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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.

  • Clive says:
    6 Jan6 January 14:44

    What better illustration is there is BA’s inept handling of this issue is that a week after the announcement so many important questions remain unanswered? As far as I’m aware we still don’t have a definitive answer on soft landings – a blindingly obvious question in my view – and at a time when a lot of people are making plans for the year they still don’t know what Tier Points their flights on OW partner airlines will earn. But I suppose that’s not as daft as the fact that not knowing what fares will be for BA bookings later in the year, nor what taxes and charges will be, it’s virtually impossible to plan a year to achieve or retain status. How is it possible that these issues weren’t foreseen? This will be studied in business schools for years to come, but as a way not to introduce changes.

    • JDB says:
      6 Jan6 January 15:56

      Why would you expect anything definitive on soft landings? They have never been any sort of official policy, so there’s nothing to be said either way.

      • shd says:
        6 Jan6 January 16:45

        > They have never been any sort of official policy

        There are a boat-load of things we’ve come to expect from BA which aren’t “any sort of official policy”.

        Hiding behind “but it’s not in the T&Cs” isn’t a good look for BA or indeed any other business.

      • Clive says:
        6 Jan6 January 18:39

        I would expect something definitive because quite a few contributors to this discussion have contacted BA, being given answers that aren’t entirely consistent. (I feel sorry for the call handlers, who are probably struggling). So BA knows that it’s a question being asked by members, if they had any shred of respect they would give a clear answer. And doesn’t BA read this?

      • Thegasman says:
        7 Jan7 January 04:11

        Given BA’s exemplary record in industrial relations I’d expect them to be very familiar with the concept of “custom & practice”. It may not apply in this situation but it’s pretty obvious that well established “unwritten rules” need addressing in such a substantial change.

  • Phil says:
    6 Jan6 January 15:18

    3000! must be a record by a country mile

  • TimM says:
    6 Jan6 January 15:18

    3,000 comments – if that a Head for Points record?

    • Namster says:
      6 Jan6 January 15:22

      @TimM – One day later 4,000 comments, if only HFP had made this into a Tiktok or YT, the revenue would pay for the Gold Status 🙂

  • Nick Kennedy says:
    6 Jan6 January 15:29

    I can’t help feeling that at some point I’m going to slightly miscalculate the new TP and I’ll be ringing BA to ask if they wouldn’t mind increasing the cost my booking by a hundred pounds in order to make Silver -mad world!

  • Greg says:
    6 Jan6 January 15:52

    Okay – here’s my tuppence worth. A Gold card holder for a number of years. I’ll requalify for Gold next year and probably would have for the year after under the old system. I won’t now though. I’ll just make Silver as I’ve already bought a number of flights pre 30/12/24. But I’ll never make Gold as the leap is just to big.

    As has been mentioned many times previously I’m now free to do as I wish. So, two CW flights to Tokyo will now be with a different carrier (£6000 approx for 2 pax). I’ve booked economy instead of Club out of LCY (£400 for 2 pax), I’ve used Avios instead of cash for a SH flight (£600 for 2 pax) and I’m looking to buy 4 Business Class flights to SIN and back (£14,000 for 4 pax). I’ve also just booked a hotel direct rather than BAH (£3000 approx). So, that’s a loss of revenue of £24,000 and it’s only 6 January!
    Amazing when a business can design something that should encourage retention and upselling which then does exactly the opposite.

  • rosswill says:
    6 Jan6 January 15:55

    I’ll be curious to see how this plays out in the longer term. I will personally be affected as I’ll not make the spend with BA alone to retain my current status, but this also comes at a time in life when I’m looking to travel less frequently. BA holidays have never worked for my family as they simply don’t offer the things we are looking for. What I do wonder how you model as a company with such decisions is sentiment. BA have all the data of my flights with them and other Oneworld partners going back to 1996 when I first joined the Exec Club. They know about my family and dependents also. What they don’t know is the extent to which my own travel behaviour is influenced or influences others. I’m currently working on an overseas project and have just today booked travel for a colleague with EK and on a route operated by BA, so a few thousand that could potentially have gone to them but would never have shown up on my own statement. I totally understand why they have taken this approach but still feel its a brave move in the current climate and of course a complete exercise in how not to implement something, irrespective of the policy being rolled out.

    • Greg says:
      6 Jan6 January 16:02

      Couldn’t agree more. Despite many issues (we all know what they are) I generally advocate on behalf of BA and will influence friends and family to join me on BA flights. All gone I’m afraid.

    • LittleNick says:
      6 Jan6 January 16:51

      Very good point made. I recently travel LH on points (avios, Business) and encourage friends (who are paying cash) to join me on the same flight either WTP maybe business, but I won’t be encouraging them to go BA for the sake of it in future. It will be what works best for them, times etc

    • GUWonder says:
      6 Jan6 January 18:49

      Every time Delta massively devalued the Delta loyalty programs, customers like me felt the same way as you and hoped a revolt of sort would be noted and stop or reverse in part the devaluations. Years on, and the Delta loyalty program is worse than ever for the vast majority of its members and yet Delta thrives and its customers keep flying it. Whether BA can pull off the same thing, it seems to think it can. Maybe being London Air is a powerful enough proposition that people will use it a lot anyway and disgruntled elite status members will pinch their nose and keep flying the airline a lot anyway or we will be replaced easily enough. And in the meantime they will throw us a small bone back to pretend as if they care about customer complaints on this (when they really don’t since it’s all about money).

  • DW says:
    6 Jan6 January 16:36

    https://www.cityam.com/buy-iag-and-sell-wizz-air-says-broker-as-british-airways-takes-off/

    • Paul says:
      6 Jan6 January 17:56

      From a firm that uses a B747 in the piece! Feels like they have their finger on the pulse.

      The £5 share value feels very high particularly with Trump about to occupy the White House and BAs exposure to the flaky US market.

    • RC says:
      6 Jan6 January 17:58

      errr… so, buy something that’s already doubled, and sell something that’s almost halved. That’s either a v brave momentum trade or a tad late to the party maybe?
      This is the same broker who peddled all sort of shares/IPOs during covid that are literally worth nothing today. Caveat Emptor.

    • numpty says:
      6 Jan6 January 21:43

      I’m not going to give any advice on share prices, but a journalist using a pic of a 747, or past rises in SP are no indication of what the SP will do in the future. Airline share prices are very much rise and fall with world events. However;
      IAG are in the middle of a share buy back,
      IAG are expected to announce reinstatement of dividends in their annual results in February (albeit at a low %, and topped up with special dividends when it suits them)
      That Trump has said he’s going get pumping US oil, which will drop the oil price
      That the general consensus is that the current P/E ratio of 7 (ish) is too low and should be nearer 9 (= circa 30% rise in company valuation/SP).

  • Matthew says:
    6 Jan6 January 16:43

    Apologies if this question has been asked and answered already: Does anyone know what the tier point earning rate is when booking a BA flight via a travel agent, such as Audley or Trailfinders, whether as part of a package holiday or not? BA Holidays are quite limited in what they can provide for you, especially places that are more ‘intrepid’. I’m not sure this question has been answered in BA’s FAQs?

    • Rhys says:
      6 Jan6 January 16:44

      It’s still revenue based but obviously what you pay Audley/Trailfinders will not be what they pay BA. This is one of the issues – it’s not very transparent.

      • Phil says:
        6 Jan6 January 21:03

        I raised this and some folks I know at these types of companies that offer ATOL bespoke flights on land itinery packages are quite concerned the money spinner flight charges that inc company booking fee + ATOL charge will now be visible.

        I’ve aleo repeatedly said there have been clients saying they only want quotes BA / OW airlines who have now removed that stipulation. They may not understand the changes but reading any negative coverage they will come to the conclusion BA has done something that they should be angry about.

        Quite a few prem travellers on these packages I’ve met do want status too.
        Ones that are good for Africa and India are popular with the wildlife safari folks

    • Phil says:
      6 Jan6 January 21:09

      If you so wish you can ask the company for a price breakdown of your flights and any fees levied on top.
      Many don’t provide this breakdown they just give an opaque ‘flight inclusive cost’ which includes ATOL and any booking fees.

      They may try and fob you off as ‘business sensitive’ but if you persist they should explain it to you – especially if you might cancel.

      I have experience of and others I know have queried excessive prices over the book cost of buying flights self and good repeat customers sometimes get them waived to seal the booking as a one off. Its because they don’t want to defend / explain it all

      Hope this is useful info and if all you get is info you know where you stand.

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