about his customers!