I jumped in on the hysteria for the Avios devaluation two days ago. My approach was to alert readers via The Forum, and then launching out a quick email also. I was motivated to burn, and I did, and as I was booking my own award tickets I thought it would be useful to show the process. I first booked us tickets to Cancun during Whale Shark Season. With 75,000 Avios remaining I went on to book 3 tickets (two and a bit technically) to Antigua.
I’m stoked! Two days later and I have 2 trips booked, the Whale shark one I have been talking about ever since we went out on multiple dives in the Maldives and missed them every time, the Antigua trip, well, why not? And also I was wrong. But so fricking what? I hear a lot of people are being smug about not saying anything at all about the devaluation, or are being lauded as experts by others. Saying nothing certainly can make you look smart when nothing happens… but if you don’t take educated guesses in this game you will lose out over time.
Excessive points and miles balances are a liability because of the chance of devaluation. Sometimes when devaluations occur they happen with warning, IE they give you a ‘burn now!’ window, and other times they are without warning at all.
So who is the loser if you book in a panic? It depends on what you book. I booked Cancun and Antigua for 10K avios each way in economy. That’s a great price for me, especially as I had those Avios sitting there. If I was to take my 100K and book 22 round trips from NYC-DC for no reason whatsoever then yeah, I’m wasting my points and my time. But no, I have two great vacations to look forward to now.
What I lost was both opportunity and risk. Opportunity cost wise I can’t do so much with my remaining points (24K for me 25K for the wife) but still enough for a weekend trip. Furthermore, I am able to top these up from Membership Rewards or Ultimate Rewards at will. So I didn’t really lose much there, especially as I won’t be traveling much with the new addition to the family. I lost the risk of the devaluation happening to between now and July 2015. So, if I was wrong this time, but they do devalue in a week, or a month, or sometime next year I’m golden.
The thing that annoyed me the most about this experience wasn’t being wrong – its fine to be wrong. It was the people who were looking on with comments like “I hope this is all a mistake so I can laugh at these guys’. Do me a favor, re-read “The Fear of Being Wrong“.
Cheers,
Matt
PS this post started out as an apology, but then I realized that I really don’t feel sorry about burning miles.
When are you going to Cancun for the Whale Sharks, maybe we can meet you there.
July 14th
Im with ya mate
I wanna burn mine cuz deval or no they stink
I looked ten times in the past year and a half including this week. Nothin fits
Better off using aa or other miles for any flights
Amen!
They’re not family friendly.
I understand not being sorry about burning your own points, but you guys should be willing to take some responsibility for spreading misinformation to others. I didn’t fall for the hysteria, thankfully, but I’m sure some others did, resulting in wasted time (and perhaps a little bit of money) booking trips they may not need. Your intentions may have been good, but as my wife tells me all too often, that’s not what ultimately matters!
What misinformation did I spread? I said ‘there may be a devaluation’ which was true. Misinformation would be ‘tomorrow united will double the price of domestic fares’.
“There may be a devaluation” and “Monkeys may fly out of my arse” are both true statements. Neither of them are based in any reality. Just to be clear, since tone is difficult to convey in the written word — none of this is of much consequence. I just think a simple, “sorry, we got this one wrong” (even though we were trying to help our readers) would be appropriate.
I was going to write that. But I don’t believe it. Instead I booked a ton personally and shared my guy feeling with people, though incorrect, I’m also happy with the end result (for what I booked). So as of now, I don’t feel sorry and don’t want to bullshit you.
But I’m listening, and my view can change as I hear peoples problems from this- for you it seems you had no negative impact.
Are you even aware of the circumstances surrounding this scare? If you were, you would quickly realize that there are many orders of magnitude difference in the probability between your two “may” statements above.
The truth is, almost no one was aware that the IB Avios program was not as most recently advertised by IB, for the simple fact that it made zero sense to redeem via IB Avios because they were non-ref, when you could transfer to BA Avios and redeem at the same rate (according to IB’s chart), including one-ways. Or are you forgetting that IB Avios is the one that actually published the chart that we refer to for BA Avios? The only culpable party in this whole affair is IB, not the bloggers. They brought massive knowledge to bear and made an excellent prediction, a prediction which was only stymied by IB’s world-leadingly-poor communication of their award program. Through it all, the bloggers that gave the warning gave the proper caveats with excellent advice on whether you should book or not.
I join with Matt in having some annoyance with the bloggers that came along later with the benefit of hindsight–hindsight they only had because they were slow; they’re not the ones that actually discovered IB had had this atrocious award chart contrary to their published chart since 2011–and sneered down upon the excellent bloggers that brought us quick warning.
How was that disinformation? He got a tip, he let us grown ups in on the information and we either decided to stay the course or book tickets. It made me look a trip next summer where I love flying in to either Dublin or London with Aer Lingus using Avios. As for Matt or anyone anyone who booked their trips, GOOD FOR YOU. I can’t see how you can knock traveling.
I have confidence his tips are good so I rather him be bold than timid when releasing information. Good job, Matt
Exactly! Well put! I booked a number of trips and I’m glad I did. I won’t be canceling any. However, if I needed to cancel, it’s only $10 for most. Certainly worth the insurance!
No need to apologize, but no need to spin that many bloggers jumped before they looked and that IS a problem. There’s always the rush to be first, or at least not to be left behind, because a dozen other guys may get the “story” out before you and then nobody reads you.
And yes, the smug assholes who piously claim the didn’t “fall” for the hype are just the ones who weren’t paying attention. If they were paying attention AND disagreed, those self-same smug assholes would have been all too happen to prove all the others had their heads up their backside.
Those that think bloggers didn’t do the proper amount of research before publishing don’t understand the scope of the problem. Please point to one piece of information online, plausibly found in trying to authenticate this story, that showed IB’s award chart for OW airlines was different than had been previously published by IB.
Obviously most bloggers didn’t do proper research! The facts are in. There is nothing wrong about adhering to classical research methods and ethics. Sure, we’re not talking about journalism here, but many of us are more educated (even in research) than journalists. I recommend that you follow Brits when it comes to Avios points. Head for points is a reasonable site that gives you insight about the three Avios programs ( it’s more focused on the UK program than the Spanish). And yes, Avios points will be devalued at some point.
http://www.headforpoints.com/2014/08/26/there-has-been-no-iberia-devaluation-i-repeat/
Once again, you clearly don’t understand the scope of the problem. I read Head For Points on a regular basis. I don’t recall ever reading, a Google search does not turn up, and HFP does not reference in his post saying that there’s not a deval after all any previous blog post of his own that explains the current IB award chart since 2011! In fact, his current blog post tacitly admits that even he didn’t know that Iberia’s published award chart applied only to Iberia metal, not to OW partners as was justifiably assumed by everyone. All savvy people transferred their points to BA to book OW because IB was non-ref. Bloggers’ research methods were not faulty; it was IB’s communication that was faulty. What further research do you suggest bloggers should have done to know that IB’s published chart didn’t cover OW partners when it seemed to (in line with jointly owned BA Avios) and there was no reason to use IB for OW partners anyway?
How about classical research methodology, go to the source…… contact IB. True, it’s not easy to extract information from some airlines and verifying information from several sources on FT can be helpful. Only because most things are just a google search away doesn’t mean that you should be lazy.
I don’t consider myself a smug arsehole, just a lazy one. 😉 I didn’t have the time or inclination to make any bookings this weekend, nor to actually research the issue. In case I haven’t been abundantly clear, I’m not saying the bloggers should have done anything different, I just think the readers deserve a “oops, sorry we got this one wrong.” Scott over at MileValue struck the right tone, in my opinion.
I don’t read MileValue, just too busy these days. So let me ask you about tone- and this ties into Pauls point that I do agree with. When it broke and he and I were running around like headless chicken, was he burning up his own points? If so, why apologize. If he was breaking it to just appear the expert and pimp a card or two then maybe not so much. I really don’t know which path he took on that.
There is nothing wrong with me sharing what I am doing based on the “facts” I have – and yeah, it’s easy to be that guy who just says nothing at all.
I think the only thing I could have done ‘better’ would be to cover my arse better. If I had explicitly stated as a caveat that this is what I am doing and reiterated ‘it may or may not’ matter etc… though all that could be seen from my posts I believe.
The other thing that I didn’t explicitly state is that I wouldn’t transfer into BA for this news, which again is obvious to me since transferring into a devaluation is like going from the frying pan into the fire.
Right on. I wrote (briefly) about the potential devaluation as well. And in the middle of doing that, I booked some shorthauls for Christmas travel to unload my Avios balance. I didn’t have a lot because I only transfer as needed – even if there’s a promo, I don’t transfer more speculatively than I would absolutely burn in 6 months. I stand by what I wrote because I took my own damn advice. If I was wrong, so be it, but if there’s two things I promise it’s that I’m fine being wrong and I won’t piss a circle around the information when I’m right.
I will always piss circles around things whenever I have the opportunity.
As long as we both promise to keep using that phrase as often as possible.
It’s an exciting one, so I think it likely.
It inspired me to do a lot of research and as a result I ended up booking a great trip to Maui, not on BA but on Southwest and AA because it worked out better. I am usually in redemption mode anyway, but it was a good reminder to book when and if you can. I have no regrets and am pretty excited about the plans I have that I didn’t have a few days ago.
Nice! We really need to go to hawaii before all points and miles go away (I heard a rumor…)
Non-apology apology – CLASSIC. To me, the scare was just a reminder that earning and burning is still the way to go. I stayed up until 3 AM that night making sure my parents will finally get that BOS-DUB trip I’ve been talking to them about for years. I lost some sleep, but in the end, people I love are getting to travel, so I’m cool with it.
I do sincerely hope nobody got “burned” by over-booking though – at the very least from these comments it doesn’t look like that happened thankfully
That’s a great trip, Joe nice!
I wish I had that problem of over booking it would just mean more travel. Of course, if during the teaching semester would have to square with the wife but it’s would be all good 😉
Matt, the point is that those bleeding, screaming “The End is Near” headlines whipped a lot of people into frenzy. That was completely unnecessary; that was nothing but a cheap marketing “click me” ploy, as they took the information they didn’t understand and totally blew it out of proportion.
Since you did not employ this tactic (from what I remember), I don’t see what you should apologize or NOT apologize for, in the first place.
Disappointing post. You can’t have it both ways, Matt. On the one hand you want the status that comes with greater civility and transparency. But then when you blow a call, and a major league call at that, your mea culpa is more of a “so what, who cares, caveat emptor”? Too much like G Leff for my comfort.
Yep, I can see that caveat emptor part being unsavory.. But honestly, I’m really happy with what I booked, and I’d hope others were too.
What’s this about status though, can you explain?
Status from Webster: “: the position or rank of someone or something when compared to others in a society, organization, group, etc.” Simply put, you want Savorocity to be ranked higher than BA or FT–for all the right reasons, IMHO. But that requires that you own up to a major mis-call, or in this case, a lemming-like response.
Glad you’re happy with what you booked. I’ve been grinding it out at work so got to the party late, only to find that the availability on some of the routes I hoped to book had already evaporated in the panic. But so it goes. I was able to book a few trips with no regrets, and have plenty of ammo left.
Interesting point. You say I acted in a lemming like way, and if indeed it had been a devaluation, would I still be in the wrong for doing so?
“I’m sorry” costs only the egotist, for everyone else it’s free and easy.
It’s sad to see you going the route of poor management training and refusing to admit an error. But then maybe it’s a manufactured issue to be used as click bait? Either way I’m disappointed, and you should be as well. And, before you revel in the support above, realize that even MMS/FTG/TPG has groupies.
Previously you made clear cut rules of the forum, but then refused to follow them when one of your bloggers outed publicly what he had read there. From these examples I see a pattern of rationalization that’s hard to ignore or respect.
I always reevaluate and refine my position- it’s changing daily.
I find the best approach is to use opportunities where things go wrong to explore underlying concepts and adjust where necessary. You don’t have to ignore that or respect it.