Avios is starting its own ecommerce business, starting with wine!

Yesterday we told you that British Airways and Laithwaites were severing their long term (20+ years?) partnership .

From 30th September you can no longer earn or spend Avios at Laithwaites Wine .

BA implied that a new wine partnership was being created, but with which company? After all, most UK mail order wine groups are actually owned by Laithwaites, including The Sunday Times Wine Club and Averys.

If you ignore The Wine Society, which isn’t really in tune with the scale of the BA proposition, you have Virgin Wines (obviously not happening) and Naked Wines, which is a very focussed proposition.

We now know which wine company will be offering Avios …. IAG itself!

Yes, it seems that Avios / IAG Loyalty is getting into the online retail business .

A new business, IAGL Retail, is launching later this year. It plans to be a broad based ecommerce business, but the first product category will be wine. To quote from the IAG careers website :

“ Together with our professional expertise in the category from our careers in travel and hospitality we have a unique ability to bring, a first-class ‘edit’ from the world of wines, including many from the British Airways inflight and lounge offering. And combined with the power of the IAG Loyalty platform, not only are we providing outstanding products, but we’re also giving British Airways Executive Club members the opportunity to discount their purchases using their Avios or to collect points when they buy from us to use on future reward flights. “ Except …. The problem with the British Airways inflight wine operation, of course, is that it isn’t great. You will get better wine at your school PTA fundraiser than you get in British Airways business class.Click here to read the infamous Jancis Robinson article in […]

Click here to view original web page at www.headforpoints.com

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