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What are the current rules for the BA Holidays ‘double tier points’ offer?

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The BA Holidays ‘double tier points’ offer has, for many HfP readers, been a game changer in how they earn British Airways status since it launched during the pandemic.

Even someone with no tier points at all could earn themselves Silver status in British Airways Executive Club with two European breaks, as long as you flew in Club Europe to cities which earn 160 tier points.

If you’re heading to Asia, a British Airways Gold card will be nearly yours with just one Business Class return trip, as long as you book on Qatar Airways as a BA codeshare. You’d end up with 1,120 tier points (140 tier points from each of the four flights, given the aircraft change in Doha, doubled) out of the 1,500 required for Gold.

BA Holidays continues to ‘tweak’ (or ‘mess with’, depending on your view!) the rules of this offer so I thought I’d run through it again today.

BA Holidays double tier points offer

IMPORTANT: The rules of this promotion have changed multiple times since it was launched. If you reading this article after the 15th December 2023 publication date, I strongly recommend checking the latest situation on this special page of ba.com.

How does ‘double tier points’ work?

The headline deal is:

If you book a ‘flight and hotel’ or ‘flight and car’ package via British Airways Holidays for at least five nights, and travel by 31st December 2024, you will receive double BA tier points on your flights.

There’s small print though, which I will cover below.

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

Double tier points do NOT arrive with the tier points from your flight but post separately within 14 days.

BA accepts no responsibility if the double tier points do not arrive in time to post in your current membership year. If they are delayed then you are stuck – they will be backdated to your old membership year but BA will not re-open the calculation on whether you earned status or not. For this reason I strongly recommend that you do NOT book your BA Holidays trip at the very end of your membership year.

This offer applies to solo travellers as well as couples and families.

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

How many tier points would you need for BA status?

Thresholds have now returned to their pre-covid levels:

  • 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 – as well as hitting the tier points target – you need four BA or Iberia cash flights (codeshares with a BA or IB flight number count) in your membership year to get promoted to Silver, or two flights for Bronze.

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.

This HfP article shows you the number of tier points earned from BA flights. The rules are different for partner airline flights and you need to use the calculator on ba.com here. In simple terms, the cut-off for a partner flight to be treated as long haul is 2,000 miles.

BA Holidays double tier points offer

What does the small print now say?

BA Holidays has changed the small print for this offer multiple times. To be fair, this was generally done as the result of ‘abuse’ by passengers, although whether this was actual or just perceived abuse is a different question. There were also ambiguities over partner airline flights which have now been clarified.

It is very easy to fall foul of these rules because BA Holidays will still accept your booking even if you break them. The first thing you will know about not getting double tier points is when they don’t turn up!

Let’s look at the key rules:

Where do you live?

You must a UK or US resident to take part in this offer, which probably means ‘your BA account must be UK or US registered’

(Whilst the promo website only says UK residents can take part, this wording changes if you access the page from the US.)

What counts as a ‘holiday’?

You must book a ‘flight and hotel’ or ‘flight and car’ or ‘flight and hotel and car’ package via the BA Holidays website.

You cannot book a flight via the main BA website and add a hotel or car during the check-out process. Your booking must be made via the BA Holidays site. (EDIT: there is some disagreement here. If you book a flight at ba.com and add the required car and/or hotel at the same time it seems that it may be OK, but NOT if added later. It’s not clear why you’d do this given the bonus Avios earned for booking via the BA Holidays site.)

You must book at least five days of car hire or five nights in a hotel, but you do NOT necessarily need to book the car or hotel for your entire stay.

Your holiday must not be for more than 30 days.

RULE CHANGE: The car hire or hotel nights must all take place between your flight dates. If you start your trip in London, you can no longer book a hotel at the airport the night before you fly or after you arrive home and have that count. It is not clear if an airport hotel in London before/after a domestic connection counts.

RULE CHANGE: You will lose your double tier points if BA Holidays finds out that you did not collect the car (or you returned it early) or did not check into the hotel (or checked out early).

BA Holidays 'double tier points' offer

What flights qualify?

With British Airways no longer flying to key holiday destinations such as Thailand, it is important to understand whether your flights on partner airlines will earn tier points and will be doubled.

Your flights must start from, and end in, the UK

Your trip must start and end here. If you want double tier points, you cannot save money on Air Passenger Duty or the flight cost by booking, say, Dublin to Heathrow to Singapore.

Your flights must have a British Airways flight number

This isn’t an issue if you fly with BA. If you are booking with another airline, such as Qatar Airways, you must ensure that you are booked on a codeshare and that your booking shows a BAXXXX flight number.

You will find that British Airways does codeshare with its oneworld alliance partners on key leisure routes, but there is no central list that I am aware of. Some Qatar Airways destinations, to use Qatar Airways as a random example, may not be part of the BA codeshare arrangements.

If the BA Holidays website only shows QR flight numbers on Qatar Airways flights, you need to keep fiddling with dates to try to force a BA flight number – or give BA Holidays a call and see if they can force a codeshare booking. The allocation of seats given to BA as part of the codeshare arrangement is limited.

Your flight must earn tier points in the first place

This may be a statement of the obvious, but it’s easy to be caught out.

BA Holidays sells flights from Aer Lingus, China Southern and LATAM. BA Holidays states that these flights do not earn British Airways tier points, irrespective of whether your booking has a BA flight number or not. Double nothing is still nothing. (A codeshare with a BA flight number would normally earn tier points so this could be an error in the rules.)

RULE CHANGE: You cannot combine two separate trips as one ‘holiday’

Some people were gaming the system by booking multiple 2-3 night trips in one transaction to reach the five nights of hotel stay required.

The rules now say “Bookings can only contain one flight departing the UK, multiple journeys from the UK within one booking will not qualify.”

BA Holidays double tier points offer

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
  • 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, assuming that the On Business website ever comes back.

Conclusion

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

Remember that the rules are constantly being tweaked. Check the current rules before booking and consider taking a screen shot on the day you book in case they later change in a negative way.

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

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Category

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Comments (156)

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

  • Paula says:
    15 Dec15 December 07:12

    How do I know for sure if my holiday booking qualifies for this, should the higher number of points show in MMB? Mine shows only what I would normally expect. Thanks

  • Matt says:
    15 Dec15 December 07:25

    I think this article is incorrect about partner flights. If your flight has a BA flight number it will earn Tier Points (and presumably double Tier Points) even if it is on a non-Oneworld plane, ie Aer Lingus, Latam or China Southern.
    It’s only if you don’t have a BA flight number that you wouldn’t earn TP. That includes if you have another Oneworld number, eg AA or QR on Latam metal for example.

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      15 Dec15 December 07:31

      1c in the T&Cs

      Flights marketed by British Airways with or without a BA flight number that are operated by Aer Lingus, China Southern or LATAM are not eligible for Tier Points

      • Matt says:
        15 Dec15 December 07:45

        I’d missed that change, although I’d be surprised if it actually meant you didn’t get any tier points for a flight that would earn Tier Points if not booked as a holiday.

      • Phillip says:
        16 Dec16 December 08:41

        That’s a new addition to the terms and conditions. It has evolved from “all BA codeshare flights are eligible”, to flights on Aer Lingus, China Southern or LATAM not eligible for DOUBLE points, to no tier points at all for those 3. The old calculator still shows tier points are earned on DUB-JFK if “operated” by BA which I take to mean codeshare, whereas none for Aer Lingus flights. As above, I have received tier points on BA marketed Aer Lingus flights recently.

    • Phillip says:
      16 Dec16 December 08:37

      Matt, my experience on a BA coded Aer Lingus flight DUB-JFK in September is that I received (single) tier points, so you are correct.

  • Paul says:
    15 Dec15 December 07:26

    The UK and US offers are separate and different T&C’s. Seems this article is mostly UK based rules.

    All BA coded flights earn TPs

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      15 Dec15 December 07:32

      1c of the T&Cs

      : Flights marketed by British Airways with or without a BA flight number that are operated by Aer Lingus, China Southern or LATAM are not eligible for Tier Points.

      • Paul says:
        15 Dec15 December 07:42

        So I assume it means you won’t earn the double TPs, or are they saying if you book thru holidays you get fewer than flight only?

        Elsewhere on site: Whether you collect Avios and Tier Points depends on the airline flight number on your ticket:

        If your flight code is British Airways, you’ll collect Avios and Tier Points no matter who operates the flight.

  • Nick says:
    15 Dec15 December 07:29

    This is quite an informative and concerning article. I have a holiday booked to Thailand for 5 full nights in a hotel in Bangkok. It was booked through BA holidays however, I have noticed that one of the four flights has a QR flight number. The other three have a BA flight number. Does this mean that my holiday booked with BA in good faith won’t actually get double tier point. The banner on the booking site also says double tier points during the booking process.

    • Matt says:
      15 Dec15 December 07:38

      You should get double Tier Points for the 3 flights with BA numbers and single TP for the other flight.

    • Harry T says:
      15 Dec15 December 08:19

      Banner is irrelevant, it has no bearing on whether your booking is eligible. Matt is right.

    • Ramsey says:
      15 Dec15 December 12:54

      Yes I have this same problem with an AA coded flight in the middle of a trip to the USA. It’s a bit annoying that the BA terms and conditions are ambiguous. They state ‘The booking must contain British Airways flights including codeshares and British Airways marketed and/or operated flights ONLY. Flights not meeting these criteria within the booking won’t be awarded Tier Points. Flights offered as part of a British Airways Holidays package that are provided by other airline partners that do not have a BA flight number will not be eligible.’
      Not sure the ‘only’ is correct, as the follow on sentence wouldn’t be required. Annoying as you can’t be sure of the double tier points offer til after you’ve flown!

      • Phillip says:
        16 Dec16 December 08:45

        I can confirm from mixed bookings you get double for the flights that are BA operated/marketed, but single for those not BA marketed assuming they would normally accrue tier points (ie on American or Qatar). You can always hope for a schedule change which will then open you up to selecting alternative flights and can specifically ask for a BA marketed flight.

  • NigelHamilton says:
    15 Dec15 December 07:32

    Another thing that’s worth pointing out is that for short-haul breaks, despite paying the rate for hand luggage only, all passengers on a BA Holidays booking get 23kg of checked luggage included. Have found this compares favourably against the low cost airlines if you need the extra bags.

  • Michael says:
    15 Dec15 December 07:41

    Do hotel chains recognise status through this? , I am Hilton Diamond .
    Kind Regards.

    • Andrew J says:
      15 Dec15 December 07:49

      No

    • Ben says:
      15 Dec15 December 07:51

      Generally not, so expect nothing, but always worth adding your account when you check in as you do earn for ancillary items like hotel restaurants etc.

    • WorldTraveller says:
      15 Dec15 December 07:54

      Yes they do but you won’t get any hilton points only status benefits like lounge access etc.

      • Michael says:
        15 Dec15 December 08:15

        Thanks guys.

        • daveinitalia says:
          15 Dec15 December 10:39

          Although status benefits are dependent on the hotel, if you book through a third party then they don’t have to give them. So expect nothing and everything is a bonus.

          A Hilton Diamond is a benefit of GGL it’s a shame that BA Holidays doesn’t arrange something with Hilton that status benefits are guaranteed on BA Holiday bookings.

  • MT says:
    15 Dec15 December 07:44

    So what aboput car hire in the UK, say I flew Edinburgh to London, hired a car for 5 days and then flew out of the country for 3 days and back. There is from what I can tell nothing in the terms that says the car hire / hotel has to be out of the UK?

    • Rob says:
      15 Dec15 December 08:21

      I agree this is arguably in the rules but risky and, frankly, expensive given cost of Heathrow car hire.

    • Amy C says:
      15 Dec15 December 08:44

      I’m doing it in reverse, flying to Aberdeen with 6 days car hire and agent told me it qualifies.

      • NorthernLass says:
        15 Dec15 December 11:40

        Same here, doing a U.K. trip with car hire from GLA, nothing to say it won’t count.

    • daveinitalia says:
      15 Dec15 December 11:26

      It definitely qualifies I have done the following before:
      LHR-NCL (hire car at NCL) and the other way round.

      As Rob says it’s usually not cost effective if you don’t need the car, but sometimes the price can be reasonable if you actually need the car but just not justifiable for the price if you solely want it for the TP

      Also earlier in the year I did the following…
      NCL-LHR (couple of days in London) -BLQ (5 nights car hire, but total of 2 weeks in Bologna)-LHR-NCL and I got double tier points. But this may be a bit dodgy on the new rules due to the break in London

  • JDB says:
    15 Dec15 December 07:55

    The term referred to in the article re a single departure from the UK (1.g) is quite oddly worded and is being very loosely interpreted by some who have reported here booking a spider’s web of domestic flights prior to flying off somewhere abroad for the main part of the holiday.

    Clearly they are relying on the term meaning leaving the country, but if you fly from say Glasgow to London, where are you departing (from)? For those with connecting journeys, eg GLA-LHR-SOF, in the aviation world, that’s one journey. Those creating complex trips that certainly break the spirit of the rules and quite probably break the terms can’t be too disappointed if BA calls out their shenanigans by not awarding double points.

    • Harry T says:
      15 Dec15 December 08:24

      Domestic flights within the UK (they count flights to and from JER as domestic too) seem to be allowed under the current rules, which is probably intended to not penalise people connecting from the regions. I agree it’s written oddly. Tbh I don’t think this offers much of an opportunity for “abuse” as domestic club flights are usually quite expensive in £/TP terms.

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      15 Dec15 December 08:38

      That’s why the rules were changed.

      GLA-LHR-SOF for example is legit.

      It was to stop people booking e.g lhr-sof-lhr-Ams etc

      • JDB says:
        15 Dec15 December 09:07

        @BAFIHGS – yes, your first example is clearly OK, but people have reported booking multiple circular domestic flights prior to the international one. I’m not so sure that will be fine.

    • John says:
      15 Dec15 December 09:07

      You could potentially book something like JER – LHR – GLA – LHR – SOF and back and it should count under the current rules. Probably would be quite expensive though.

      • JDB says:
        15 Dec15 December 09:09

        @John – I think it’s certainly questionable as to whether that’s allowed and if you don’t get the double TP, there’s not a lot you can do about it. It’s clearly not intended or within the spirit of the rules.

    • NorthernLass says:
      15 Dec15 December 11:41

      It’s also ambiguous in that it can mean “departing from” or “leaving” which are 2 different things!

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

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