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BIG NEWS: BA moves to revenue-based tier status for Bronze, Silver, Gold and Gold Guest List

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As we have been predicting for some time, British Airways has announced the move to revenue-based tier status.

The net effect is that earning Gold status will now be very, very difficult, bordering on impossible, for leisure travellers.

Some changes are unexpected – the speed of the launch (1st April) and a rebranding of British Airways Executive Club to ‘The British Airways Club’. Whilst a bit more 21st century, it’s ironic given that only ‘executive’ travellers are now likely to qualify for the higher tiers.

British Airways Club membership cards

Here are the new British Airways status thresholds that kick in from 1st April 2025:

  • Bronze: 3,500 points
  • Silver: 7,500 points
  • Gold: 20,000 points
  • Gold Guest List – new member: 65,000 points (with at least 52,000 earned through British Airways-marketed flights and British Airways Holidays)
  • Gold Guest List – renewal: 40,000 points (with at least 32,000 earned through British Airways-marketed flights British Airways Holidays)

There will be milestone bonuses of 2,500 Avios at 5,500 tier points, 4,000 Avios at 11,000 tier points and 5,000 Avios at 16,000 tier points which will be triggered on the way to Gold. Assuming 1p per Avios of value these are not exactly generous.

These changes were made “based on our Members’ feedback” according to BA’s press release so if you don’t like them, you only have yourself to blame.

What is a ‘point’?

1 point = £1 of spending on British Airways-marketed flights.

ONLY the base fare and BA-imposed surcharges are included. Airport charges, Air Passenger Duty etc are NOT included. Seat selection and luggage fees ARE included.

On a £11,990 fully flexible ticket to New York in Club World, virtually all spend (£11,687) would qualify towards status. On a £387 economy flight to New York, only £189 of spend would count.

There are other ways of earning ‘points’

You will be able to earn up to 1,000 points per year by purchasing Sustainable Aviation Fuel credits. You will get 1 tier point and 10 Avios per £1 spent on SAF credits.

You will be able to earn up to 2,500 points per year via spending on the British Airways Premium Plus American Express credit card. It isn’t clear what the ‘conversion rate’ will be – I suspect something close to 1 point per £10 spent.

You will earn 1 point per £1 spent at British Airways Holidays. For high end leisure travellers this could be an attractive way of earning status. However, BA has potentially messed this up because tier points will be split equally between all travellers. You can’t book a £20,000 holiday for a family of four and get Gold – in fact, at 5,000 points each, you wouldn’t even all get Silver.

(What you COULD do is book a BA Holiday – flight and hotel – for one person, and then have the rest of your family book their flights separately. This ensures that you receive all the tier points.)

One upside is that there will no longer be a minimum stay requirement for earning via BA Holidays.

What happens with partner flights?

You will earn tier points based on a percentage of miles flown for non-alliance partners.

For Malaysia Airlines, for example, it will increase from 2% of miles flown on a discounted Economy ticket to 30% of miles flown for a fully flexible First Class ticket.

This structure means that it is VERY unattractive for people buying flexible tickets to choose a partner airline over British Airways. For low cost premium cabin tickets it is probably roughly equal – eg Heathrow to Kuala Lumpur in discounted Business Class on Malaysia Airlines would earn 1,600 tier points under the new structure which is roughly what a £2,000 sale cash ticket on BA would earn.

Some airlines are rewarded more generously. Qatar Airways, for example, earns 25% of miles flown in deeply discounted Business Class. This is double what you receive for flying Malaysia Airlines.

There will be bonus tier points for the first few months

Flights booked BEFORE 14th February for travel after 1st April will earn bonus points. It isn’t clear if these are one-way or return, I suspect one-way:

  • Euro Traveller: 50 points
  • Club Europe: 100 points
  • World Traveller: 70 points
  • World Traveller Plus: 140 points 
  • Club World: 210 points
  • First: 330 points

These are bizarrely small numbers based on the new tier thresholds. 420 bonus tier points for a Club World return flight isn’t going to make much impact on hitting 20,000 tier points for Gold.

What happens with existing bookings for travel after 1st April?

It’s not clear. We are told:

“Customers who already hold bookings for travel after 1 April 2025 will be awarded Tier Points based on a conversion of the existing method. Any existing bookings will earn proportionally the same number of Tier Points, or more, as they would today.”

The implication is that it will be based on the same % of status as you would need today. A flight earning 140 tier points (currently 23% of Silver or 9% of Gold) will presumably earn somewhere between 23% of the new Silver threshold (7,500 points) or 9% of the new Gold threshold (20,000 points).

The implication is that this only applies to existing bookings made before today. If you book today, you will be on the new system for travel from 1st April.

What happens with existing BA Holidays bookings for travel by 30th June?

People have booked with BA Holidays expecting double tier points (for trips taken between 1st April and 30th June) based on the current tier point system.

On paper you won’t be worse off. The tier points you would have got will be multiplied by 13.5 and then doubled. Trust me that this is fair.

The bigger issue is that if you will need additional tier points for status, the gap is bigger. For example, if your BA Holiday would have got you halfway to Silver it still will – but you’d still need to spend £3,750 to earn the other half of the points needed.

British AIrways Club status changes

Are ‘soft landings’ remaining?

It isn’t clear. However, a BA employee has told me that they will be removed. If correct, a Gold member will now drop directly to Blue.

What is happening to Lifetime Gold?

Your existing tier points will be converted. Take a look at the FAQ here for details.

Conclusion

This is, clearly, a pivotal move by British Airways. It is effectively washing its hands of the leisure market and going all-in to attract the dwindling band of full fare business travellers.

With Gold now available for just over one and a half £12,000 fully flexible Club World return flights to New York, it is clear who the target market now is.

Realistically, it will now be impossible to earn Gold for small business travellers, economy travellers or self-funded leisure travellers. Even Silver will be a major stretch. British Airways Holidays spend could have offered a lifeline, but by splitting the tier points equally among all travellers it’s not going to make any real impact.

It’s not clear to me why BAEC members asked for this, since it was done ‘based on member feedback’ according to BA but that’s people for you ….!

It will also be virtually impossible for corporate travellers to earn Gold status based on economy travel. This leads to the question of why you’d even want to push for status – if the only people who can earn status are flying in Business Class, they don’t need Silver status anyway as they have the benefits. Gold doesn’t add much on top.

The long term issue remains. Business travellers have their flights paid for by their employers. Many of these are tied to BA or oneworld via a route deal. Many get huge end-of-year rebates which means their headline spend is not what they actually pay – in reality business travellers with a high rebate will need to spend LESS to earn status than leisure travellers. BA is rewarding ‘loyalty’ from people whose loyalty is contractually enforced on them.

Remove status from those people who DO have a choice of airline – leisure travellers, small business owners – and their reasons for flying British Airways shrink dramatically.

What I don’t understand is why the offsets for leisure and SME travellers are so half-hearted. Capping credit card tier points at 2,500 is pathetic – just 12.5% of what you need for Gold and still leaving you £5,000 of ‘before taxes’ BA spend short of Silver. American Airlines now lets you earn status based ENTIRELY on credit card and partner spend if you wish. If someone wants to put £200,000 through their BA Amex to earn Gold status, why not let them?

The British Airways Club, of course, is not the only game in town for earning oneworld status. I suspect that most people will now find it easier to earn Silver or Gold-equivalent status via another oneworld airline – you would get virtually the same benefits except for Gold access to additional Economy Avios inventory. We’ll be looking at these options in detail as we get nearer to April.

As a starter, remember that oneworld member Royal Jordanian will give you 12-months of BA Bronze-equivalent status for just $49 if you have hotel or airline elite status elsewhere – click here to read more.

You can find out more about these changes on this special page of ba.com.

PS. If you are reading this but are not a regular reader, please consider signing up for our FREE daily or weekly newsletters full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news. Visit this page of the site or click any of the ‘Subscribe’ links on this page.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (3839)

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

  • Ian R says:
    30 Dec30 December 13:00

    Interesting shift in strategy, to rely on the spend of a relatively small number of high spend corporate customers. It’s a shame that it’ll hurt the short haul business. Currently I book short haul as BA as the lounge is a nice touch. In future given easyJet and Ryanair is often objectively a better product, there’s little reason to choose BA.

    I, and many others, spend circa £2.5k a year with BA to maintain Gold. That revenue is now there for the taking if somone wants to launch a lighter touch easyJet Plus Plus style thing for all my short haul travel.

    • khatl says:
      30 Dec30 December 13:52

      It’s no different to what all the US carriers have done. Those who spend little with an airline aren’t what drive their profitability. That same spend on any US airline wouldn’t earn you any status either e.g., Delta requires you to spend $5k for the lowest status, which just gets you the ability for a free bag checked and a couple of groups higher in boarding. BA’s new annual tier requirements are lower than Delta.

      • Ian R says:
        30 Dec30 December 14:17

        Yes, you’re absolutely right of course – we knew this was coming. Well aware that my £ spend is less than US airlines, for my cup of tea and mediocre bolognaise in First Wing lounge. Just interesting to see the impact on the short haul network. Ryanair run a profitable business with very low margin short haul. Was just commenting that it’s interesting that BA is choosing to cut off a big draw to the short haul leisure market for them.

      • David Smith says:
        30 Dec30 December 15:06

        For B A to say that customers voted for this is a complete misrepresentation.
        Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas ?!!!
        B A are a crappy second rate airline always have been always will be.
        The best course of action is not to fly with them unless there is no viable alternative.
        Perhaps then they will wake up and smell the coffee beans.
        However I doubt it !!!

        • Tony says:
          30 Dec30 December 18:10

          Agree, currently GGL and maintaining status is what kept me with BA. No way I will even get Gold going forward and being based in Manchester I will spend my cash with Emirates or Qatar going forward. Flying business I will get access to nice lounges and frankly a better product. Fond memories and sad goodbye to BA. I find it insulting that they claim that changes are based on our feedback, evidence of poor management and will be interesting to see the impact on business. They have lost my custom…

        • CJD says:
          31 Dec31 December 00:04

          FlyerTalk is full of people whining that there’s too many people with lounge access.

          • GUWonder says:
            5 Jan5 January 16:07

            Some there whined about that, but now many of those same people will end up with downgraded BA elite status (or none at all). Just desserts, I guess.

            Funny how much of the snob/“look at fancy me” clique is going to have pie on its face.

    • paul says:
      30 Dec30 December 19:29

      Time for easyJet etc to remove 3 rows of 3 seat side by side rows (18 seats) at say £100 a fare and replace them with 2 rows of 2 wider seats (8 seats) with extra legroom and charge £230 a fare.

      The market was there and definitely is now !!

      • John says:
        30 Dec30 December 22:37

        Why change the seats? Just block the middle seat, include bags and fast track and call it Easyjet Premium.

        • Richie says:
          31 Dec31 December 08:05

          easyJet have blocked middle seats in the past. I had it on a flight to Porto, shame about the orange though.

        • paul says:
          31 Dec31 December 08:15

          Because if you’re paying more you want the extra space. Being squeezed in the same seat with an adjacent table isn’t my idea of a premium option

          • Bob says:
            31 Dec31 December 08:22

            I agree, give me wider seat and greater recline, i’m happy to pay 1.5x of regular seat.

      • Bagoly says:
        31 Dec31 December 08:21

        That would be great.
        Unfortunately since Covid Easyjet seem to think they should be more like Ryanair than compete on quality.

    • Anna L says:
      31 Dec31 December 09:20

      How to you spend £2.5k and manage to keep Gold? I spend £6k -£8k just enough to keep Silver. Clearly I have been doing it wrong…

  • 1958 says:
    30 Dec30 December 13:03

    Wow. A huge change.
    Legacy “Gold for life” are the big beneficiaries.

  • Olivia says:
    30 Dec30 December 13:08

    Ouch. Only “positive” I guess is seeing LHR lounge numbers coming down in peak periods…. Even silver feels like a major stretch for leisure travellers, unless every flight you seem to buy is half term, Christmas, Easter or Summer Holidays.

  • Barrel for Scraping says:
    30 Dec30 December 13:09

    The BA lounges will be havens of tranquility but those who are not UK based may have bigger issues as there’s no BA card for them to earn status through.

    • Bervios says:
      30 Dec30 December 19:29

      If the lounges turn into a haven of tranquility with lower numbers, perhaps BA will reduce the number of lounges at T5 and hand the floor space back to Heathrow. I wonder if the T5C will still go ahead?

  • blue_wolf says:
    30 Dec30 December 13:10

    I hit Gold for the first time this year largely through flying with connections on Cathay and Finnair, mostly on work trips, which always earned me MORE tier points than flying BA (and was typically cheaper). I’m at 2700 TPs this year.

    Now that “anomaly” is fixed, but with no clarity around how those partner flights will be credited in future, I question whether BA’s scheme is the right one for me.

    • LittleNick says:
      30 Dec30 December 13:13

      I suspect partner airlines will earn at the current TP rates! So you’ll get peanuts relative to the new thresholds!

      • blue_wolf says:
        30 Dec30 December 13:16

        I’d be very surprised if e.g. a CX biz fare earns 160 TPs one way (= £160 of spend on BA!). Seems more likely there’ll be some table mapping to new TP levels

        • LittleNick says:
          30 Dec30 December 13:35

          This amounts to a status devaluation, plain and simple. I’d love to see the raw data and feedback where members have asked for this. How BA can come out with that and not have to justify such statements is barmy

          • LostAntipod says:
            31 Dec31 December 07:28

            Every BA service reduction or BAEC devaluation is prefaced with “enhancement” and “what members want” , though. Arrogant and out of touch since forever.

          • Bagoly says:
            31 Dec31 December 08:16

            Lufthansa do the same!

        • 26left says:
          31 Dec31 December 03:40

          The conversion rate is 267 (new) points for 20 (old) Tier points.

          So your sector that was worth 160 old TPs on CX is worth 801 points so an equivalent of £801 spend.

  • Richard G says:
    30 Dec30 December 13:11

    That’s the end of that then. Makes it far easier for me to consider using budget airlines I guess.

    • Keith says:
      30 Dec30 December 13:22

      I’m with you. I’ve solely flown BA for the past 8 years. Today, I’ve booked with Lufthansa after BA want £900 for a flight I can get with LH for £500. Now with this change, I will never get even bronze despite being silver for 7 years. I like BA so this is a sad day that I will no longer fly with my own country’s flag bearer but they have become disconnected with the leisure passenger

      • meta says:
        30 Dec30 December 14:00

        They are owned by foreign airlines anyway. They are British airline in name only.

    • James F says:
      30 Dec30 December 13:39

      Agreed.

      For someone that flies relatively infrequently and for pleasure, I’ve seen Avios generation gutted with the move from distance to spending based earning, but could stomach that as Silver status (The sweet spot for luggage and lounge access) was attainable through BA Holidays and SOF trips.

      I’m approaching a stage in life where I can afford to spend money on long haul business flights for pleasure, but BA is barely making any effort to reward loyalty unless I spend £7,500 plus taxes. I could go down the route of spending on the AMEX card to mitigate some of the impact, but it seems like a lot of effort for not much reward.

      I’ll be exploring Virgin/Jetblue/ United et al in the future once my Avios stash and Barclays upgrade vouchers are used. Not out of disgust, but BA as a default convenient choice is no longer a position I can justify

  • John says:
    30 Dec30 December 13:13

    And people kept trying to convince me that lifetime TPs weren’t a waste of time

    • will says:
      30 Dec30 December 14:42

      If you got to lifetime status they certainly were not a waste of time.
      For those now stuch in limbo not so good.

      • John says:
        30 Dec30 December 21:41

        I’m within 1000 tier points of lifetime gold under the old system (3 years or so of weekly commutes between New York and London). Moved to Asia in 2008 and despite coming back to see family twice a year I have never once felt the urge to fly BA. Looks like a big risk for BA in the leisure market, but hopefully these changes open UK leisure traveller’s eyes to other airlines

  • Paul (another one) says:
    30 Dec30 December 13:13

    Leisure goldie here … it was fun while it lasted. But that’s just a painfully rapid axe. That said, because of the timing it absolutely plays into the hands of Star Alliance as I’ll start to spend re qualification for *G now.

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