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British Airways extends Executive Club elite status – for Gold members only

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British Airways is about to announce another 12 months extension of elite status for some Executive Club members.

The screw continues to tighten, however. This latest extension will only benefit Gold and Gold Guest Lists members, although there is a carrot for Silver members.

British Airways Executive Club status cards

There will be no further extensions to American Express 2-4-1 companion vouchers or any other vouchers. This shouldn’t be a surprise as BA started to expire 2-4-1 vouchers on 1st October last year.

Who gets an extension?

Gold Guest List members

If you are a Gold Guest List member (you can learn how to earn the elite Gold Guest List status here), and your tier point year ends between July 2022 and December 2022, you will receive a full 12 month extension.

Gold members

The extension announced today covers Gold members of British Airways Executive Club who have a tier point collection end date between 1st July 2022 and 30th September 2022.

If your tier point year ends during this three month period, your existing status level will be rolled over automatically for another 12 months.

Silver members

A different policy has been announced for Silver members whose tier point year ends between 1st July 2022 and 30th September 2022.

There is NO extension.

However, the number of tier points you need to retain your status is being halved, from 600 to 300 tier points.

Given that you can earn 160 tier points from a single Club Europe return flight to ‘far’ Europe (here are some ideas), I consider this reasonable.

The reduced threshold will not show for you on ba.com but your status will be extended automatically if you reach the 300 point threshold.

Everyone else

By everyone else, I mean:

  • Gold members with a tier point year ending after 30th September 2022
  • Silver members with a tier point year ending after 30th September 2022
  • All Bronze members
  • All Blue / basic members

….. you continue to benefit from the reduced tier point requirement.

British Airways status extension

The following tier point rules apply until 31st December 2022:

  • Bronze status will require 225 tier points (was 300 tier points)
  • Silver status will require 450 tier points (was 600 tier points)
  • Gold status will require 1,125 tier points (was 1,500 tier points)

You can confirm this on ba.com here.

Let me clarify how this works, because it has caused confusion in the past.

Let’s assume you are currently Silver and your tier point year ends on 8th February 2023. To requalify you must EITHER:

  • earn 450 tier points by 31st December 2022, or
  • earn the full 600 tier points by 8th February 2023

What about American Express 2-4-1 companion vouchers?

There are NO extensions to companion vouchers or Gold Upgrade vouchers.

Vouchers began to expire on 1st October so it would be very unfair to those members who have already lost a voucher to extend those which remain.

Conclusion

It is clear that not everyone will be happy with the changes which will be announced today.

However, realistically, BA and the rest of the airline industry needs to make a call. The good customers of 2019 will not be the good customers of 2023. People change companies or get promoted into roles which need less travel. Many companies will be permanently cutting back on business travel.

The industry has to decide when it should cut people loose. Businesses need to start rebuilding their elite tiers from those who are travelling now, not those who were travelling four years ago. BA has taken the first steps today to doing that.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (190)

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

  • Rich says:
    20 Apr20 April 12:45

    What’s the current best advice for chasing BA Hols double TPs?

    ISTR that there were several email addresses doing the rounds, with varying degrees of success.

    • Jack says:
      20 Apr20 April 14:54

      I waited a couple of weeks after recent ski trip (I know, it says up to 60 days, but I was in a hurry) and then emailed executiveclub@my.ba.com – got a reply in 5 days saying they were checking with the holidays promotion team. Chased up a week later and got a reply same day with TP’s added. So about 4 weeks, with some polite chasing.

      • Rich says:
        20 Apr20 April 16:18

        Thanks. Was 30 days when I booked, I think. Will give that address a try.

  • AlisonH says:
    20 Apr20 April 12:53

    Thanks for this Rob. Just to clarify, I gained Silver (currently have 660 points) in Feb this year, tier point end date is August. My card expiry date has been revised and shown Sept 2023 for a while. I’m assuming this latest news doesn’t have any effect and I will retain Silver till that date, is that right or am I missing something?

    • Rob says:
      20 Apr20 April 13:11

      Correct, nothing changes.

      You can renew Silver by earning 450 TP between 9 August and 31st December 2022, or 600 between 9 August 2022 and 8 August 2023.

  • AJA says:
    20 Apr20 April 12:58

    My OH is Silver and has just received the email. It’s not quite as generous as it sounds. The reduced 300TP is for the remainder of the current tier year, in other words earn 300TP by 8 September (the TP year end date). In other words just over 4.5 months. That’s quite a tall order unfortunately as the next two trips are reward flights.

    That said presumably the BA Holidays double tier point promotion would help – a single holiday to a 80TP destination would give 320TP.

    • A350 says:
      20 Apr20 April 13:24

      You can also fly to HEL twice with Finnair for circa £500. Just look at Skyscanner (this fare is only available via certain OTAs).

    • Harry T says:
      20 Apr20 April 13:34

      ExUK BA flights are extortionately expensive at the moment, though, so you will pay through the nose for the double TPs.

  • HH says:
    20 Apr20 April 13:17

    Question: For a Silver with TP collection year ending 8 Aug 2022, does the 300 TP threshold apply only between now and Aug 2022? Or does it also apply to the 2022-23 collection year?

  • Paasan69 says:
    20 Apr20 April 13:20

    Slightly OT. Would someone be able to confirm if they’ve hit BAEC GGL with 3.750 TP during the reduced threshold period? I could possibly reach this amount of TPs with some creative routings before my TP year-end on July 8th. I’ve seen posts on forums/blogs around mentioning that the GGL threshold is reduced but nothing from BA themselves or anyone confirming if they’ve made GGL with this amount of points.

    • Andrew says:
      20 Apr20 April 13:32

      I’d like to see something in writing/confirmed for this too

    • Hilda M says:
      20 Apr20 April 15:54

      My new GGL year has just started – account page says something like – ways we are looking after you: renew if you reach 2250 by 31 Dec.

      • Paasan69 says:
        20 Apr20 April 17:10

        Thanks for the reply Hilda M. That should mean that the threshold for hitting GGL for the first time (or if missed a year), should be lowered to 3750 TP. The renewal after you make GGL is 3k each year consecutively. I will confirm with the Gold line before I run off an book some tickets. I understand GUF vouchers don’t have lowered thresholds. So 2.5k, 3.5k 5k. etc.

      • The Paw says:
        22 Apr22 April 12:23

        Does anyone know the answer to this:

        I had no chance of ever hitting 5,000 tier points but I can probably get 3,750. I’m currently gold with Tier Point year ending November 8, 2022 and card expiry December 31, 2022.

        Two questions:
        1) I ASSUME that if I get to 3,750 by November 8, 2022, I’ll get GGL. Is this correct?

        2) But is there any chance that the deadline to get GGL is 3,750 by December 31, 2022? (I can do this without a tier point run)

        Thanks in advance for any help with these questions.

        • Rob says:
          22 Apr22 April 12:43

          1 – yes
          2 – no, due to the reset on 9 November

          • The Paw says:
            22 Apr22 April 12:54

            Thought as much. As always, Rob, I appreciate your taking the time to share your knowledge and ability to analyse/interpret all the arcane (and constantly changing!) rules.

  • G says:
    20 Apr20 April 13:25

    My TP Year ends on 8th July. I am currently a Blue Member.

    I will have 480 by 8 July this year, ensuring Silver Status from 8 July 2022 – 8 July 2023.

    As a result of this change, I will need to get 300 Tier Points between 9 July and 30 September to requalify for Silver Status (effectively) for 8 July 2023-8 July 2024?

    Thankfully, I already have a 4 Club Europe flights booked for July and September which will earn me 320 tier points (Istanbul and Malta), so I should be alright through ’til 8 July 2024 as a Silver Member?

    • G says:
      20 Apr20 April 13:30

      Apologies, I have misread.

      So, under the current situation, after 9 July and before 31 December 2022 – I will still need 450 TP to requalify for Silver, as my. After 1 January until 7 July 2023; it will revert back to the pre-covid 600 Tier Points.

      But for THIS tier point year ( 8 July 2021 – 8 July 2022). I will only require 300 TPs and 4 BA/IB flights? Please correct me if I am wrong.

      • Rob says:
        20 Apr20 April 13:37

        Correct.

        • G says:
          20 Apr20 April 13:40

          Even if I am a blue member? I will require just 300 TPs by 8 July to acquire Silver?

          And then from 9 July – 31 December 2022 – 450 TPs to requalify for the
          July 2022-July 2023 year (and effectively through until 7 July 2024).

          • Mark says:
            20 Apr20 April 14:09

            No. The 300 points threshold is only for those who are already Silver, looking to requalify after 1st July and can hit the 300 to requalify by end of September (or the end of their qualifying year if sooner). Since you said you will have 480 by the 8th July though that shouldn’t be a problem as you will qualify under the reduced tier point thresholds (450 for Silver until the end of the year).

  • Mighty Hunter says:
    20 Apr20 April 13:41

    BA site says:
    Regardless of the amount of Tier Points earned, all Members have been able to benefit from 2 years of automatic Tier status extensions. This includes all Members who have not been able to collect enough Tier Points within their current Tier Point Collection Year to maintain their current Tier status.

    My wife’s year end is May. In the year to May 2021 she attained gold status. Currently the club shows card expiry as June 2023. That’s only one year extension?

    • Thegasman says:
      20 Apr20 April 14:05

      Whatever status she had at start of May ‘20-May ‘21 would have been extended by a year. If you reached a higher level in that year then the extension didn’t apply as you already had the following year (end May ‘22) as Gold. Extensions essentially protected peoples existing status if they couldn’t fly. If you were still flying & qualifying you didn’t need protection.

      • Mighty Hunter says:
        20 Apr20 April 14:15

        I see your logic, but I wonder if it’s worth calling the Gold number and quoting the blurb above just in case?
        Shame she’s got 805 points this year which get wasted.

        • Thegasman says:
          20 Apr20 April 15:19

          You can try but they can’t manually extend status on the phone. The only time they’ve shown any leniency beyond published policy is where people missed qualifying for higher level due to flights they had booked which were then cancelled by BA. This had to be escalated to back office teams.

          I’m not sure you’ve got any grounds to say you were prevented from achieving/maintaining status as things stand?

  • FRASER says:
    20 Apr20 April 13:58

    Strange one – I just flew BA 1st class LON-BOS and Club World BOS-LON. I booked with Avios, but I’ve been given tier points. I thought tier points weren’t awarded for reward flights. Not complaining of course, but any ideas why this might have been the case?

    • Rhys says:
      20 Apr20 April 14:02

      It’s a glitch 🙂

      • Mighty Hunter says:
        20 Apr20 April 14:16

        Happened to us a couple of years ago but they disappeared after a week or so. But you never know!

    • Alex says:
      20 Apr20 April 15:25

      BA’s wonderful IT. Best not to boast about it, it’s kind of a “bank error in your favour” card at Monopoly!

      • Nick says:
        20 Apr20 April 16:30

        Were they by any chance rebooked and your tickets reissued? Known issue, if the rebooking used a commercial fare class. If a couple of specific people at AGL aren’t too busy they’ll go back and remove them in the next week (they have a report but can’t always get round to actioning it)… but otherwise enjoy the bank error in your favour.

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