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

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• Freeloader says:

  31 Dec31 December 22:51

  I love the “freeloading” comments and the ones talking about people who deserve and don’t deserve the status. It’s a loyalty program. Imagine complaining at the Sainsbury’s till: “oh look at this guy buying all the products on sale for more Nectar points, freeloader, not like me, who deserves all the Nectar points for not using any promotions”.

  That or going “I don’t think I deserve this many Nectar points, can you take some off? I’m more of a casual Sainsbury’s shopper and I have to admit I sometimes buy tomatoes at Aldi because they’re cheaper.”

• mkcol says:

  31 Dec31 December 23:33

  I just want to know where all these extra Cape Town AVIOS seats are 😁

  • Charlie says:

    1 Jan1 January 03:04

    You are already logged in with a different account. 🙂

  • Charlie says:

    1 Jan1 January 05:09

    Please click on this element…. …[Y]our location is Uzbekistan and your language is Swedish.

• John says:

  1 Jan1 January 02:24

  Does anyone know if a hotel-only booking through BA Holidays will earn tier points or if bookings will only be eligible if they also include a flight? I can’t see anything that makes that clear at this point

  • Rob says:

    1 Jan1 January 05:18

    Do they even offer hotel only?

    • Nico says:

      1 Jan1 January 05:33

      They do, I have a car only booking, so I checked the T&C and looks like no TP

    • NorthernLass says:

      1 Jan1 January 11:15

      You can make a BAH out of any 2 elements, even 2 hotels or 2 cars. I did wonder earlier whether this kind of booking would earn TPs going forward.

• Ross says:

  1 Jan1 January 04:30

  This is a very bad move for British Airways I think, and I think they will realise it part of the way through and reverse or introduce incentives (like double points). I’m Gold Guest List, and from talking to the girls in British Airways who deal with me, I know the most profitable client for them is somebody who flies v regularly in premium economy/ Club Europe.. these most profitable clients would almost certainly struggle to maintain their status.

• AJ says:

  1 Jan1 January 07:22

  Comfortably gold for many years, I probably spend about GBP 25k on work and leisure flights per year, of which +75% goes to OneWorld airlines but only a small proportion to BA. I like AA statesside and Finnair/ Cathay for Far East trips and want to keep highest One World status. Which programme should I transfer to?

• Kyle says:

  1 Jan1 January 07:27

  As with any new system it must work and must be right. Too many people’s jobs and bonuses will be on the line to call a change like this wrong and try and reverse it. This new system is here to stay and you can like it or lump it. Of course there will probably be changes after a while. The whole ‘more benefits to come’ without specifying what they are hints at leaving a blank cheque on the table to add a few extras.

  I do think part of the aim of this change is to reduce the number of less profitable status holders and weed out those who have gamed the system for too long with a nice hard reset. Ending the loopholes of cheap tier point runs and revamping the double tier points offer into the new BA holidays offer seems to even out the spread of TPs amongst customers rather than allowing a select few to take in loads yet others who spend quite a bit getting nothing in return.

  Once they know how effective it is and where they are really losing custom that they don’t want to lose I’m sure we’ll see tweaks here and there. I prefer to think of this as ‘the next step’ with more to come. First we had the tier point year change. Now the method of collection and thresholds have changed. I feel they have deliberately left themselves room to make this better without committing up front so they can sprinkle in little extra benefits and fine tune the system over time. A good bit of advertising and potential status matching offers could poach some other airline customers over if they would benefit from this system. Add on top of that the occasional promo offer say x amount of bonus TP per person for a BA holiday booking between April-June to incentivise booking in off periods could go a long way. Or maybe once the numbers drop we’ll see some real super benefits added as the cost of doing so will be much lower with a smaller market of higher revenue spenders to please.

  I’ll stick this out for the next two years. I’m lucky I’ll hit GGL in February and have enough trips prebooked under the legacy system post April to at least guarantee standard gold the year after. A soft land to silver after most current members will either have dropped out or upped their spend will mean I’m in line to see what the net club really looks like. It would be a shame if you threw me in the towel now without even giving this a chance to bed in and be tweaked about a little.

  • Fuggi says:

    1 Jan1 January 08:14

    Sober words.

  • Tom says:

    1 Jan1 January 08:22

    This is a fair post, but can’t help but feel the fact you have already booked enough trips to guarantee Gold means you have a very different mindset on the changes to the majority of BAEC members who will look at the thresholds and think ‘oh, might as well not bother from 1st April, then’. I think tweaks will come way before your two years are up.

    Personally, with nothing booked for next year I will probably just walk away now once my Avios are spent and give a large chunk of my £20-30K of BA spend a year to other airlines, since I won’t retain GGL and will be on the cusp of Gold each year only. I’m not throwing that much money at BA’s subpar product a year to then lose access to the Concorde Room and GGL team, which are the only things about the experience other than First Wing that make spending that much with BA make sense.

  • edinburgher says:

    1 Jan1 January 08:31

    @kyle. Understand your well thought out own perspective. I’m also usually in the camp of ‘don’t throw the baby out with the bath water’ But for me as BA Silver, this is the last straw and camel back analogy, especially after lots of service issues over many BA flights in the last 2 years. I will continue to fly BA especially to LCY but for long haul in J I’m now going to try the competition, who knows I may like it !!

  • Rob says:

    1 Jan1 January 08:32

    You don’t explain why people who are forced by a corporate deal to book five figure flights on BA are more valuable than people who have a choice over where to spend 3-4 figure sums.

    • Swiss Jim says:

      1 Jan1 January 08:42

      Of course, those people who are forced to book a corporate deal often still have the choice of precisely when to travel. There will be a perverse incentive now to arrange travel on dates where flights are the most expensive, as long as your employer is paying….

      • George says:

        1 Jan1 January 10:24

        “There will be a perverse incentive now to arrange travel on dates where flights are the most expensive, as long as your employer is paying….”

        Do employers not have booking systems/rules in place to stop people taking the pee? Mine does. Then again, my previous one didn’t

        • Swiss Jim says:

          1 Jan1 January 10:49

          If you’re senior enough HR/controls/finance tend not to challenge you. And there’s always a reason – they’re not hard to create.

    • KS says:

      1 Jan1 January 08:47

      Does that need explaining?

    • Kyle says:

      1 Jan1 January 16:27

      Several replies. Each person with relevant points. I have sympathy for the ‘losers’ here and I’m not attacking or deriding anyone. Maybe a reword of what I posted might help. Some people are more profitable to BA, others less. That is a simple fact. This new system aims to reward those who are more profitable by cutting benefits from less profitable. I stress the ‘aims’. I have doubts over whether they have got it right. Whether BA have correctly calculated who is more profitable and who is less is a matter of opinion.

      I just think if you already have status it might be worth playing it out. I don’t hold much value for bronze but even silver for a year from April is enough time to keep running with BA and use the benefits while keeping an eye on how they tweak this offer. I know my fortune of protection under the legacy system stead’s me in a better place than most but that’s how the cookie crumbles.

      The BAH offer has real potential if they offer the occasional promo with it. The Ames card offer is something and leaves a lot to be desired but who knows what might come of this. Maybe we’ll see other ways to earn TPs just like we can earn limitless Avios in some cards in the future.

      And putting the gold thresholds up makes gold really exclusive. This could be the start of turning gold into something really special. Who knows without a crystal ball? The few leisure travellers who will be able to hit gold will take in the benefits. As it should be. Gold and GGL are supposed to be the pinnacle of this product but with so many people it doesn’t feel special anymore. Maybe we’ll see some monster benefits added to gold once gold status holder numbers drop. Sure, corporate people booking on their employers wallet will probably continue to do so regardless. But they tend to be less demanding than the leisure traveller. Double TPs has seen the number of leisure gold holders crowd the first lounges and overflow group 1 boarding to the point I feel like the benefit isn’t really worth much.

      For those who had your ear to the ground then we all knew this was coming in one way or another. The speed and scale might have taken us by surprise but the ultimate fact that it has happened shouldn’t be too much of a shock. The club was bloated and numbers of high status holders needed to be trimmed. We can’t all keep getting gold cards every year while spending peanuts. Even if you do take your money elsewhere you’d do yourself a favour by at least watching this space.

  • KS says:

    1 Jan1 January 08:40

    A series of good points.

    Read the comments on any BA article on HfP and I think you’ll see a lot of criticism of the BA lounge offering in particular regarding overcrowding.

    Realistically, carrying on as things were wasn’t going to be a great strategy for BA long term, so they had to change something and what options did they have to address the main criticisms?

    I am not saying this is great news, but I’ll give it a couple of years to see if it brings tangible improvements. It’ll be interesting to see if the tone of the comments on HfP changes through 2025 and 2026.

  • Mike says:

    1 Jan1 January 08:51

    “reduce the number of less profitable status holders” – surely those paying close to $3k for return trip with World Traveller Plus must be less profitable status holders, while $3k was something close to business class cost a few years back. Being loyal whilst getting ripped off is nothing in my interest. There were no cheap tier points with any airline for a long time anyway so this change gives me a flexible mindset when booking a flight. In other words as BA sent an email on the last day of the year “s**** you and your benefits” I’ll be looking for the best offer now.

    • Andy says:

      1 Jan1 January 12:13

      Seem to remember Rob saying that Premium Economy is a very profitable cabin

      • Mike says:

        1 Jan1 January 16:24

        Out of curiosity I searched flight deals for May from PHX to PRG on BA website, premium economy cost $1932, business $2008 one way for the same flight, I took a screenshot. Make sense out of it.
        If I use BA flight as the best price-route option I will definitely use different mileage plan number for the ticket, where I can collect miles and get a better value.

  • Gerry says:

    1 Jan1 January 09:38

    “… ending the loophole of cheap tier point runs…”. This is not a loophole. So is not double TP BA Holidays promo.

    Both offerings are conscious business decisions by BA and there are people who buy these products. These are not mistake fares, hidden-city fares or the like.

• Mike Small says:

  1 Jan1 January 08:21

  Well, I retired after over 15 years Gold. I am 3.5% short of LTG and I could have acheived this with approximately 30 Club Europe sectors. In the new currency I would need to spend approximately £20K. Thanks and goodbye.

  • Paul says:

    1 Jan1 January 08:42

    If you are only 1200 TP short, isn’t it worth one more TP run before April 1st to get you there. The rest of your life as gold with pretty quiet lounges in 15 months times must be appealing?

    • Swiss Jim says:

      1 Jan1 January 08:44

      You’re very confident GfL will last….

      • Tom says:

        1 Jan1 January 08:54

        Exactly, lifetime status levels are justified as a carrot that exists to encourage travellers to continue to spend, not a reward for having spent in the past. My view is the thresholds have now been set so high now that unless they are reduced they will largely kill new qualifiers and therefore stop encouraging anything for all but a tiny portion of BA travellers (sure, lots of people spend £20K a year on BA flights once or twice during a career, but the number of passengers doing that consistently for a decade or more is very different due to having a family, stage of a career, etc.). Eventually someone will logically be asked to justify ‘why are we giving all these benefits to these low spend passengers for little in return?…’

  • JP says:

    1 Jan1 January 08:44

    Considering how valuable GfL is going to be in this terrible new system you should definitely do a TP run or BA Holiday before 31 March to get those few remaining TPs. JER-BKK on QR (BA codeshare) will get you 1280 TPs and that can be had for around £3k. Big discount vs £20k.

• Peter says:

  1 Jan1 January 08:50

  I’ve had a Quick Look all be it 1 trip booked last month and to be taken after 1st April but looking at Finnair LHR to HEL to BKK in October and December business on J fare approx 3k return each should enable me to keep hold of gold for 26/27 if my calculations are correct ?

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