Business
British Airways raises price of Avios reward tickets
British Airways is putting up the price of reward tickets for customers using Avios, giving five days’ notice of the increases.
The cash element of tickets booked through its loyalty scheme will rise by up to 33 per cent from Wednesday 27 May.
For example, a ticket in Club World from London Heathrow to New York JFK, once requiring 176,000 Avios, will now also require £499 – an increase of roughly £100, or about 25 per cent.
In an email, the airline said the amount of Avios required for bookings will remain unchanged for now. “Thank you for your continued support and understanding,” it said.
Customers have until Wednesday to book at current prices.
Writing on his Head for Points frequent-flyer website, Rob Burgess said: “This is the second devaluation in just five months. The earlier changes led to a 10 per cent increase in the Avios element and 3-23 per cent increase in the cash element.
“This change only impacts the cash element and represents an additional 10-33 per cent
“These changes are very likely to be linked to the increase in fuel costs due to the Middle East crisis, although British Airways has better hedging in place than most carriers. With little sign of the oil situation improving, however, it is likely that fuel costs will remain high beyond the life of the hedges.”
Simon Calder, travel correspondent at The Independent, said: “When British Airways first unveiled ‘Air Miles’, flights were genuinely free – no one was expected to hand over cash.
“To see the cash element increased up to £500 will prove a deterrent for some. But many passengers, especially those who amass Avios on their company’s spend, remain transactionally loyal to BA.”
In April, IAG – which owns British Airways, Aer Lingus and Iberia of Spain – said it was increasing the price of ordinary cash tickets because of the impact of the conflict.
“We are not seeing jet fuel supply interruptions, but fuel prices have risen sharply and, despite our hedging strategy which gives some shorter term mitigation, we are not immune to the impact,” it said. “Like other carriers, IAG airlines are making some pricing adjustments to reflect these higher fuel costs.”
Read more: All the airlines cancelling flights as easyJet and Jet2 issue updates
A Walmart store is seen on Feb. 3, 2026 in Austin, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images
Two top Walmart executives are departing the company, nearly four months after CEO John Furner took over, CNBC learned on Friday.
Tom Ward, the chief operating officer of Walmart’s warehouse Sam’s Club, is retiring, while Cedric Clark, Walmart’s executive vice president of U.S. store operations, is leaving the business, internal memos viewed by CNBC shows.
A replacement for Clark is expected to be announced in the “coming weeks,” the memo stated. It’s unclear when the company expects to fill Ward’s position.
The leadership shuffle comes after Furner took over as Walmart’s CEO in February. Alongside Furner’s promotion, the company elevated four new top executives to work alongside him earlier this year. Seth Dallaire was promoted to chief growth officer, overseeing the company’s marketplace and advertising businesses, David Guggina was elevated to CEO of Walmart U.S., Chris Nicholas became CEO of Walmart International and Latriece Watkins became CEO of Sam’s Club.
Furner took over the largest U.S. retailer during a period of sustained growth, fueled by gains with higher-income consumers and the expansion of its e-commerce business.
Walmart announced fiscal first-quarter earnings on Thursday, where it issued mixed results and said its business remained strong despite consumer pressures and high gas prices.
The leadership changes were first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Business
Disney’s ‘Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu’ tallies lowest Thursday preview sales in franchise history
Still from “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu.”
“Star Wars” returns to the big screen for the first time in seven years this weekend, riding the contrails of a Mandalorian’s jetpack.
Disney’s “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” tallied $12 million in Thursday night preview sales, the lowest collection of advanced tickets in the franchise’s history, according to data from Comscore. “Solo: A Star Wars Story” was the previous low bar with $14.1 million in preshow tickets back in 2018.
Box office analysts expect the film based on the hit Disney+ show “The Mandalorian” to generate around $80 million for its three-day opening weekend and around $95 million for the four-day Memorial Day holiday weekend. Some less conservative experts have estimated the three-day haul could be $95 million and the holiday weekend could draw $115 million.
That would be one of the smallest openings of a “Star Wars film in modern cinematic history. “Solo” captured $84.4 million during its opening eight years ago. Since 2015, only “Solo” has opened to less than $100 million domestically, Comscore data show.
“The Mandalorian and Grogu” will likely benefit from the popularity of the television show, the long Memorial Day weekend and limited competition from new titles, especially on premium large format screens.
It will also act as a stress test for future “Star Wars” theatrical releases amid a lackluster cinema run for “Star Wars” and Marvel, the tentpole franchises that helped Disney dominate the global box office in the 2010s. The studio has “Starfighter” arriving in cinemas in 2027 starring Ryan Gosling and directed by Shawn Levy.
New “Star Wars” titles have been absent from cinemas since 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker.” The final film in the Skywalker Saga and third film in what has become known as the sequel trilogy generated more than $1 billion, but was widely panned by critics and fans. Disney and its Lucasfilm studio paused theatrical productions in favor of reestablishing the franchise on streaming service Disney+.
“The Mandalorian,” which premiered just a month before “The Rise of Skywalker,” was a runaway hit for the company and inspired a number of live-action Star Wars projects to get a series run instead of a theatrical one. These include “Andor,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” “Ahsoka,” “Skeleton Crew,” “The Acolyte” and “The Book of Boba Fett.”
Lucasfilm tapped director Jon Favreau, who worked alongside the newly minted head of the studio Dave Filoni to bring “The Mandalorian” to Disney+, to helm “The Mandalorian and Grogu.” The feature film had a slightly smaller budget than typical Star Wars films, with the cost of production estimated to be around $165 million. Other “Star Wars” projects released theatrically in the previous decade had production budgets of $250 million or higher, according to data from The Numbers.
This means that “The Mandalorian and Grogu” has a smaller profitability threshold than previous titles from the franchise. Of course, those production budgets do not include marketing spending.
For parent company Disney, it’s not just about the box office numbers. The film has a robust consumer products launch tied to its release.
The “Star Wars” franchise has consistently been a strong seller at retail even without a theatrical release. So having new products across a variety of categories and brands could be a big boon for the company — especially after the character Grogu, known as “Baby Yoda,” was a runaway hit with fans.
Notably, following the 2015 release of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” the first of Lucasfilm’s latest “Star Wars” trilogy, Hasbro alone saw sales of “Star Wars” products reach nearly $500 million.
Not to mention, Disney is already doing tie-ins at its theme park locations, including specialized merchandise and a revamp of its Smugglers Run ride featuring Grogu.
Business
Gold demand outlook: Import duty hike may reduce India’s demand by 50-60 tonnes in 2026; WGC flags impact
India’s gold demand is likely to decline by 50-60 tonnes in calendar year 2026, or about 10 per cent lower than the previous year, following the recent increase in import duty, according to the World Gold Council (WGC), PTI reported. In its India gold market update, WGC said: “Looking at 2026 as a whole, we estimate that combined jewellery and bar and coin demand could decline by around 50-60 tonnes, around 10 per cent lower than the previous year, due to the impact of the import duty hike.” The gold import duty was increased sharply from 6 per cent to 15 per cent, making it the largest increase on record and fully reversing the reduction announced in July 2024. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also appealed to consumers to avoid buying gold for a year. WGC said annual demand would also be influenced by factors including gold prices, income levels, inflation and monsoon conditions. “Our econometric models suggest that changes in import duties tend to impact gold demand in both the short and long term, although the impact differs across jewellery and investment products such as bars and coins. Investment demand appears more sensitive to duty changes, while jewellery demand has shown greater resilience,” WGC said. According to the council, jewellery consumption is influenced more by prices and inflation and is less affected by import duty changes, partly because purchases are often linked to weddings and social occasions. Investment demand, however, tends to respond more sharply to income levels, duties and restrictions, while inflation and rainfall patterns can also influence buying trends in the short term. WGC also pointed to a historical link between higher import duties and unofficial gold inflows. It said duty increases between 2013 and 2026 were generally followed by higher levels of smuggled gold, while duty reductions coincided with sharp declines in such inflows. Following the 4 per cent duty increase in 2013, unofficial imports rose sharply from around 10 tonnes in the first quarter of that year to 70 tonnes by the same period in 2014, a seven-fold increase in less than a year. The council said unofficial inflows remained elevated even when duties stayed unchanged, suggesting smuggling networks once established are difficult to dismantle. A similar trend was observed after import duty was increased from 10.75 per cent to 15 per cent in July 2022. However, after the duty was cut to 6 per cent in July 2024, unofficial imports dropped almost immediately to near-zero levels, WGC added
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