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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 elsewhereclick here to read more.

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

Comments (3839)

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

  • Vincent Healy says:

    I’m a leisure traveller and the main reason I use BA is for the benefits of the gold card which I’ve managed to have for three years. Prior to getting gold status I shopped around and booked best value holiday and or flight options which was hardly ever BA. The past few years I’ve booked all our holidays exclusively with BA, we holiday 4/5 times a year. So it’s worked for them as well as for my wife & I. They ain’t the best airline out there but we live close to Heathrow and the first check in facility at T5 is super easy and efficient so we’re happy to put up with the bits that don’t work as well. It’s a shame that BA have chosen to discourage leisure travellers from ever attaining gold status but it is what it is. It’ll take a while but I suspect they’ll come to regret this decision. They messed up the recent change to their menu offerings and who knows in a couple of years they may revisit this decision as well. In the meantime I’ll revert to other airlines and holiday options.

    • SammyJ says:

      I could have written this myself, other than the bit about living near LHR – even less incentive for us to make the slog down the M1, especially for short haul.

      What’s annoying me is the changes to the earnings (or rather the additional spending required on top) for existing BAHols bookings.

  • Steve says:

    I’m probably an outlier here, but this I think is net positive as I can now renew my GGL by spending more or less the same £ with BA but having to travel less

    eg I need 40,000 points to renew

    2,500 I’ll get from Amex
    1,000 I can buy the sustainability things
    Assume I get at least 10,000 from work travel

    Which means a net investment of £26,000 which is a flexible first class tickets, a flexible business ticket and a few Intra UK/ Europe flights and is more or less what I had to spend already but it involved many more flights than this which was not always that easy to do

    And for that I get an extra gold card so the whole family can go in the first lounge and use fast track security, which is the thing I care about and the lounges should in theory at least be quieter now

    I realise this is not a universal opinion

    At least one weird change though – I won’t be booking a BA holiday for a family of four and splitting the tier points between us, I’ll book me and the hotel and then the rest can use avios

  • Rem Coolhouse says:

    I’d previously estimated Tier Points at £10/point for an “off-the-shelf” flight, but very possible to get £3/point or better with some shopping. Looks like BA have instead valued them at £13/point (plus taxes). That’s a bit pricey for me

    The tiers were reasonably well-calibrated for us, and I previously made the decision to do my team’s business travel with BA (typically CW, probably totalling £100k/year across the team), with us using the status accrued on personal holidays. Will almost certainly move to a different carrier that values our custom better from now. I guess £100k/year is small fry to BA…

    One outstanding question is whether they’re keeping the soft landings. If not, then I’ll have no reason at all to fly BA after next year. It’d be quite liberating to be able to choose again!

    • dundj says:

      And this is what BA have failed to factor in. There will be a significant (in business percentage terms) thinning of the Gold and GGL members, plus a reduction of Silver members which is likely to be slightly net negative to the rounding error based on the changes.

      My suspicion, is this won’t affect the BA bottom line within IAG and in fact will move more borderline flights off the schedule to those which can attain a profitable margin from LHR.

      Those flights from LGW may see reductions and shifts to LHR in the medium to long term related to slot sitting, which could be the strategy long term, however this won’t be for the long term benefits of BA and IAG as people will use their understanding which is far more readily available now than in the past to move to the best available alternative.

  • Dave Hughes says:

    Silver status :

    2 return trips to far east on qatar (or finnair etc) @ 25% miles = 6000TP (circa 3-4k spend), plus Amex 15k spend ? Gotta be close to 7500TP for silver ?

    TBH I will still collect Avios but just go with the cheapest deal for cash fares – (I did the Saudia Tunis – Jed – bkk for £810 return) Liverpool to enfidha was only £100 return with all the addons so plenty of ‘leisure routes’ and options to be had – also should get 14k virgin miles when the post.

    Time to look away from status chasing !

  • danstravel says:

    Does anyone think the Sofia, Bucharest routes will be under the chop as a result of this? I mean who will be filling these flights if TP runs will no longer be a thing…

    • Irons80 says:

      People who need to go to Sofia or Bucharest – do such people not exist?
      You might be being ironic, but i actually went to Bucharest for work this year and a CE ticket was very reasonably priced!

      • danstravel says:

        Yes all tongue in cheek. My point being that TP runs will no longer be ‘a thing’ moving forward

    • James says:

      Sofia is no longer a useful TP run as it has entered the schengen area. No longer possible to walk off and reboard the plane…

      • Peter says:

        Actually you can. Just need to let the crew know, and they mention it to the ground crew at the aircraft door and they’re happy to let you wait up at the gate. Did this in September.

        • Swiss Jim says:

          Why wouldn’t you bother to see the place?

          • Londonsteve says:

            Because many folks were flying to SOF repeatedly for TP runs and they’ve probably already seen the place more than once. There’s now zero point in doing such a run since it’s all spend based so cheap SOF trips are pointless.

            The OP raises a valid point, that the absence of all this J traffic to SOF and OTP risks the yields falling off a cliff and BA cancelling the routes, much to the chagrin of locals or people that need to go to either city for work. The average fare from London is very low due to the dominance of Wizz and Ryanair at both airport. BUD, where I’m currently based was never a TP run as it only yielded 40 TPs and it has far more TATL transfer traffic, in part because Hungary doesn’t have a national carrier or indeed a direct flight to the US. It is however very cheap to fly to with the LCCs so similar rules apply if the premium leisure market decides to abandon BA. I wouldn’t be surprised if the current route frequency is cut in the next 24 months.

  • Irons80 says:

    I am actually quite sanguine about the changes. I own my own business, travel a lot for work and don’t feel anywhere nearly rewarded enough for my spend, notably a recent very average LHR-ATL-LHR flight in CW which cost me £8k (and there were no cheaper options on any other airline) which still earned my the same amount of TPs as most of the chancers and freeloaders on this site who are moaning about the changes… that cannot be right and a move to spend (especially with the huge price rises that ALL airlines have passed through this year) is only fair

    • Tim says:

      ‘chancers and freeloaders’ … Jesus Christ

    • James says:

      Its only ‘fair’ because it suits you. Some of us have to hang around and keep the country a nice place for you to return to.
      We cant all be jet setting business gods like you 🙂

      • Irons80 says:

        Indeed – so you’re saying you should be rewarded for Gold status for the privilege?

        • James says:

          Well no, I didnt say everyone should get Gold. Tier points aren’t exactly the greatest example of the ‘freeloaders’ being involved given that you cant earn them without spending.

          Most leisure travelers book flights based on price and dont take loyalty into account at all. But some leisure travelers like myself on modest incomes do like to maybe enjoy some loyalty benefits (which given the state of BA is getting harder and harder to justify by the day).

          Maybe this is actually a good thing for the common man and the ‘Business owners’ such as yourself can enjoy your quiet lounge on the sinking ship that is BA.

          • Irons80 says:

            Sinking ship? Is that your analysis based on their financial and load performance, or an entirely emotional response?

          • George says:

            The share price over the last year doesn’t suggest a shrinking ship

          • Londonsteve says:

            Let’s see the effect on the BA bottom line when the effect of these changes start to bite. My key concern (were I a shareholder) is that if average fares fall to compensate for the decline in premium leisure traffic, BA is hamstrung by slot restrictions at LHR and is unable to introduce new capacity if the casual traveller suddenly expresses a greater desire to fly with them. It’s all very well adopting a lower seat price, higher volume business model but they’re subject to a ceiling on the number of flights they can operate and if they’re having to drop prices to fill seats…. This might not end well.

    • SidSYD says:

      Ooh—you won’t be popular with that post, but I am inclined to agree. The TP runs are over. Working the system to its limit is over. If you want to enjoy the benefits of premium travel, the cost will denote this. I am what you could classify as a chump-change millionaire. The party’s over for me, but I can still acquire significant Avios and fly premium. It will be interesting to understand the proportion of existing members this affects. Is this a dent in egos rather than benefits? Just playing devil’s advocate.

    • Throwawayname says:

      But how is this going to reward you? Other than having a smaller amount of people sharing the lounge, it doesn’t appear that any additional benefits are being offered to those who do qualify.

      • SidSYD says:

        But that may change now these changes are being implemented.

      • Noods says:

        Hear hear, agree with most of what you say, benefits should be for those who spend the most and are loyal, we’re all tired of long queues at ‘F&J desks” and lounges. But this will hurt BA though, if the [faux] status holders & TP runners all trundle off to other airlines as they say they’re going to, revenue will obviously suffer, hence the share price will too over time. And getting a share of revenue from the deserters on their routes via other airlines as you mentioned, will not be enough of a revenue replacement. The bean counters will not like it…..cash is king, and it always wins ! This return to the model from the 90s & noughties won’t last, or they’d never have changed to the current (!) model.

        • Rob says:

          People who fly BA because their company makes them are not ‘loyal’. Loyalty is also not about ‘extracting more money from your top customers’, it is ‘extract a little more money from all of your customers’ – especially as your biggest customers probably have given you a high share of wallet already.

          The next investment banking downturn and all of these ‘loyal’ customers currently paying £10k of their employers money to fly to New York [caveat – a company bought me a £10k ticket to go their event in NY two years ago!] will be unemployed and not flying BA upfront and the airline will want the rest of us back.

      • Londonsteve says:

        I won’t be paying to fly BA on anything other than reward seats following this change, unless BA is genuinely price competitive and the price also reflects the poor quality of the on board product. Previously I genuinely dug deep to fly on BA in order to retain status. I’m not flying monthly to JFK on a 10k ticket but people like me are what keeps the airline successful as we comprise a far greater number of profitable travellers than a handful of business travellers in the long haul J cabins ever will. BA will try to come crawling back to us in the next downturn but by then we’ll have dispersed to a combination of low cost airlines flying from regional airports, the ME3 and the other global alliances who make qualifying for status more attainable.

        • Irons80 says:

          And you know that you comprise a far greater number of profitable travellers how?

        • Londonsteve says:

          Simply by the fact that the potential pool of travellers with my financial resources is far greater than those seated in J flying TATL on £10k tickets. Clearly BA derives more profit per passenger from them than from me, but it can’t keep an airline afloat solely with these customers because there aren’t enough of them. The alternative business model is to abandon the mass affluent and sell seats solely on the basis of price, leading to a lower seat yield. It would be different if the on board experience was such that people were still willing to pay more to fly with BA compared to an LCC irrespective of tier points and loyalty schemes, but there’s barely anything in it these days, particularly so when you’re flying with no status. There will have been a ton of people like myself flying CE solely in order to collect TPs. Club Europe will become a much harder sell going forward, expect ticket prices to fall (arguably to level that reflects the quality of the overall experience). Sure, passengers will step in to keep the seats warm but it makes a very material difference if you’re getting £300 for a return flight to Germany versus £200 as most of the difference went straight to the bottom line.

    • JDB says:

      @Irons80 – this affects me and my wife negatively, so we probably won’t qualify for Silver from April 2026 but I entirely support what you say.

      Things like flights full of tier point runners is just utterly nuts and confirm those flights were totally over rewarded. The BAH double TP promotion was good to jump start post covid travel but has led to people obtaining status for peanuts, and those cheapskates then having the audacity to complain the lounges are overcrowded.

      There appear to be a lot of people ascribing what’s personally annoying to them as BA management incompetence when we know from regular armchair airline managers who post here, they actually have an incredibly poor understanding of airline finances.

      And as for the number of people who for years and years have said they won’t ever fly BA again, well…

      • Irons80 says:

        Please don’t talk sense on this site – it won’t go down well…

      • George says:

        “And as for the number of people who for years and years have said they won’t ever fly BA again, well…”

        A few names come to mind 😂

        • Throwawayname says:

          I don’t understand that bit, it’s not like I need to make an effort to avoid an airline that doesn’t even fly to my local airport, and I can’t be alone in that. I haven’t flown BA in over a decade, although I do end up on Iberia every year or two. I haven’t got anything in particular against BA or any specific carrier, but it’s far harder to avoid the likes of Wizzair who offer attractive pricing without having to deal with LHR or dodgy IT.

      • Cranzle says:

        Perhaps this changes will free up finances that can be reallocated to adequately cleaning in interior of aircraft. I was lucky enough to find chewing gum on my seat in J this week.

      • ken says:

        While I largely agree that status was too easily earned, do you not think that these changes have gone too far the other way ?

        I’d also imagine these changes were long in the planning – if so, why offer double points on BA holidays for the whole of last year ?
        It smacks of the left hand not knowing what is up the right hands sleeve.

    • Ian R says:

      Ahh, you’ve confused ‘chancers and freeloaders’ with ‘intelligent people’. Easily done.

      • Irons80 says:

        Indeed – enjoy all the other airlines you can go and game status on! I don’t have the time or the intelligence to bother…

    • patrick says:

      What a hideous post.

  • TimM says:

    Why doesn’t BA just end it? How many people are employed running two sets of virtual currency? How much does this ‘Club’ operation add to the underlying fares?

    Avios (ex BA Miles) has been practically worthless since they ramped up the ‘taxes and fees’ to greater than the competition charge in total for a ticket.

    It is time to die.

    • Ishan says:

      Having read your comment, I wonder why they didn’t revamp to Avios operating as Air New Zealand do with their AirDollars. Each point has a financial value that you can use when you buy a flight. Everything is then linked to spend. Or maybe that’s next?

      • Charles Martel says:

        Airpoints is by far the most boring scheme in existence, it’s no different to Accors hotel scheme.

    • James says:

      Once the BA 2-4-1 goes that will 100% be it for me.
      I have no interest in short haul redemption’s and the idea of having to save 350,000+ miles to get a couple of long haul business tickets just wouldnt be worth the time, for me.
      I’m surprised it still exists even now.

  • Ben says:

    Could someone please advise me? I currently have 33,425 tier points and 960 tier points booked to complete by 31 March, leaving me 615 tier points short for lifetime gold under the old ratios.

    I’m considering doing 4 back-to-back flights at 160 tier points each. However, I’m unsure if I can book a BA holiday now for travel after 1 April that will still count towards lifetime gold under the current ratios. Any suggestions for the cheapest and quickest way to earn these tier points would be greatly appreciated.

    • Clive says:

      The answer might depend on what your old renewal month was, before the switch to the common year (of 01 Apr – 31 Mar). But if I were in your position I would do my damndest to achieve 35,000 Tier Points by 31 Mar.

    • 26left says:

      I think the maths is this

      33425 + 960 =34,385 TPs to convert on 1-April

      34,385 / 35,000 * 550,000 =540,335 lifetime points

      So you will need 9,665 new points to make LTG.

      So you’ll need to spend that amount + tax with BA/AA/IB to achieve LTG post 1-Apr.

      Or alternatively, you’ll need 9,665 / 13.35 = 724 TPs with other OW airlines to achieve the same post 1-Apr.

      You will definitely be better off if you can get it done for a a few £s per TP pre 1-April.

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