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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.

  • BrancasterLancaster says:
    1 Jan1 January 12:37

    Out of interest/boredom I’ve just done some maths, based on my first business trip of the year – booked with BA before these changes.

    It’s a domestic flight and back in CE.

    Under the old system that’s 80 TP, under the new system it’s c250 TP.

    So on the face of it I get more.

    Until you look at the bands. Under the old system this trip would get me 5% of the way to gold. Under the new system I’m 1.25% of the way to gold.

    That’s a pretty hefty downgrade for the same journey. And I think this is my main issue with these changes.

    I’m naturally hovering around silver and gold with my business and leisure travel, but under the new system I might make bronze but only if I chase it.

    As I and others have said elsewhere it’s BA’s club and they can do what they want with it, but there are plenty like me who now don’t feel all that valued and so will likely take some business elsewhere rather than choose BA to get/retain status.

    • Simon Adams says:
      1 Jan1 January 12:42

      BA will lose customers as a result of the changes, whether it be completely or partially. I don’t think they really understand the potential ramifications of disregarding loyalty.

      • Mike says:
        2 Jan2 January 12:14

        Not necessarily. Many people will still fly BA but use different mileage plan for the booking. I’m switching to Alaskan airlines mileage club. Happy New Year!

    • Tim S says:
      1 Jan1 January 13:16

      Arguably you are getting far too many TP for your journey in the past

      Booked ahead domestic CE tend to cost about twice the price of Economy, yet accrues 8 time as many points.

      BA have simply decided that can’t go on.

      • Danny says:
        1 Jan1 January 13:24

        I think 3 times the price is a more general estimate for domestic vs economy fares

      • BrancasterLancaster says:
        1 Jan1 January 13:25

        That’s a totally reasonable observation (and tbh, one that I agree with).

        As I say though, the massive devaluation is one of the issue I have with the changes (the other being not actually rewarding loyalty).

        A reduction in earning I could stomach, such a large reduction though? Nah, doesn’t feel great.

      • yonasl says:
        1 Jan1 January 13:39

        Not really. For a SH flight of just a couple of hours paying more than a low cost is a hard sell. The promise of future perks via loyalty is a good proposition and may make you fly with BA vs low cost. But with the new math, as people are finding, it barely makes a difference and therefore if you are going to spend £7,500 you would rather do it via other companies. (Basically people are going to very quicken find if booking a couple of AF or LH business class tickets allows to gain status vs spending £000’s with BA for bronze).

        • BrancasterLancaster says:
          1 Jan1 January 13:44

          Quite.

          I’m sure most people negatively affected by this aren’t going to suddenly say “never BA” for all kinds of reasons, but when status is much harder to achieve then it makes financial (and sometimes logistical) sense to shop around more.

  • Jim says:
    1 Jan1 January 12:41

    Personally this doesn’t hurt me too much as post covid I haven’t had the volume of long haul business class flights for business, previously I was loyal to BA for business and personal travel to collect tier points. I am sure many will have been/are the same. I would have been very upset by this change a few years ago. I work for a large US tech firm are they are just not flying people around the globe as much and if so travel policy is significantly tighter. I assume many others are the same hence this focus for BA surprises me. There is only so many banking execs and insta chasing leisure travellers.

  • Aaron says:
    1 Jan1 January 12:44

    Thanks all for the inputs. I have been maintaining gold for the last few years with perhaps £5-6k of personal spend and maybe another £5k of employer spend on top. I am absolutely not an ‘executive’ like my perennial BA gold grandfather was in the 80s and 90s (I’ve always thought the name of the programme was silly!). No way for me to really keep gold, or maybe even silver, then, especially if duty and tax don’t count. Well, there is a silver lining to this change – at least it has driven more of us back into this website’s loving arms as we look for a way to make the best of things!

  • Trixy444 says:
    1 Jan1 January 12:49

    I actually don’t mind this at all. I’ve been silver since 2003 and never reached gold I’ve never did tier runs etc, I travel on business typically 12 GLA to LCY flights and a couple long haul business Mumbai and Singapore this year and will typically do one LH CW family holiday. Never reached gold but easily spending 20k. I have been frustrated for a long time with the size of the queues to board with status and the lounges being so busy it didn’t use to be like this. It will be interesting to see how it changes, overall the service has dropped but I am tied to using them for London regional flights so makes sense to stay and see how it pans out.

  • Erico1875 says:
    1 Jan1 January 12:53

    I’d love someone to show me the maths that justifies, even under the current rules, a tier point run to get gold.
    I’m Blue, only fly BA business class using Avios.
    We get the lounge, fast track, etc
    BA have always allocated us seats together T24. So what is there to gain with status?
    If flying economy, then it’s Ryanair.

    • Mr. AC says:
      1 Jan1 January 13:07

      I’m in the rate situation where it clearly makes sense because I hugely value the extra Gold eco reward space availability. Last minute pricing is often eye watering even on LCCs, but especially on BA, but it’s often possible to get the last 4 seats on the plane for Avios if you’re Gold. And we value flying from LHR a lot, it’s convenient for us to get there. Otherwise our only option is booking 355 days out…

      Also I love the First class Cathay lounges in HK.

    • The Original Nick. says:
      1 Jan1 January 13:10

      Ryanair to the US? The UAE? SE Asia?

      • Throwawayname says:
        1 Jan1 January 13:22

        There’s Wizzair to the UAE, might be just about doable in an exit row.

    • Tim S says:
      1 Jan1 January 13:22

      I’d love to know how all these people are gaining enough Avios to buy all of their BA flights using Avios.

      I’ve made 8 LH flights (WT) year on year for the past 3 years and have barely accrued enough Avios for a single European flight.

      • Occasional Ranter says:
        1 Jan1 January 13:31

        Credit card bonuses, multiplied using boost.

        • Rob says:
          1 Jan1 January 13:54

          You could get over 200,000 Avios if you and your partner got Amex Plat before 14 January, referring each other, assuming you could do the £20k spend across both in 6 months. Cards are effectively free because the dining and Harvey Nicks credits would cover a few months of annual fees.

  • tomahawk says:
    1 Jan1 January 12:56

    I realise I am in a (very!) small minority here but as a fairly heavy BA holidays user targeting silver status I like this change. We do something like 2 long haul trips in PE and 2 short haul trips in economy each year. A £4k p/p long haul PE trip now provides 53% of silver requirement vs previous 180 TPs (30%). The big difference is a short haul £2.5k p/p trip in economy now gets you a third of the way to silver in one go vs previous peanuts of 15 or 20 TPs. We probably would not have been able to maintain silver without the double TP offer of the past few years but now it should be no problem at all and if there are a few incentives thrown in then gold could be a possibility too. Other benefit of all this of course is the generation of a good number of avios to fund the annual club world 2 for 1 voucher trip.

    • BrancasterLancaster says:
      1 Jan1 January 13:04

      I say this completely genuinely and without any bitterness (honestly!)…

      That’s great for you, you’re one of the winners of the new system and I suspect with the margins they make on holiday bookings you’ll be earning them plenty of money.

      But as a loser it doesn’t make me feel like a particular valued customer that someone who makes four trips a year, compared to my ten or so, gets better status/perks/whatever.

    • MD says:
      1 Jan1 January 13:14

      You appear to be missing the fact that the tier points from BAH spend are spilt evenly between all people on the booking. So your £4k spend will not be 53% of silver, unless you are in the habit of holidaying alone.

      • MD says:
        1 Jan1 January 13:16

        Oh wait, you said 4k pp. My bad, sorry. We really need an edit button on this site.

      • tomahawk says:
        1 Jan1 January 13:17

        I am aware of that, as I said £4k p/p (per person). For example a 10 day trip in PE to anywhere long haul at a half decent hotel will cost something like this.

        • Jon says:
          1 Jan1 January 15:35

          £8k on a 10 day holiday in PE is crazy money. Is that really indicative of the ‘fan’ base of HfP?

          • tomahawk says:
            1 Jan1 January 16:08

            It might not be as crazy as you think. A quick search of any random month on BA holidays for 10 day trip in PE in a 5 star hotel shows at least half are £3k+pp and probably a third are £4k+. And there are plenty that are a lot more than that.

          • Rob says:
            1 Jan1 January 16:55

            Average reader salary is £70k+ so, yes. Our demographic base is up there with The Economist, ft.com etc if you look at the data sets held by the marketing agencies.

    • Littlefish says:
      1 Jan1 January 14:23

      That’s good to hear Tomahawk. I make that £8k x2 trips and £5k x2 trips, so £26k spend to BA Holidays across 4 trips … I’m presuming as a couple. You appear to be low value flyers (ie. 2 return trips each in WT+ and 2 return trips in Economy) but making excellent use of hotel / rental cars across what I’m interpreting as decently long trips.
      Seems to me BA are exactly after this spend through their portals (including BA Amex) and keener to reward you with Silver status than previously.
      At £13k and 13,000 new tier points each you (both) are easily Silver going forward.
      The funny thing is, you can even swap out one or more of your four trips going forward (to a better / cheaper / more unique provider) and STILL easily make the 7,500 for Silver … I wonder if BA are allowing for that.

      • tomahawk says:
        1 Jan1 January 15:12

        Calculating the TP’s off the holiday spend is a real bonus for us as the main chunk of the expense is thrown at the hotel rather than upgrading the flights (unless its long haul overnight in which case its CW if at a reasonable cost). Swapping out the trips over the £7500 is a real possibility but I try to generate around 150,000 avios a year to use with the CV so am still a bit locked in due to the generous avios benefits you get on a BA holiday.

  • Mark says:
    1 Jan1 January 12:59

    I’ve reached silver once, back in the day when it pretty much cost nothing in avios to upgrade from premium to club (you earnt the avios back)

    but since then have only paid a cash fair for a BA flight a handful of times. Just use them for avios flights. So status chasing has never been on my agenda.

    But I can see this hitting BA badly.

  • Trevor says:
    1 Jan1 January 13:05

    Soft landings – BA abolishing soft landings the word “not yet” comes into my mind – given the number of changes BA has made with little advance notice. Only a matter of when soft landings disappear with no notice sometime after April 2025. HFP readers will probably be the first to pick up the change when discovering they are now Blue “club” members.

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