Does British Airways Executive Club have soft landings?

I am often asked whether British Airways Executive Club has soft landings.  It does, and I will explain how the BA soft landings work.

“Soft” and “hard” landings describe the way in which you drop through tiers in loyalty programs if you do not hit the renewal requirements for a particular tier.

A soft landing is generally seen as preferential when it comes to frequent flyer programs, since it is more generous than a hard landing.

For example, with British Airways Executive Club, if you hold Gold status but fail to reach the 1,500 tier point threshold for renewal, you will be gently lowered through the elite tiers rather than being demoted immediately to Blue at the end of your membership year.

This is referred to as a soft landing since you can enjoy one year of Silver status and then a year of Bronze status even if you do not earn a single tier points after reaching GOld.

A hard landing, conversely, is when you do not transition through lower elite tiers but crash straight to the bottom of the tier ladder when your membership year (and elite status) expires.  This would be the equivalent of dropping from British Airways Executive Club Gold status to Blue status overnight.

Luckily, British Airways Executive Club operates soft landings, meaning that you are likely to enjoy at some benefits in the following membership year even if you don’t reach the requirements for renewal of your current tier.

There is only one exception.  Certain elite Gold Guest List members of British Airways Executive Club can gift Gold and Silver status to friends.  The rules here are unclear – some people drop straight back to Blue after a year whilst others do not. The difference may be that those who have a soft landing undertake the four British Airways cash flights in their membership year which are required for those who earn status via the normal route.

You can read more about the different elite tiers with British Airways Executive Club 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.

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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.