British Airways Avios devaluation: maybe not

Following up on my last post, a British Airways apocalypse may actually not be imminent. Commenter Prospero on Gary’s blog wrote,

I received confirmation that the IB+ Partner redemption chart has not actually been changed. It is today essentially what is was prior to the November 2011 revamp. See http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/23422126-post117.html

For now I’ll go along with the Dan’s Deals take on things:

Might we see an upcoming British Airways devaluation? Sure. After all as flights get more expensive and the value of a dollar goes down there is mileage inflation as well. Airline consolidation also gives even more ability to devalue miles. That doesn’t mean airlines will kill the golden goose that has provided billions of dollars in income from selling miles to the banks and other partners, but they do have more flexibility to devalue up to a point.

However I don’t think that the Iberia changes prove that imminent changes are inevitable, nor am I running to burn my stash of 500K British Airways Avios for flights I don’t need. If you have flights you want to book anyway, then there’s no reason not to book those now. But otherwise, I’m not panicking at all.

So, who knows? Certainly not me.