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How to get FREE British Airways Bronze status (equivalent) for four months

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airberlin is a partner with British Airways in the oneworld alliance.  This means that anyone who has status with airberlin will receive reciprocal status benefits with BA, and vice versa.

Why does this matter?  Because airberlin is currently offering four months of free Silver status if you sign up for topbonus, their frequent flyer programme.

Silver on airberlin does NOT match Silver on British Airways.  It matches British Airways Bronze status instead because these are both ‘Ruby’ tiers in the oneworld hierarchy.

airberlin free silver status

The benefits of British Airways Bronze status, or any other oneworld Ruby status, are not huge but are certainly better than nothing.

As per this page of ba.com you will get:

Business Class check-in desk use

Priority Boarding

Free seat selection from seven days prior to departure

This (click) is the page of the airberlin website you need to access.

If your German isn’t up to much you can use Chrome to open the page and it will offer to translate it.  However, here are the key points (thank you Anika!):

  • sign up for topbonus by 30th November 2016
  • make sure to add a company email address
  • verify your email address once registered
  • enjoy 4 months of silver status (this may take a few days to update)

Existing topbonus members can also take advantage of this offer by clicking the button in the bottom right hand corner.

If you earn 8,500 topbonus status miles or take 8 airberlin or NIKI flights during your first 4 months, your Silver status will be extended for another 12 months. In comparison you usually need 24 flights or 25,000 topbonus status miles to gain silver status.

When signing up you can also get 500 bonus miles when opting in for email offers and news.

Using your new airberlin status with BA

In order to get free seat selection, you will need to physically put your airberlin topbonus number into your booking.  If it isn’t a redemption, you will need to swap it over to your BA number at a ticket desk in the airport – and have your boarding pass reissued – if you don’t want the miles to be credited to topbonus.

For the purposes of priority boarding and business class check-in, simply flashing your airberlin card (if they send you one – hopefully it is available via their app if not) should do the trick.

PS.  It is possible that airberlin will not be too keen on lots of UK residents taking advantage of this deal and may not honour it.  If not, don’t complain.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

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

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

British Airways and Avios, oneworld alliance partners

Comments (144)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Tim says:
    22 Nov22 November 08:43

    Hoping to join the Royal Caribbean Legend of the Seas for her final cruise in March which happens to start from Dubai. From memory, flying Airberlin business class gets a free limousine anywhere within the UAE. I also see that I can nominate my ‘favourite route’ with Airberlin for double points. I can feel a points rush coming on….

    Thanks!

  • Leo says:
    22 Nov22 November 08:46

    Just a couple of comments on this. Firstly if I didn’t have status already I would definitely try this BUT 1) when I was bronze I never seemed to have much luck choosing a seat 7 days ahead – don’t know why but there it is. 2) Secondly on short haul bronze is of very little if any help in trying to book an exit seat 7 days in advance – Silver is not much good either so better try Harry’s trick. I think the exit seats only become bookable (by non-golds) about lunch time 48 hours before the flight? 3)Thirdly it might well be quite a faff to get your FF number changed back to BA and a new boarding pass issued – especially if you can’t do this in the lounge due to not having access. Having said all this I’d still go for it.

    • AndyR says:
      22 Nov22 November 10:14

      I’ve often snagged emergency exit row seats as Bronze in the past. It is only on long haul that exit row seats are blocked to non-golds. On short haul they are open to all with status. I guess in your case they had been taken already by a Silver/Gold or passengers had paid for them.

      • Leo says:
        22 Nov22 November 14:01

        When did you last do this and how far in advance? For quite a while on short haul exit seats have been blocked until 2 days(?) before the flight. They don’t open them until they know for sure what the Club Section is going to look like. In my case(s) seats were not already allocated either as I always managed to get them on the day at the airport or on the app on the day of the flight. My point is don’t get too excited about extra leg-room seats as a Bronze – which I was on the first day I got it. Doesn’t mean to say you still won’t get the seats however as per harry’s story.

        • AndyR says:
          22 Nov22 November 16:43

          Last time was 22nd October flying LHR-CPH and it was 1 week in advance. Maybe it depends on the route.

          • Leo says:
            22 Nov22 November 19:18

            Interesting, maybe route is indeed a consideration – there is a long discussion on FT on the subject.

  • Craig says:
    22 Nov22 November 08:52

    Does the 25% additional Avios for Bronze status automatically kick in if the flights are already booked and you complete this to update to Bronze?

    • AndyR says:
      22 Nov22 November 09:57

      I think you have to be bronze with BA to get the 25% bonus. With this offer you get Oneworld Ruby benefits on BA.

  • Concerto says:
    22 Nov22 November 08:52

    Joined this a while ago because I credit mostly to TopBonus now. The benefits are really good, actually, especially the free seat selection. (But if you want to change seat directly at the check in desk they will ask 30 Euros). Apparently if you complete 17 segments in the time period you will get gold status.

  • Andrew H says:
    22 Nov22 November 08:53

    It didn’t work. Tried to do the things in the comments but was told ‘you are already registered’.

  • Jason Cousins says:
    22 Nov22 November 09:09

    Tried to join topbonus this morning and keeps returning ‘unexpected error’. Tried on two different devices and two different browsers. Have they put a temporary stop on this?

  • Mike M says:
    22 Nov22 November 09:12

    I just get “error” after filling it all in…

    • Mark says:
      22 Nov22 November 10:56

      Same here. Tried all sorts.

      • Mike M says:
        22 Nov22 November 11:48

        Just got through, only change was 1) I didn’t auto translate the page and 2) I used a shorter password – 12 chars with a number and a special character…

  • Keith says:
    22 Nov22 November 09:16

    It doesn’t like commas/punctuation in the address and Vereinigtes Königreich is for UK if anyone needs it.

    • RussellH says:
      22 Nov22 November 10:45

      I finally got it to work, but it was a pain.

      I tried both UK and German e-mail addresses – no joy.

      I tried putting the UK postcode in the ‘Ort’ field and 00000 in the ‘PLZ’ field – it objected to the postcode being there – perhaps because of the figures.

      What finally worked for me was fiddling with the password: At first I put a # at the end (which is one of their recommended special characters). After putting an underline in the *middle* of the password it did work.

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