Do I drop from Gold to Silver in British Airways Executive Club if I don’t earn enough tier points? 

Do you drop from Gold to Silver in British Airways Executive Club if you don’t earn enough tier points? 

Losing British Airways status is often a cause for concern. In this article we’ll look at what happens when you no longer reach the requirements to maintain Gold status with British Airways Executive Club.

As with any loyalty program, if you do not collect the minimum required tier points for Gold status, you will be demoted at the end of your membership year.

The good news is that you will be able to enjoy the Gold status benefits for, at a minimum, a full year. This is because once you accrue the relevant number of tier points for Gold, you gain status immediately for the remaining membership year plus the full year following, guaranteeing at least 12 months status and likely longer depending on when you become a Gold member.

It’s also worth noting that your Gold card typically expires 7-8 weeks after your membership year end – giving you another month or two of benefits.

For example, if your membership year runs to 8 September and you earn 1,500 tier points between September and November, you will be promoted to Gold immediately and:

• retain Gold for the rest of the 9th September – 8th September year

• keep it for all of the following 9th September – 8th September year

• if you get demoted, your Gold benefits don’t expire until 30th November

• after 30th November, you drop down to Silver which you keep until 8th September

• if you get demoted again, your Silver benefits don’t expire until 30th November, at which point you drop to Bronze for a year, and then finally to Blue a year later

Unlike some frequent flyer programs, with British Airways Executive Club you will never be demoted more than one tier.

In the industry, this is called a ‘soft landing’ since, even if you don’t collect any more tier points, you will gently be lowered to the next tier down until you reach Blue membership. That means that after your Gold card expires you still have a year of Silver and another of Bronze before you lose elite status entirely.  We wrote a full article here about British Airways ‘soft landings’ and how they work.

Note that British Airways is making changes to membership years in 2025 with all members moving to a 1st April to 31st March year. The principal above will continue to apply, except that the ‘stub’ period if you don’t renew will be cut to a month and run to 30th April.

During 2024 and the first three months of 2025, transitional arrangements are in place. You can read about what will happen to you in this article.

(This article is part of our ‘BA Q&A’ series which explains how British Airways Executive Club works.  You can see all of our ‘BA Q&A’ articles here. )

(Head for Points is the UK’s biggest frequent flyer website with 2.5 million monthly page views.  Want to learn more about earning and spending Avios?  Click here to read our latest news stories and click here to join the mailing list for our weekly or daily email newsletters.)

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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:

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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