British Airways tightens up on baggage rules for Gold and Silver cardholders

I posted last week about the new benefit for Bronze members of British Airways Executive Club – the ability to board via the Priority Boarding line.

At the same time, it seems that BA has quietly downgraded one of the benefits of Gold and Silver membership. 

Historically, in the same way that you only need one Silver cardholder per booking for everyone to get free seat selection, your whole party used to benefit from the higher Silver baggage allowance.

This allowed you to take a 32kg suitcase for no charge, whereas you would normally have to pay extra for any case above 23kg.

A beady-eyed Flyertalk poster spotted that BA has changed the rules.  Only the Gold or Silver cardholder can now check in a suitcase for free that weighs between 23kg and 32kg.  All other family members are limited to a case of 23kg or less, if they are unwilling to pay £40 per case each-way for excess baggage.  This is likely to lead to more careful packing in future, with heavy items now needing to be predominantly in the same suitcase.

Here is the new wording from ba.com:

Executive Club Gold and Silver members and oneworld Emerald and Sapphire members receive additional checked-baggage benefits when flying on British Airways and oneworld member airline flights.

Executive Club Gold and oneworld Emerald members:

An additional free checked bag in any class of travel for the cardholder and any customer travelling on the same booking (excludes hand-baggage only fares and special group rate bookings).

A weight allowance of 32kg (71lb) per checked bag in any class of travel for the cardholder only.

Executive Club Silver and oneworld Sapphire members:

A minimum checked baggage allowance of two pieces in any class of travel for the cardholder and any customer travelling on the same booking (excludes hand-baggage only fares and special group rate bookings).

A weight allowance of 32kg (71lb) per checked bag in any class of travel for the cardholder only.

Now, in reality, 23kg is still a lot.  It is about the maximum that I feel happy carrying around.  That said, plenty of people who carry heavy equipment around for their job will find themselves up against the 32kg limit – as would anyone normal person with a very large, full, suitcase.

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As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

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