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Will British Airways extend your Executive Club Gold, Silver or Bronze status due to coronavirus?

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British Airways has just announced the measures it is taking to ensure you may still be able to enjoy your status benefits once travel restrictions lift.

To be honest, it’s not good enough.  But it’s a start.

Here is what will change:

The number of tier points you need to earn or retain status will be reduced by 30% for members due for renewal on 8th April, 8th May and 8th June

If your membership is due to renew from 8th July onwards, there is no concession (yet?).  You will need to earn the full number of tier points to renew or gain status.

what are the British Airways Executive Club tiers?

The requirement to have flown four BA cash flights (on top of earning the necessary tier points) is waived

All 2-4-1 vouchers and Gold Upgrade Vouchers will automatically be extended by 6 months (which we already wrote about here)

If your membership is up for renewal in April, May or June you should expect an email outlining the changes.

This page of ba.com has more details.

How does the British Airways status extension work in practice?

The British Airways tier point thresholds will now stand at 210 tier points for Bronze, 420 tier points for Silver and 1050 tier points for Gold.

Assuming your membership year renews on 8th June, you will have missed out at least two (April, May) but more likely three (March) and possibly four (February) months of regular flying. 

Assuming three months, and if you earn an equal amount of tier points every month,  you would be missing out on 25% of your annual tier points. Under this extension your status would renew, since the reduction of tier points required is greater than your lost earnings.

However, this is only on the assumption that you earn an equal amount of tier points every month. For most flyers, this is unlikely. 

The majority of people who are currently Bronze, Silver and Gold earn their status through only a handful of flights – it can take as little as one long haul return flight and a few short hauls to qualify for British Airways Silver status, for example.

Reducing the tier points required by 30% is unlikely to have an impact on these flyers, as they are likely to miss out on key bookings they made due to travel restrictions. These people will face a soft landing to the next tier down.

Because British Airways has refused to credit travellers with the tier points they would have earned from flights which were booked but then cancelled, some people will fail to earn or retain status even though their cancelled flights would have tipped them over.

Whilst this update protects some of BA’s corporate clients – people who commute to work, or have a weekly or monthly trip to US for example – it falls short of protecting many other status holders. These are customers British Airways is at risk of losing if it does not enact further concessions.

It is not clear why British Airways is choosing not to simply extend status.  Qatar Airways and Virgin Atlantic have announced they are rolling over status for an additional six months, no questions asked.  Qantas is going one step further and extending status by a whole year.

Hilton also announced a similar move yesterday – in fact, Hilton went further by saying that anyone who has recently dropped down will be reinstated.  This seems like a simpler and more effective fix than what BA is proposing here.

It also seems odd to apply this change from April onwards, given the levels of disruption to flying that happened in the weeks up to 8th March. If your membership renewed this month there is a chance you may not have re-qualified for your tier, and these changes do not offer any help.

We will have to wait and see if British Airways goes further than what it has announced today. I suspect it will have to, given the amount of people who will be losing out.

You can find out more on this page of ba.com.


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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (May 2025)

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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

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Barclaycard Avios card

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card

30,000 Avios and the famous annual Companion Voucher voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express Credit Card

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 Credit Card

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The Platinum Card from American Express

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There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business Card

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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.

The American Express Business Platinum Card

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The American Express Business Gold Card

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

Comments (153)

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

  • Mark says:

    My son was born in Dec last year and my collection year ended in Feb where I retained Gold. I asked for a status freeze and BA said no as I had gold for a further 12 months anyway! I said that this misses the point that I won’t be flying (as much) during the 12 months so I will battle to maintain my status. They said no again and said I should apply again towards the end of my status year. It is one of those strange things in life where I was broadly positive re BA but something so simple turned me negative! I think BA’s emotional intelligence is very low!!

    • John says:

      Actually no, BA’s refusal will benefit you.

      Your TP year ended in Feb 2020 so you are Gold until March 2021.

      If you apply for the baby benefit in February 2020, it would extend your Gold until March 2022.

      If you wait until 9th February 2021 to apply, when you are still Gold but after your current year ends, your Gold will be extended until March 2023. This is because BA will take you to have met the requirements for Gold in your 2021-22 collection year.

      • Mark says:

        Thanks John – if they accept my application in 2021 🙂 I will give it a go.

  • Paul says:

    There will be winners and losers with all policies being bought in right now. Their new policy is attractive to me (May renewal: I had to cancel flights that would have taken me from Silver to Gold before then…now, it looks like I will get Gold as originally planned). Thank you BA.

  • Bluekjp says:

    BA are reducing the required number of tier points for those whose year end is 8th Apr, May or Jun. This is because these guys have lost 3 months’ tier point earning potential ergo only 9 months of travel.
    But, hang on. My year ends 8th Aug, yours may be 8th Oct and that chap over there may be 8th Feb 21. We’ve all lost the same 3 months so should also be given the lower target immediately, or do we have to attain ours in 9 months of available travel within our year? BA has dropped a clanger here. (I’m on 1200+ at present but that’s irrelevant as we need to make the case for each other).
    As this virus issue will surely persist beyond 3 months, a blanket 6 month extension by BA would have been simpler and quicker for them to instigate and would have taken some additional worry away from a tranche of loyal travellers.

    • memesweeper says:

      “As this virus issue will surely persist beyond 3 months, a blanket 6 month extension by BA would have been simpler and quicker for them to instigate”

      precisely… but BA always find a more complicated and less customer friendly way it seems…

  • Eugene says:

    BA. Why do they nickel and dime everything? Premier Inn and Virgin gave me back canceled booking cash within 24 hours. We all know BA’s appalling and certainly contract breaking response to its customers. Still waiting two weeks after a cancellation for voucher, points or cash to turn up. The removal of a cancellation button. The call centre set up that is in meltdown, the closed office in India. I’m sure you all have other examples.
    So here they are at it again.The company is on its knees , bleeding £200m a week yet they still find time to alienate its frequent customers- and over what ? Access to indifferent pasta, overheated pastries and a glass of fizz if you find someone to ask.
    Penny wise pound foolish. No other airline I know exhibits such cognitive dissonance on a daily basis.

    • jack says:

      Yes they’re losing a lot of money but they aren’t going anywhere so they don’t care because they don’t need to.

  • Vinay Dhawan says:

    I received an email but it was a blanket email as opposed to a personalised one. The language used is “if your membership is due to renew on….” so does that mean when your collection year ends or when your membership renews. My collection year ends 8th June and I’m on 1250, but my renewal is from 8th July so I believe I should be ok, but now I’m not sure

  • Andy says:

    Phew, good for me, my year ends on the 8th of June and I’m sitting on 420 TP’s.
    I wasn’t going to bother doing any runs to get them as I’ve cut down quite a bit on my long haul flights anyway. What with being able to get lounge access for £7 the only thing I would have been missing was free seat selection

  • HKK says:

    Classic BA manoeuvre this – it’s incredibly disappointing. There’s a lot going on in the world right now and it’s a real opportunity for companies to shine. There were so many different ways BA could have approached this issue, from a blanket extension to looking at prior year qualification history. The trouble with the route they have chosen is that it will most likely require revision as operations ramp back up. Come on BA listen to your Customers, look at your competitors and be bold! Who knows, this might be the very opportunity to change a lot of minds about the service philosophy!

  • Denise Sheard says:

    Oh dear I maintain bronze by flying 24 qualifying short haul flights a year ie 1 return a month No mention is made of this So what happens to us

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

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