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

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• Greeny says:

  6 Jan6 January 21:50

  Now TPs can be purchased through Amex. Will both Amex cards need the same spend at £10 per TP so 25K total? Is TP spend on top of the 2 for 1 voucher at 15k? So total spend 40k to get both? I that’s correct I see why people are ditching their premium cards

  • Clive says:

    6 Jan6 January 21:59

    The trouble is that none of us knows the answer to your questions, nor a host of other extremely pertinent questions posed in the previous 3,000 postings. This illustrates just how half-baked the whole scheme is: BA should have been able to answer all these questions on the day that the announcement was made, but not only do they remain unanswered, but nobody from BA has had the guts to put their head above the parapet. Was it in this forum that someone wittily commented that BA could make a fortune by selling ringside seats in Waterside this week? The best response would be to climb down, say that 2025-26 will be on the old rules, at the end of which changes will be made which have been properly thought through and with all angles covered. If nothing else, the accounts of thousands and thousands of pounds being spent elsewhere should make BA take some notice. I would have booked several CW long-haul flights this week in normal circumstances, but I’m now waiting to see what status matches will be offered, as BA so obviously no longer values my custom.

    • Throwawayname says:

      6 Jan6 January 23:48

      Speaking of status matches, I thought I would have a look at Volare to see how elite qualification works- I got matched to Premium which is the middle elite tier but does confer the full Elite Plus benefits. To my surprise, qualifying points are based on revenue. You need 60k of them to renew. Each Euro spent with ITA yields 12 points, and partner flights are credited on the basis of distance at rates similar to what you’d expect to receive in a mileage programme- e.g. 25-50% for most Y fares, 150% for many/most business ones. When I visited their FCO Schengen lounge in March, it was spotless and served the best cocktails I’ve ever had at an airport, easily in the top 10% I’ve had anywhere.

      Irrespective of the obvious uncertainty around the Lufthansa takeover or whether the AZ network works for you, anyone who’s unhappy with BA should absolutely try out the competition – there’s interesting stuff and high quality products even in places that you might not have expected to find them.

      • GUWonder says:

        7 Jan7 January 11:07

        Virgin status match/challenge would work for a lot of those BA customers up to flying Virgin, Delta, Air France, KLM, SAS and Air Europa. [Even Saudia is better than it used to be and a program partner with Virgin Atlantic.]. And if you’re not a LHR O&D type most of the time, you may even end up preferring the LHR transit hassle.

        It’s too bad Virgin wasn’t in financial shape to take bmi instead when BA went after bmi to remove it from the scene.

        • Rob says:

          7 Jan7 January 11:54

          What SHOULD have happened with BMI is Star Alliance centrally organising a joint bid and then dishing out the slots amongst Star members. It was a once in a generation chance for Star to get a decent position at Heathrow. Virgin would then probably have joined Star (SQ was still a shareholder then) because of the increased feed.

• MD says:

  6 Jan6 January 22:32

  As BA gold card holder living in the USA, **THANK YOU BA**. you have made choosing other airlines based on my needs so much more palatable. I am not abandoning BA – I just get to choose BA or another since you have made it nearly impossible to retain gold in my circumstances. No more points chasing. YEAH!

  BA Gold is so overrated anyway. The personal attention has completely gone over the last two years. Gold / non-Gold while flying CW experience is virtually identical (Wow – I get to check in at first class.) but to keep gold I now have to spend more and be less flexible.

  So yes, I may travel BA CW on selected times but Lufhansa, Delta, Virgin all fly to EU from Seattle and all have decent CW equivalents and often at lower prices. Even lower I suspect now that they know they can attract ex-BA passengers.

• MD says:

  6 Jan6 January 22:43

  …This change also buries one of the most outrageous BA scams – good old Avios “You can earn ’em but you can’t spend ’em” points.

  Last year I travelled in first for the first time (I do CW a decent amount). Entertainment system was not working, food choices unavailable. they gave me 10K avios….worth about 100 USD….about 1.5% of the price I paid and with a currency that I cannot use (latest view of booking shows about 10 total reward seats available in the next 6 months with no return inventory).

  • George says:

    7 Jan7 January 09:15

    There’s loads of avios seats available to various destinations. I’ve had many trips in the last year using them.

    (I couldn’t care less about tier points so not getting them for reward flights makes no difference to me)

  • GUWonder says:

    7 Jan7 January 10:37

    Award availability hasn’t really been a problem for me. But I do just fine in economy class for most trips, and have had some good savings from using BA points for last minute AA and BA short- and mid-haul flights in the last few months too.

• Tom says:

  7 Jan7 January 10:24

  My tier point collection ends on 8th of March. What happens with any travel bookings between the 09th of March until the 1st of April? I have a few flights in this months. So if I hit 600 tier points before the 1st of April, am I still getting silver for the next year?

  • Rhys says:

    7 Jan7 January 10:34

    https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/04/02/british-airways-executive-club-membership-year-change/

  • yonasl says:

    7 Jan7 January 12:53

    You will earn status based on your Tier points earned in March 2025 + the previous 11 months (so April 2024 to Feb 2025).

• GUWonder says:

  7 Jan7 January 10:32

  I always found it amusing how so many airline loyalty program customers have been more loyal than the king, and it would show in the aftermath of program devaluation after devaluation.

  Wise customers should have always been mercenary in their approach with the airlines, and maybe this is just the jolt the BA fan club needed to realize we frequent flying consumers are not highly valued by the airline(s) but are just marks whose bank accounts are targeted by the airline(s) desperate to please their shareholders with increased revenue, increased profits, and higher margins — all primarily at the expense of the consumers.

• BenFly says:

  7 Jan7 January 10:51

  Im a short haul leisure flyer and take around 6-8 return flights a year. How is British Airways going to set itself apart from the competition and invite my custom?

  I don’t buy the argument that they don’t care about short haul. I understand it’s often used as a feeder into long haul flights, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be maximising profits and filling as many seats as possible.

  What about a new royalty scheme that offers a stackable discount on future tickets within the year? Or a scaling Avios reward multiplyer?

  • babyg_wc says:

    7 Jan7 January 11:07

    I do 30+ short haul per year… i dont think BA want us with status, as it probably costs them more for lost seat/baggage/lounge fees than i typically pay for their tickets, which is usually under £80 – otherwise i pay points…

    • BenFly says:

      7 Jan7 January 11:11

      They clearly don’t want us with status, but why no royalty scheme at all? I don’t count Avios by themselves, as I don’t earn them at a faster rate the more flights I take.

      • BenFly says:

        7 Jan7 January 11:12

        Loyalty*

        Though I wouldn’t say no to some royal treatment!

  • GUWonder says:

    7 Jan7 January 11:11

    They may be hoping you buy up into Club Europe and get pretty much what you would get as a Silver in BA economy class. This way they could improve the profitability of the Club Europe cabin and have to pay less for your lounge use on BA economy class flights. That or they sell you some or most of the Silver benefits as add-ons for the economy class flights taken.

    • babyg_wc says:

      7 Jan7 January 13:20

      agreed

  • Tom says:

    7 Jan7 January 11:12

    Not sure there’s many here would qualify for the new royalty scheme. Maybe.

  • Londonsteve says:

    7 Jan7 January 11:38

    While BA’s short haul network is essentially there as a feeder for their long haul routes (and they’re a necessary evil, occupying valuable LHR slots on routes that are often competiting head on with much cheaper low-cost airlines), it’s not true that short haul customers are unimportant as they make the difference between the short haul network coming out cost neutral (or even profitable) versus sustaining a major loss just to keep the long haul routes topped up with passengers.

    My recent flight to BUD had a load of 50 passengers on an A320, I think BA would have been delighted had more point-to-point tickets been booked, but it appears either their pricing was off kilter or the general desire to fly BA is lacking (probably both).

    • GUWonder says:

      7 Jan7 January 13:12

      Budapest-London has Wizz, Ryanair, Easyjet and British Airways. The BA flights are typically twice or even more expensive than those LCCs. But why fly BA and pay a premium for BA in economy class when the rebate in the form of the loyalty program is trashed? [The rebate being in the form of Avios but also elite status benefits being earned.]

      • Londonsteve says:

        8 Jan8 January 00:01

        Quite. My last BA flight on this route is at the end of January, booked last autumn. Without status perks to enjoy and without the ability to contribute to renewing status, all that’s left is a flaccid onboard experience that’s really no better from any of the LCCs. BA fares may fall in the future to tempt people on board, but they’d have to fall a long way before they’re price competitive and at that point it’s probably loss making for BA due to their expensive cost base operating from LHR. The route will probably shrivel to twice daily and act solely as a feeder service for transit passengers heading to the US.

        I’ll book reward seats in the future if I need to take luggage and the overall cost is competitive compared to doing the same with an LCC, but I can’t see myself booking for cash on this route again. The ability to make late bookings with Avios is currently appealing but this will likely fall away if they change the fixed cost model for reward flights.

• Martin S says:

  7 Jan7 January 11:43

  It won’t really affect me as I hover around Blue or Bronze.
  The sad truth is that BA just isn’t very good, so there is little incentive to be loyal to them. Things like answering telephone calls should not need status (and indeed doesn’t with other airlines). Because of this, they lost my loyalty before I even progressed beyond Blue.

  That said, I do believe there will be a partial rollback from BA on the change. The volume of comments here shows just how unpopular it is.

  • ian_h says:

    7 Jan7 January 11:49

    I wouldn’t be counting on any roll back, why would they ? They are only doing what OUR feedback has told them we want !

    • Clive says:

      7 Jan7 January 12:26

      Sadly I fear that your irony may be lost on those from BA whom I assume read these comments. Days ago I said that I wouldn’t want to be the poor so-and-so reporting to the top brass yesterday; as things have unfolded I’ve felt even sorrier for him/her as the bearer of bad tidings.

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    7 Jan7 January 14:30

    “The volume of comments here shows just how unpopular it is.”

    I’ve written this before but the posters here and on flyer talk and other blogs simply are not representative of the vast majority of exec club members let alone the entirety of BA passengers.

    There isn’t even any guarantee that there aren’t people just trolling this article with negative comments just because they can and who have never flown on BA.

    There may even be some BA staff posting negative comments!

    Total post count on here also irrelevant and people have posted comments about how many posts there are and even about topics not related to the article. And a large number are people replying to questions raised and aren’t commenting on the proposals themselves.

    If you sent this article to BA and said “look more than 3000 HfP readers are against you” they’d laugh at you and any data analyst would soon knock that number down to a more accurate number. Sometimes I wish there was a voices and post count on articles like there is on forum posts to give a more accurate reflection of the numbers.

    • Rantallion says:

      7 Jan7 January 15:31

      The Flyertalk poll asked whether members approved or disapproved of the proposed changes. The poll has been open for two days and there have been 861 responses, of which 85% (737) mildly or strongly disapprove. Given the “noise” on FT I’d have expected the number of responders to be higher. It may suggest the vast majority of BA customers are agnostic about the changes.

      • Jc says:

        7 Jan7 January 16:15

        Best way to punish any business is to take your business elsewhere and don’t tell them why. They can’t put things right if they don’t know what you’ve done. Although in this case it’s probably obvious.

      • GUWonder says:

        7 Jan7 January 16:25

        861 responses to a poll on FT is a very high level of responses. I can’t think of many if any polls on FT that have had that many responses, and I know the site almost like the back of my hand.

        Most people just don’t care to respond to online polls. I would be more curious about how many complaints BA’s contact centers have chalked up about the changes, but I don’t see how that would matter much. BA seems to have gone gung-ho with this kind of change and couldn’t have been oblivious that received complaints would outnumber compliments by something like a 7-9.5:10 ratio. Clearly, BA thinks most of its elite customers are going to mostly continue to fly BA or can be replaced easily enough. Maybe a big recession can put a damper on BA’s plan, but once a company commits to this kind of approach they will try to push the limits later even if they back down a bit first. Seen it time and again with the US legacy majors.

      • RC says:

        7 Jan7 January 17:35

        Well, this move probably kills flyertalk and ba97 website of lounge cheaters.
        Flyertalk seems to have some pretty nasty BA apologists and those incapable of a reasoned argument or capable of seeing a different point of view. I wonder what the average age is in there. 12? So, maybe that’s no loss and an upside from the changes. (When you see someone with flyertalk bag tags, invariably you know they’re going to become an issue with holding up on board service as they talk at the crew).

        • apbj says:

          8 Jan8 January 13:51

          Very much agree with RC.

    • Dean says:

      8 Jan8 January 07:43

      But you can times the number of readers tenfold.

• Pat says:

  7 Jan7 January 14:51

  While Gold is attainable for £6000 under the new scheme it’s a real jump from a few years ago where a RT to HNL was as low as £1300 and Gold in one go. And that was when the lounges were not just slop buckets.
  I’ve seen someone’s personal GGL+CCR (when it was always 5k) calculation of £3500.
  Personally I don’t feel the increase in Gold is worth the expenditure.

  • LittleNick says:

    7 Jan7 January 14:58

    How is gold £6k on the new scheme or have I missed something?

    • Throwawayname says:

      7 Jan7 January 15:07

      You can probably do it if you leverage premium class earnings on Finnair and QR Asian routes. Not sure why you’d want to do it though.

      • phantomchickenz says:

        8 Jan8 January 17:28

        No chance. QR is mileage based, and a return to NZ (for around £6k) just about scrapes you into BA Silver

    • GUWonder says:

      7 Jan7 January 15:18

      Throwawayname is on the right track about how it may still be possible, but I have to wonder what are BA elites doing that they get even £2000 of extra annual value from being Gold over Silver.

  • Ilou says:

    7 Jan7 January 15:19

    How is gold achievable with 6k.. that’s at best 4 J flights with QR and Finnair to Asia and that will not get you gold .. or I am missing something here !!

    • Pat says:

      7 Jan7 January 16:05

      For £5-6k, Ticket on other stock, wait for schedule changes and rebook into at least D.
      Booking outright would cost around £8k for Gold, twice the usual. Different process for GGL but attainable for £10k.

      • Clive says:

        7 Jan7 January 17:10

        Sorry, but I completely fail to understand your calculations. If Gold were achievable for £6K there would be far fewer complaints.

        • Danny says:

          7 Jan7 January 17:59

          Red faced lol

        • Td8 says:

          8 Jan8 January 11:07

          it’s bs, you cant get gold for 6k

        • Rob says:

          8 Jan8 January 11:42

          You can get it for £3k, yet alone £6k – the issue is that it involves going to places you may not want to visit!

          You only needed 9 x Club Europe returns to Sofia to get Gold and they were often under £300 each, hence the regular full 12 rows of Club Europe on Sofia flights for the last couple of years.

      • Mouse says:

        8 Jan8 January 16:21

        Are you saying book a very cheap oneworld partner ticket in I class, ideally with multiple legs to maximize the chance of a schedule change so that you are allowed to re-book for free, which you take advantage of to rebook in D class and thereby be credited miles at 50% of distance flown? Or is it more complicated?

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