BA Holidays extends its ‘double tier points’ offer to December 2023

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If you had been worrying about how you are going to retain or earn British Airways Executive Club status next year, BA Holidays can help.

BA Holidays has extended its double tier points offer by another three months, out to 31st December 2023.

If you book a ‘flight and hotel’ or ‘flight and car’ package for at least five nights, and travel by 31st December 2023 (was 30th September 2023), you will receive double BA tier points on your flights. Existing bookings count.

You can find out more on the BA Holidays website here.

British Airways is now posting these bonus tier points promptly. It only took 18 months, but it has finally cracked it. BA Holidays is now saying that you need to wait just 14 days for the extra tier points. Reader feedback confirms this.

You could get very close to a Silver card from scratch in one trip. For example, booking London to New York in Club World, you would get (140 + 140) x 2 = 560 tier points.

For clarity, ALL travellers on the booking receive double tier points.

How many tier points would you need for BA status?

From 1st January 2023, thresholds return to their pre-covid levels (this happens irrespective of your membership year end):

Bronze status in BA Executive Club requires 300 tier points

Silver status in BA Executive Club requires 600 tier points

Gold status in BA Executive Club requires 1,500 tier points

Remember that you need FOUR BA or Iberia cash flights in your membership year to get promoted, so one return flight to New York wouldn’t be enough unless you were connecting. You’d need a quick hop somewhere else before your status was upgraded.

Three bits of small print to note ….

There are three things to note about the double tier points offer:

you must book flights which carry a British Airways flight number – codeshare flights with, say, Qatar Airways are acceptable but only if your booking shows a BAXXXX flight number

whilst your booking must contain at least five nights of hotel or car rental, your overall stay can be longer

you don’t need to be booking for a couple or family – the offer also applies to solo travellers

The other BA Holidays benefits are still in place

As well as the double tier points offer, BA Holidays is running various other offers which will all stack together:

booking a ‘Flight and Hotel’ or ‘Flight and Car’ package can be cheaper than booking a flight on its own, since British Airways will often use BA Holidays as a way of quietly selling seats without cutting its headline flight prices

you earn an additional 1 Avios per £1 for every £1 you spend at BA Holidays

if you have the British Airways Premium Plus American Express card, you get double Avios via American Express if you use it to pay for your holiday

you only need to pay a deposit now with the balance not due until a few weeks before departure

The only real downside is that BA Holidays flights do not earn On Business points in the SME loyalty scheme.

Conclusion

I think it is worth having a serious think about how you can use this BA Holidays offer to put you well on your way to Executive Club status next year.

Don’t forget that BA Holidays is currently running its 2023 sale.

You can learn more about the double tier points offer on the BA Holidays website here.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (March 2023)

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Successfully apply for either of the Barclaycard Avios credit cards by 2nd April 2023 and you will be entered into a free draw to win ONE MILLION AVIOS! Full details are on the application forms here (free) and here (paid). This competition is exclusive to Head for Points readers. T&C apply.

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

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

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

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher for spending £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 £12,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points.

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

30,000 points and unbeatable travel 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.

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

Get a 10,000 points bonus plus an extra 500 points for our readers 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.

Until 30th March 2023, the sign up bonus on American Express Business Platinum is increased to 120,000 Membership Rewards points – click here. The bonus on American Express Business Gold is increased to 60,000 Membership Rewards points – click here. T&C apply, see the application forms for details.

American Express Business Platinum

Crazy 120,000 points bonus (to 30th March) and a £200 Amex Travel credit every year Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

60,000 points sign-up bonus (to 30th March) 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

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

Andrew S says:

27 Dec27 December 06:12

Caveat Emptor!
Whilst this is a good deal, Beware, you will not get BA On Business Points on anything deemed a ‘BA Holiday’ booking… I found out the hard way with a £4000 purchase earlier this year.
Maybe worth including such a salient point in future articles HFP?
- Harry T says:
  
  27 Dec27 December 09:15
  
  Why would you get business points on a holiday booking? This is very clearly aimed at leisure travel.
  - Lady London says:
    
    27 Dec27 December 13:57
    
    It depends. For extended business trips where I’m going to be for longer than about 4 days I’ve often checked Holiday pricing as well.
    
    Most cases I’ve checked there was no pricing advantage. But that was almost certainly because the room component mostly costs the same per room regardless of occupancy. So that keeps the price high, even though booking as a Holiday mostly should mean the airline can use a lower-costing type of fare, the old “IT” type fare.
    
    What this does mean is that it might cost you very little more for your partner to accompany you on a business trip booked as a Holiday (ie package of air plus some element of hotel and/or car). As the main driver of the extra expense would be the IT fare for the second person. Which could be very low. Plus the partner would earn their own avios airline points, plus tier points
- Rob says:
  
  27 Dec27 December 10:38
  
  We normally do mention this, but it slipped through the net here. Will tweak.
  - AJA says:
    
    27 Dec27 December 11:23
    
    While you’re tweaking, you may wish to reword “Two bits of small print to note” since you then go on to mention three things 😀
TS77 says:

27 Dec27 December 07:30

Do the flights need to originate / depart from the UK to qualify for the double points? I can’t see any mention of it on the T&Cs….
- BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
  
  27 Dec27 December 07:54
  
  Yes it’s UK originating only. It’s the very first criteria in the T&C as per Robs link in the article.
  
  1. A “Qualifying Booking” is a British Airways Holidays booking that meets all of the following criteria:
  
  a) The booking must be for a British Airways Holidays Flights + Hotel or Flights + Car or Flights + Hotel + Car package booking originating in the UK only.
  - Dev says:
    
    27 Dec27 December 09:26
    
    What’s the deal if you book LHR to LAX in F via JFK, with:
    
    LHR-JFK on BA and JFK-LAX on AA with a BA code.
    
    Is it double points all the way?
    - Nectar collector says:
      
      27 Dec27 December 09:29
      
      Yes if combined with the min 5 days car hire or hotel
Stu P. says:

27 Dec27 December 07:33

Just a shame they haven’t released the winter LGW flights yet!
Tom says:

27 Dec27 December 07:38

Interesting.. so I have an upcoming holiday to Japan including 2 nights of hotel. Does anyone know if it is possible to amend your hotel and / or add car hire to an existing BA Holidays booking? And if I did, would it reprice the entire thing (flights to Japan are significantly more expensive than when I booked!)

I’m just thinking the cost of adding 3 nights would be a cheap way to get my entire family to Silver (they already have some BA flights/TPs under their belts..)
- ChrisWalk83 says:
  
  27 Dec27 December 08:02
  
  Yes you can phone BA holidays to amend. We did it for a recent holiday by amending our car hire.
- Harry T says:
  
  27 Dec27 December 09:13
  
  Has to be booked as a holiday in the first place.
- Skywalker says:
  
  27 Dec27 December 10:13
  
  To achieve what you want, you would need to cancel the Japan trip and rebook with 5 nights hotel/car, or book something different in addition to Japan trip to make up silver.
- Yona says:
  
  27 Dec27 December 12:13
  
  A tricky one because the T&C says:
  
  For the avoidance of doubt this offer does not apply to any British Airways flight only bookings made without a hotel or car or where the hotel or car is added to a booking in a separate transaction.
  
  But you don’t have a “BA fight only booking”. You have a BA flight with a hotel and are adding an additional hotel.
  
  It therefore sounds as if it should be good but I would prefer somebody at BA to confirm.
- Thegasman says:
  
  27 Dec27 December 15:27
  
  From T&C’s I think you’re out of luck adding a car & I suspect extra hotel nights;
  
  2. For the avoidance of doubt this offer does not apply to any British Airways flight only bookings made without a hotel or car or where the hotel or car is added to a booking in a separate transaction.
  
  May be worth asking for a price for a new booking as sometimes BAH can book into fare buckets not openly being sold. This tends to be on higher capacity routes like NYC or ORD where they want to dump excess seats on the quiet though.
  - Tom says:
    
    27 Dec27 December 18:28
    
    Hmm thanks all. The ex-UK also counts me out because we are departing from Helsinki.. worked out less than half price to do a positioning flight there first.
Constantin says:

27 Dec27 December 08:34

I have an existing reservation with BA, flying with BA to NYC, 7 nights in Feb-22. How can I know how many TP will be earned? Is there anything to do to get double TP? The article and the link don’t seem to say if we need to enrol into the promotion. Thanks!
- Ian says:
  
  27 Dec27 December 11:06
  
  As long as it is a BA Holiday then you should be fine. The offer is automatically applied if the trip qualifies.
Colin says:

27 Dec27 December 08:42

You quoted the ‘travel by’ as per BA’s Terms, but is it possible to find out if the date relates to the first flight or does the trip need to be completed by then?

As for the UK question. I know JER is ok so that can save a bit, especially in the premium cabins.
- Ian says:
  
  27 Dec27 December 11:07
  
  I think it needs to be completed by
Alan says:

27 Dec27 December 08:53

Interesting only need car/hotel for 5 nights now, I think previously it was for the whole booking, even if longer. Sadly my attempt to make use of this offer a few weeks ago (before the rise in TP required) was thwarted by 11th Dec travel chaos. Two weeks on they’ll finally located my checked bag, although have now sent it on to Naples rather than back home 🤦
- Harry T says:
  
  27 Dec27 December 09:14
  
  T&Cs were changed from whole holiday to five days when they last extended the offer to Sept 2023.
Notmyrealname says:

27 Dec27 December 09:01

Can you use an Evoucher to book BA holidays?
- Cats are best says:
  
  27 Dec27 December 11:00
  
  Yes, but you have to contact them to apply it. I’ve used them to part-pay the balance a couple of times.
  
  Email baholidays at ba.com with the booking reference and attach the voucher email(s).
  
  It took 4-5 days last time I did it.
- BuildBackBetter says:
  
  27 Dec27 December 11:10
  
  Yes, but have to call.
- cabal of rabid baboons says:
  
  27 Dec27 December 11:41
  
  Not any more I’m afraid.
  - BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
    
    27 Dec27 December 14:13
    
    Since when?