Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Should the BAPP Amex let you earn tier points permanently, perhaps instead of Avios?

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

The news yesterday that British Airways will start offering Executive Club tier points for British Airways Premium Plus American Express spend generated a huge amount of feedback. Our article had over 350 comments by the end of the day.

As I said yesterday, I feel that it’s the right idea but wrongly executed, although a fair attempt at a first stab.

Let’s look into this in more detail.

Should the BAPP Amex let you earn tier points permanently, perhaps instead of Avios?

I had four issues with the offer. You need to understand that my key starting points when looking at any loyalty deal are whether it is easy to understand and how it plays on human psychology.

The spend threshold starts too high

You need to spend £15,000 within six months to start to benefit from this offer. This is too high and will simply lead to too many people tuning out.

It would make more sense to start earning tier points at £5,000 of qualifying spend for 50 tier points. Most people would earn something this way, and once a member had a handful of tier points it would – psychologically – encourage them to look into ways of earning more.

Remember that it costs BA NOTHING to give out tier points if the member does not go on to earn or retain status. It’s a different dynamic to Avios, where giving someone a handful of Avios which are never used requires IAG Loyalty to accrue for them on its balance sheet for three years.

The number of tier points should be uncapped

You can’t be half pregnant. If you’re going to give out tier points based on card spend, you should allow people to earn status entirely on card spend.

If someone wants to spend £60,000 to earn a British Airways Executive Club Silver card from scratch, assuming they also fly four segments, they should be able to (and the same for spending £150,000 to earn Gold).

Anyone who isn’t flying enough to earn status is unlikely to be flying enough to cost British Airways a fortune in lounge access etc. Some people who gained status via this route would also move travel to BA from other airlines to benefit from it.

Running a six month offer only benefits people with certain membership year end dates

Another issue with this trial is that, even if you were keen to take part, you may find that the way your year end falls counts you out. If you could spend a consistent £5,000 per month on your BA Premium Plus American Express card but your BA year end is 8th March, you’d trigger 100 tier points in your current 2023/24 year (which may be wasted) and 100 in the following 2024/25 year.

Should the BAPP Amex let you earn tier points permanently, perhaps instead of Avios?

There are issues for people who have stopping using a BA Amex because they have spent £9,999

Some people have spent £9,999 on their cards and are holding off spending more so they don’t trigger their annual 2-4-1 companion voucher unnecessarily early – although I published the obvious solution for that problem here.

I spent nothing on my BA card between February 2023 (when I was above £9,500) and the last week of October 2023 because I wanted to ensure the 2-4-1 voucher would be valid for October half term in 2025.

If BA is going to give out tier points on card spend, it ALSO needs to address the issue of people deliberately holding off using their card to avoid triggering their voucher early.

An idea: should British Airways offer Avios OR tier points?

Ever since interchange fee caps cut the money that credit card companies have to fund travel rewards, I have been pushing the idea of giving out elite status instead of miles.

(Iberia has been offering the equivalent of British Airways Bronze status with one of its credit cards for some years now – all you need to do is pay a €100 annual card fee. IAG isn’t against the concept of ‘selling’ status.)

What would happen if you were given a choice with your British Airways Premium Plus American Express?

  • earn 1.5 Avios per £1 (as you do now) or
  • earn 0.75 Avios per £1 and receive 1 tier point per £100 spent?

Why would BA do this? Because it makes financial sense – and financial sense is something that BA understands.

The airline targets a 10% operating profit margin from flying, although it is currently doing better. Bear this in mind.

Let’s assume that BA started to offer the two options above and I chose the second – 0.75 Avios per £1 and 1 tier point per £100 spent on my Premium Plus card.

Should the BAPP Amex let you earn tier points permanently, perhaps instead of Avios?

To earn British Airways Executive Club Silver status at 600 tier points would require £60,000 of credit card spend. I’d also receive (60,000 x 0.75) 45,000 Avios, instead of the 90,000 Avios I’d get at the standard rate of 1.5 Avios per £1.

Let’s assume Amex pays BA the same amount of money either way. Instead of paying BA around £750 for issuing 90,000 Avios, it pays BA £750 for issuing 45,000 Avios and giving me a Silver card.

Basically, BA will have been paid £375 for giving me a Silver card.

Because the airline targets a 10% profit margin on flights, BA makes the same profit on this as if I’d spent £3,750 on flying.

This is a big win for the airline.

Let’s assume I try to earn Silver from scratch by flying. A good ‘tier point run’ would cost around £2 per tier point. You can beat this – Heathrow to Sofia in Club Europe is currently as low as £210 return in March / April / May for 160 tier points, and you’d get another 80 tier points with a connection by starting outside London. Stay five nights in Sofia, book via BA Holidays, and you’d earn double tier points.

At £2 per tier point, I could earn Silver by spending (600 tier points x £2 per tier point) £1,200 on flights. BA would make £120 of profit this way based on a 10% margin. Instead, it would be getting £375 of profit by letting Amex buy me a Silver card.

Even someone with no real idea of what makes a good tier point run should be able to pick up a Silver card by spending far less than £3,750, generating less than £375 of profit for BA.

‘Selling’ status this way is actually good business sense for the airline.

This offer isn’t for you? That’s fine

Clearly this offer wouldn’t be for everyone. That’s fine.

BA doesn’t want it to be for everyone due to lounge capacity etc. After all, when everyone’s a princess, no-one’s a princess (a lesson I learned from reading ‘Olivia and the Fairy Princess‘ to my daughter when she was five – I can sense the blank looks from readers who don’t have a young daughter ….)

There are so many British Airways Premium Plus American Express cardholders – I am guessing 100k-ish – that BA would only want a couple of percent to earn status purely via card spend.

The extra revenue generated from this couple of percent of cardholders who went for it, gung ho, would be worthwhile for both American Express and BA, however.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

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

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:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

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

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £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

30,000 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 £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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

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

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus 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 American Express, British Airways and Avios

Comments (118)

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

  • Amy C says:
    22 Nov22 November 05:44

    Interesting. At the start of the article I was all, ‘No, no, nooooo!’ But by the end I see the logic. Still not totally convinced it would be a great move however.

    • Andrew says:
      22 Nov22 November 09:38

      Sure BA would be being paid £375 for a silver card but the article ignores the costs to BA of issuing it. Seat reservation fees are pure profit to BA but the new silver card holder doesn’t have to pay them. That’s potentially hundreds of lost profit right there. More than likely BA would lose money by selling silver cards for £375. The same can’t be said for selling avios since I suspect the fees paid on redemptions more than cover BA’s costs on most flights. Sure they ‘sell’ silver cards for £120 profit from flights but they don’t have a choice in doing that: it’s what full service airlines do.

      The cost would have to be a lot higher than £375 meaning that next to no one would earn status via this method. A bronze card like in Spain is a different matter. No lounge costs and I’d imagine the seat reservation fees still roll in. No family of four is going to wait until a week out hoping that seats will be available together on their busy flight in the summer holiday.

      • Rob says:
        22 Nov22 November 09:58

        Your logic is no different to me earning the same Silver status by taking some cheap flights though, on which BA earns 10% profit.

        • Andrew says:
          22 Nov22 November 10:37

          The end result to BA may be the same but they don’t have a choice in doing that. Full service airlines hand out status for taking enough flights and due to the vagueries of revenue management some of those flights may be cheap.

          If BA sold limited numbers of silver cards directly ask yourself at what price you’d tell readers it was no longer value for money? I suspect even at £1000 they’d be oversubscribed.

        • dougzz99 says:
          22 Nov22 November 13:05

          Disagree. The reason that TP are only awarded if you fly is lots of people would buy that status, far fewer are willing to take the flights.

  • Matt m says:
    22 Nov22 November 06:06

    You have been able to earn Air New Zealand tier point equivalents (status points) on credit cards in NZ for some years now – I think its a great feature. Although the earn is uncapped (at a rate of c.£100-125 / status point) you are required to earn at least half the status points for a given tier from flying. Would love to see something like this, or your suggestion Rob, with BA.

    • Lady London says:
      22 Nov22 November 10:20

      Don’t put ideas into BA’s head. It’ll take the. 2 or 3 years to as good as double the number of tier points required for G and S. The new requirement will move up in odd steps over the 2 or 3 years and land on a prime number so it won’t be exactly double today’s tier point requirement. But it will be close enough.

      You’ll still have to earn status by flying half the new tier point requirement. Which coincidentally willl still mean about the same flying as now.

      BA is very good at prestidigitation such as :

      – Misdirection : massive never-announced increases in co- pay on award tickets trousered by themselves that they still let be called ‘taxes’ all too frequently. While we were all looking the other way for about 3 years wondering when the next avios devaluation would be announced, it was taking place under our noses by massive increases in co-pay that have never been announced by BA. It took us here about 2 years before it became generally noticed.

      – Sleight of hand : yeah you can have your Barclays avios tickets but you’ll always have to buy them at the highest rate of avios – not really announced as a restriction BA imposed but it burns up the liability on BA’s books faster

      (Which is why giving you an extra year in which to trigger your BAPP voucher is not BA’s preference – as that liability could hang around in their books for a 3rd year).

      – Find The Lady – BA is now working out with this trial under which of the 3 glasses (spend+avios earning/conversion or buying) they are going to hide the ability to also earn tier points by not-flying

  • Rui N. says:
    22 Nov22 November 06:28

    £150k hotels.com anyone?

    • Peter K says:
      22 Nov22 November 07:14

      That’s a hefty credit card limit you’ve got there to do that 😂

      But why stop at achieving gold? Go for GGL!

      • BJ says:
        22 Nov22 November 07:25

        But apparently not as hefty as @Aston100’s underwear…

      • Rui N. says:
        22 Nov22 November 08:33

        CL not really the concern here, it’s more cash flow to float this while the points post. CL easily solvable by paying mid-cycle multiple times.

  • Ft says:
    22 Nov22 November 06:38

    The klm/ Air France Amex cards in the Netherlands give you annual Xp (level
    Determined by card colour)

    • Alex Sm says:
      22 Nov22 November 10:27

      I was quite amused to see Aeroflot offering to exchange travel miles to status miles. The rate is quite poor and there are limits but the whole idea of being able to do that if you are just short of X tier/status miles is very attractive. BA and others shd follow suit 🤑

      • LittleNick says:
        22 Nov22 November 11:41

        Don’t Finnair do something similar? Or I think they used to at least? Not sure if they will keep that when they move to Avios?

  • G says:
    22 Nov22 November 06:40

    £60,000 of cobranded credit card spend for mid tier status? You’re deluded.

    As you say, corporate travellers typically pay on work cards. They lose out.

    Leisure travellers are more price conscious, they’re likely to lose out.

    To have £60,000 of disposable income to push through the Amex you would need a gross salary of 140,000 and higher in the UK.

    • letBAgonesbe says:
      22 Nov22 November 06:53

      I use my personal card for work expenses and my employer reimburses me within 2 weeks.

      I work for a very large company with over 30,000 employees and they don’t offer business credit cards strangely.

    • Rob says:
      22 Nov22 November 07:19

      Correct. That’s not difficult in London in your mid 30s which is the core BA audience. I suspect at least 25% of our readers have that, given that the average is £70k.

      PS. Quick fact – the IAG presentation given to the City yesterday showed Avios signups growing fasting for people in their 40s.

  • BJ says:
    22 Nov22 November 06:45

    Wouldn’t be rocket science to give card holders a choice but it would be open to substantial abuse.

    • Erico1875 says:
      22 Nov22 November 07:00

      Just look at the iHG creation debacle. Numerous in here ripped the c#$p out of it with manufactured spend and then were outraged when Creation pulled the plug

      • VinZ says:
        22 Nov22 November 07:11

        I think the way it is now is open to abuse. I’m already thinking how to manufacture spend as I can’t possibly spend £20k on my card in 6 months.

        Rob’s idea makes more sense.

      • BJ says:
        22 Nov22 November 07:30

        That was one of the few big games I never played but still got my account closed. The other was IB+ 90k where I had too many visions of locals not being able to find seats to get to sick relatives and funerals.

      • lumma says:
        22 Nov22 November 08:18

        My only regret with the IHG card is that I didn’t go crazy and just put enough through to get the free night. I could’ve had a few million IHG points if I pushed it…

        • Lady London says:
          22 Nov22 November 10:26

          I never had the guts to do it – though the opportunities were clear – but admire all of you who had the chutzpah as it was fun to hear about it

  • Harry T says:
    22 Nov22 November 07:11

    Nope. Slippery slope to credit card and spend based elite status with very high spend requirements like in the US.

    • MKB says:
      22 Nov22 November 10:32

      +1

    • dougzz99 says:
      22 Nov22 November 13:11

      Absolutely. Rob loves these ideas as he clearly has high credit card spend, then builds logic around that. TP reward those really flying, which is what a Frequent Flyer scheme ought to be.
      But the US sees things differently, but has a very different credit card market, yet BA with their USA focus attempt to mimic that market.
      I still think this is some sort of experiment around linking TP to revenue and moving away from the current scheme.

  • Nick G says:
    22 Nov22 November 07:12

    No

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 80,000 bonus points (worth 80,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card (Offer ends 27th May)

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get up to 10,000 bonus Hilton Honors points

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? GET THE ONLY FREE SMALL BUSINESS CREDIT CARD WHICH CAN EARN AVIOS

Get points worth 30,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold (ends 27th May)

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!