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

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• Eoc says:

  6 Jan6 January 17:05

  Yes one of the many unresolved issues. Soft landings are another. As a Gold into this April but unlikely to hit it in 26 where do I spend my new 2025 flight cash if I am bumped to Blue? As I go east a lot it looks like QR, MH or R is going to be the lucky winner of my business.Has anyone done the math yet?

• John says:

  6 Jan6 January 17:44

  As a Brit living abroad I feel for everyone losing out here. I am one of the folks who could benefit and was debating using BA in May to qualify for Gold (regular JFK to CPT in F for work). Only reason to do this is for Flagship access on US domestic. Rest of BA gold package doesn’t look great unless I’m missing something. Had GGL and CRC when lived in UK but no benefit in that now. Not much between Flagship and Amex lounges here but Amex is getting crowded at peak times. Going to stick with EK for now

  • Paul says:

    6 Jan6 January 17:58

    And people keep telling us that no one adds a stops that isnt necessary!!

    • Track says:

      6 Jan6 January 18:13

      Hehe, travelling in EK First Class, one can have some work done…

      Adding 8-10 hours to a travel day is not as gruesome because end of the day, you end up in a hotel sleeping it off/recovering.

      • Phil says:

        6 Jan6 January 20:54

        A380 take a shower in the air too

      • Throwawayname says:

        6 Jan6 January 23:27

        I sometimes do something similar on short haul- take an early morning flight to MUC/ZRH, work all day from the lounge and jump on a connection to Greece/Italy/Spain at 18:00 or whatever. Beats spending hours driving to another airport for the ‘convenience’ of a direct flight.

  • numpty says:

    6 Jan6 January 21:48

    Friend who has Skywards Gold always makes a point of booking biz class on the flights that have First, expectation is he will get an upgrade – and he’s done pretty well out of it.

    When he first got gold he actually started booking economy (!) with the expectation he would get upgraded to Business. He did well out of that too, but with 4 sectors on long haul flying to Asia his success rate wasn’t high enough!

• RC says:

  6 Jan6 January 18:00

  Anyone know as since this is based on a revenue target, will BA allow the target to be eroded (in real terms) by inflation, or keep hiking it every year?
  Perhaps BA don’t even know – maybe the McKdrones did n’t think of that?

  • Track says:

    6 Jan6 January 18:42

    This assumes there will be a travel costs inflation beyond what we’ve experienced.

    The uncertainty of it.. what’s the point of keeping track of TPs for the next year, if one doesn’t know what coefficients and multipliers will be.

  • GUWonder says:

    6 Jan6 January 18:54

    After a few years, the “revenue-based elite status” requirements at US airlines get hiked a step and then the airline apologists say it’s the airlines keeping up with inflation. But it’s really about trying to goose the numbers that the shareholders want to see with regards to revenues, profits and margins.

• Ilou says:

  6 Jan6 January 19:09

  It’s very easy for BA to run double tier promotion in a similar way that that did with BAH

  They will have total control of how many gold and silver they want to have

  I am sure lot of people will fly BA again during these promotions despite all the negative talk here.. if you live in the UK, BA is still the best scheme for collecting points, which matters at the end ( to me at least).. I will not qualify for gold next year but don’t care as I fly CW with points

  Again it’s the redemption side that would concern me if it moves to revenue!!

  • Throwawayname says:

    6 Jan6 January 20:50

    Why is BA any better than VS for UK residents collecting points? If anything, SkyTeam have extensive coverage of regions where oneworld basically doesn’t exist (zero hubs south of CMN/MIA unless you go all the way East to Qatar).

    • CJD says:

      7 Jan7 January 09:39

      Virgin’s website seems to be crap for redeeming on SkyTeam partners.

      • Throwawayname says:

        7 Jan7 January 10:28

        True, I operate on the assumption that anything outside of AFKL (and I guess DL, but haven’t checked as the US isn’t of much interest to me) is likely to require ringing them. However , availability can be checked through seats.aero or pointsyeah so I only need to call when I have found the flights I want.

• rosswill says:

  6 Jan6 January 19:31

  I feel like dynamic pricing for redemptions is inevitable. I feel like an announcement on this can’t be too far away.

  • George says:

    6 Jan6 January 20:33

    Didn’t someone on here claiming to be a BA insider say it was a done deal and would be implemented this year?

    Who knows if it’s true though

• Lady London says:

  6 Jan6 January 19:32

  BA has just announced a promo, apparently, of 2.5x the new tier point regime earnings, on any flight booked by mid-Feb tbat flies after 1st April.

  My expensive – for the travel involved – long haul itinerary I’m just about sorting the booking of now, would have as good as earned Silver if booked to BA this year. It’s not being booked to BA.
  .
  With the new regime it would have been a
  round 8-10% of only Silver. This BA promo I’m sure Rob will write aboir tomorrow, will still only get me to 20% of Silver in the new regime from 1st April That’s with the BA promo multiplying what tney’d normally give me, x 2.5.

  I am not, repest not, going to fly around the world 5 times(with this time-limited promo) in Business paying my own bills for this, just to grt… Silver. And I’m sure as h*ll not flyingcround tbe world in J at my own expense 12.5 timezib one year, for the oathetic reward of Silvet. The 12,5 times beinf what the regular BA Club requires me to do, from April. For *Silver* ?

  Does BA think I’m nuts?

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    6 Jan6 January 19:34

    Is this in addition or a replacement to the “bonus” already announced and included in Robs article?

    • Lady London says:

      6 Jan6 January 19:37

      ??

      • Lady London says:

        6 Jan6 January 19:44

        Yes, it’s how it works out for me on a trip that is virtually RTW.

        The net result is that with the net boost – even if BA could retain my attention to catch such promos which unfortunately tbey can’t – even 250% earnings on a costly long distance trip moves tbe needle so little towards such a pooe goal, that I can’t see rescuing interest of anyone self-funded after the programme demolition.

  • Ilou says:

    6 Jan6 January 19:43

    I’ve just written that BA can easily run a double tier point promotion 1min ago 🙂

    • Lady London says:

      6 Jan6 January 19:47

      Yea that was what prompted me to post. Even a massive multiplier on a time limited promotion, still doesn’t get you any progresa that is at all motivational ib the new program.

      I knew it was bad, but I was shocked when I ran the numbers.

      • Ilou198083 says:

        6 Jan6 January 19:52

        Booking a BAH at 2.5k and you’re almost silver with this promotion .. if this is not a one off, then happy days !

        • Phil says:

          6 Jan6 January 19:59

          Only if you book it on your lonesome! I’m sure the family will understand, gotta take one for the team sometimes

        • Ilou says:

          6 Jan6 January 20:05

          As Rob suggested, I will book the hotel in my name (need a suite for my family) and will get the remaining flights with Avios .. for me it’s the hotel the most expensive component of my trips

        • Scott says:

          7 Jan7 January 07:54

          Seems pointless bringing these things in if they’re just jacked up the thresholds.

          Either they’re panicking a bit; trying to bait people to spend a bit more before screwing you more next; or just a bit dopey etc.

      • Ilou says:

        6 Jan6 January 20:06

        Can’t see the registration link for this promotion on BA website

        Only the ridiculous one off bonus !

  • Phil says:

    6 Jan6 January 20:48

    I’ve got aholiday via travel agent booked flying outbound before 1st Apr and return after. No idea how or what calcs they are going to apply to that or even whether they are going to dig a bigger hole angering all those disadvantage by saying – promo new bookings only

  • Throwawayname says:

    6 Jan6 January 20:59

    For anyone who’s wedded to flying BA with any frequency (e.g. because they live next to LHR), surely the logical thing to do is switch to another FFP within oneworld. Even IB+ should be safe for another year, buying you plenty of time to fine-tune your approach. Paying over the odds for a hotel so that you can miss out on their points, lose any status benefits, and have to explain why 2-3-4 of you have turned up instead of the one person in the booking seems like an incredibly lousy deal.

    • Sigma421 says:

      6 Jan6 January 21:19

      I could be completely wrong but I just don’t see them setting the targets quite as high for IB+ (although I’m sure we’re going revenue based eventually). €25,000 for Platino would be insane in that market. Maybe we’re going back to Eurocheat days and they’ll vary it by country of residence.

    • MD says:

      6 Jan6 January 22:39

      The problem with switching is you likely miss a year. Say you have a new BA gold and you want to join American. If you want your gold privileges for next year, you need to add that into the booking – and the points accumulate to BA. If you want to switch to Admirals club, then you are and newbie and have to start working your way up their ladder (and you get no benefit from your recently earned gold).

      Very few offer any kind of transition (I suspect this is built into the OneWorld agreements to stop poaching).

      So at some point (maybe a year you are travelling more premium classes where it doesn’t matter), make the switch and build your status.

      • Larry says:

        7 Jan7 January 08:10

        less of a problem than you make it out to be

        for free seat selection, you put your BA FF no when you first book, then switch to the new program before or at check in

        for lounge access (with the exception of AS) your BA status grants you access, you don’t need to be crediting the flight to BA

        • Throwawayname says:

          7 Jan7 January 10:44

          I’m not familiar with the oneworld systems, but that’s how the split FFP numbers worked during my SAS challenge (status with AZ, miles credited to SK) Lounge access was really smooth, with one or two minor exceptions.

          The real problem was checking luggage in, as the systems always required a manual override to allow a free bag on a light fare, and agents were at best clueless about it and at worst explicitly forbidden from doing it by station managers. I had to switch the FFP on my AF booking twice at MXP (at the desk and at the gate) and I was again denied boarding at CDG where the staff were finally allowed to override it.
          Having to argue about something like that every single time gets old really quickly. Fortunately all my Asian fares included luggage and then Virgin kindly liberated me from the suitcase by leaving it behind at BOM!

        • Tim S says:

          7 Jan7 January 11:44

          That’s not my experience.

          Lounge staff have always wanted to see my BC and used the status printed on it to see if I am eligible – even going as far as scanning the bar code to check. They completely ignore the states on my “virtual” card,.

        • LittleNick says:

          7 Jan7 January 13:19

          AS doesn’t give lounge access to BA Status holders? I thought they were the same as AA, non-US oneworld elites got it?

  • Kai says:

    7 Jan7 January 01:04

    I can’t seem to find this offer anywhere. Where has it been announced? I often fly solo so this is not a bad deal for me but I’d like to read the fine print of the T&Cs.

    • Shaz says:

      7 Jan7 January 10:21

      I think they’ve just made it up! I don’t see it anywhere on the news.

    • aso01 says:

      7 Jan7 January 10:21

      I think it is just confusion about the existing bonus tier points offer for all flights before 14th Feb for travel after 1st April. It is detailed in the article, but you do need to pre-register here: https://www.britishairways.com/content/executive-club/offers/tier-point-bonus

  • Track says:

    7 Jan7 January 11:05

    I would’ve simply given up at the stage where I have to figure out the multiplier, and the promo.

    This is not supposed to be a rocket science — all for the privilege of grabbing some mashed potato and a coffee in a lounge!

• Gregg says:

  6 Jan6 January 20:16

  I have a BA Holidays booking for May 25 which was booked under the double tier points offer last year.

  With 2 adults on the booking flying Club Europe we would have each earned 320 tier points. We’d each be just over half way to Silver.

  The FAQs for the changes announced, specific to double tier point bookings says…

  “This means any bookings you’ve already made, including bookings made as part of the British Airways Holidays double Tier Points offer, will earn proportionally the same number of Tier Points, or more, as today.”

  Based on the example they provide, we’d receive 4,272 tier points for the booking ((160 TPs x 13.35) x 2).

  What the FAQs do not mention is whether those 4,272 tier points will be split equally between everyone on the booking. Based on the fact that this is the case for non double tier point bookings, I assume they will be split equally.

  So we’d only receive 2136 tier points each, which certainly isn’t proportionally the same as what we would have received when we made this booking under the old system.

  Does anyone know if this will be the case and tier points will be split equally for double tier point holiday bookings?

  • yonasl says:

    7 Jan7 January 10:28

    You get the 4,000 TPs each. For flights booked BEFORE they made the changes they will honor the TPs x 13.3 (which is 1,500 / 20,000).

• Ilou says:

  6 Jan6 January 21:34

  It’s looks they forgot a zero in these one off sign on bonus .. have checked it again, it’s ridiculous !!! 330 tier for First … such an incentive !

  • Adam says:

    6 Jan6 January 21:41

    Yeah, it’s stupid. Almost literally pointless. Old points, it’d make sense. Not the new ones.

    If the 2.5x bonus is correct then BA can have my money for a couple of long-haul Club/First trips.

    • Adam says:

      6 Jan6 January 21:55

      **thinking** BA has in the past mandated that for these special offers must start and end in the UK. No clever shenanigans starting in AMS or DUB to reduce the bonkers taxes and charges that are levied for flights that start from the UK. Let’s see, but be sure to read the T&Cs to avoid disappointment / fury / the depths of despair etc.

  • aso01 says:

    7 Jan7 January 10:31

    It’s not one off, it is for all flights booked before 14th Feb. Not that it makes it much better….

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