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

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• ee says:

  2 Jan2 January 12:12

  We’ve got a BA Holiday booked in June LHR-BGI. Standard current tier points would be 140 each way. Does this mean we’re going to end up with 280*13.5*2 = 7560 (I.e just over the silver threshold)? Or have I misunderstood?

  • CheshirePete says:

    2 Jan2 January 12:23

    Yes, conversion via current method.

    • ee says:

      2 Jan2 January 12:36

      I guess this is some short term silver lining (literally!). I wonder if they’ll still need the 4 eligible flights too.

    • Parvin says:

      2 Jan2 January 12:50

      Are you sure that BA will still honour the DTP promotion for bookings made for April-June 25, since they sneakily decided to suddenly end the offer in March 25? (bookings were made well before the Dec 30 announcement).

      • Rob says:

        2 Jan2 January 12:54

        Read the FAQ

  • James187 says:

    2 Jan2 January 12:28

    I haven’t seen much talked about situations like if we book a BAH now for before end of March 25 in current TP year?
    Will that just operate as previous to 30th Dec under current system i.e. Tenerife for example would be 160 x 2 = 320 TPs to credit against current Silver or Gold thresholds?

  • MY says:

    2 Jan2 January 12:47

    Isn’t it 280*13.35 =3,738, so way off silver

    • ianM says:

      2 Jan2 January 13:01

      Presumably doubled under DTP promo

      • MY says:

        2 Jan2 January 13:11

        Yes, if eligible & travel completed by end June.

• dundj says:

  2 Jan2 January 12:16

  Telling an employee “Hey, we are sending you away for meetings, but you no longer earn any frequent flyer points.” This will see a number of those employees say I will just join those meetings via Teams/Zoom or move to a company that continues to include frequent flyer points when travelling.

  Bearing in mind most of those travelling tend to be more senior within a company then said company would likely see a brain drain, or loss of face to face time with overseas current and potential clients which can harm that company’s prospects with continuation of deals in the pipeline, almost like matching BA’s thoughts here.

  How you are looking at this, is exactly the narrow focused look that BA have used to implement these changes really. Also, the corporate discounts tend to be a set percentage of overall spend once a minimum spend has been met anyway so is already baked into the corporate contracts.

  • Joe says:

    2 Jan2 January 12:34

    This is exactly the point I’m making – it’s narrow thinking but seems to follow the logic that BA seem to have to its logical endpoint. BA have chosen to think narrowly on the consumer side, but not on the corporate spend side. And I find it bizarre.

    • dundj says:

      2 Jan2 January 12:58

      I think you are missing the more nuanced point Joe, the threshold for the company won’t be met as far fewer flights are taken, so comes at a cost to the company where company needs to spend X, to receive lets say for arguments sake (and for simpler calculations) a 10% rebate on total spend. If said company then only spends 0.95X in that contracted year then they will be spending 5.55% more on their overall travel spend which depending on the threshold amount will be a significant number to the costs of a company rather than a rounding error.

      It would also likely see the budget holder for travel miss the target for their largest section of their annual review and therefore bonus so will be under far more pressure and/or relieved of their duty for a large error on the restructuring of the contract.

      • Joe says:

        2 Jan2 January 13:13

        Maybe I don’t fully understand. Or the point feels like a fair description of the status quo but not where I can see this getting to. Are you saying the argument that BA would make to me if I ask for a rebate on my flights in return for foregoing frequent flyer perks for my employees is:

        a) “you don’t want that discount, because your employees won’t want to fly to do their work”
        b) “because your employees will fly less you won’t hit the threshold to get other discounts”

        Therefore – don’t ask for this discount.

        Feels…. unrealistic to me!

      • dundj says:

        2 Jan2 January 13:37

        It is not BA that will say that at all, the company offered this would potentially be happy for this too, but would be a strongly short-term point of view by that company.

        If you are an employee who has to travel, and you have the option between company 1 who has the status quo as you say, or company 2 whereby you receive no frequent flyer points or benefits from your company travel, who would you choose, if all other parts of the role remain equal.

        Headhunters will target those in company 2 to move to the likes of company 1 and those which continue to operate in company 1. That loss of experience, as those doing the most travel tend to be the most experienced, barring travelling sales teams in general. Losing that experience would set company 1 back as that knowledge would be lost from the company.

        Overall, those at company 2 who find this out, and they would very quickly, will reduce their flights to only the absolute necessary, thus losing BA the fully flexible fares to Teams/Zoom, meaning company 2 do not spend to their threshold, and may not be able to do the face to face meetings required to close some deals/retain current clients. A travel budget holder is not only in place to consider cost, but also what is beneficial to the company in retaining its staff who must travel. Taking away frequent flyer points which can be used by the member of staff travelling is a perk that would more than just slightly annoy those staff members doing that travel.

        Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that companies, and oh so more importantly BA, would be more than happy to do this by using a fare code that are solely for corporate rates earning zero Avios and zero Tier Points! The medium to long term costs to the companies who are unattractive to be employed by, and BA who lose a percentage that is significant enough to affect the margins on a per flight basis based on revenue per seat mile flown, partly by loads being smaller, and partly by selling those remaining seats at a lower price than they could have otherwise reached as it stands.

        Ask someone you know who does a number of flights for work what they would do if their company stopped them earning frequent flyer points and/or ways to get status from their flying for business, and listen closely to their responses. By that, I mean people who don’t get the choice as to who to fly. That should signal the points far more clearly, and extremely strongly I would suspect.

      • andy says:

        2 Jan2 January 21:01

        @ dundj – this is simply not true as much as you like to believe it. our corporate spend only grows yoy on CW flights trans atlantic.

        you really think you know better than BA themselves where they make more money (on corporate fares or on TP run Joe) because the forum bro said that corporate travel is down..?

  • Phil says:

    2 Jan2 January 12:37

    I’ve said elsewhere – how many corporate travel programs are still running only because the employees have been pushing for it to help them maintain status (combined with personal leisure travel). Said employees all in peer competition to keep and maintain status. This is the power BAEC had.

    Remove all of this, how many will say F it, let’s Zoom. And the employers are relieved employees are no longer interested in this expensive ‘travel’ perk.

    I bet there’s at least some of this going on. But this is exactly the sort of push-pull BAEC nuance the fabled McKinsey deck could easily look right over.

    • dundj says:

      2 Jan2 January 15:58

      There is another possibility that spending by those travelling for corporate activities know that if they hold off requesting travel until last minute to push up the price and earn more tier points individually which would not be ideal for a company, but push those travelling towards Gold and for frequent long haul travelling to GGL.

  • George says:

    2 Jan2 January 13:37

    “This will see a number of those employees say I will just join those meetings via Teams/Zoom or move to a company that continues to include frequent flyer points when travelling.”

    How would they know if a company they don’t yet work for includes frequent flyer points when travelling?

    Pretty bizarre question to ask in an interview.

    • dundj says:

      2 Jan2 January 13:52

      There are more ways to find this out than asking a question in an interview.

      Friends and acquaintances who work at the company, a headhunter agency who at the expected seniority for the roles involved will find these things out before an interview (even telling the company involved in hiring that it gets more qualified people for the role), a chat over a drink at an event with a member of staff at a competitor company are just three ways of knowing.

      • Lady London says:

        2 Jan2 January 16:38

        Frequent flier benefits and travel conditions are quite commonly negotiated by key individuals as part of recruit/retain and put in writing to that individual as part of their employment contract or in a separate memo.

        Mid-level corporate wage earners are highly motivated by the conditions they are able to take their families on holiday in. For all sorts of reasons including it helps offset family stress if one party is away a lot on business travel.

      • Garethgerry says:

        2 Jan2 January 16:52

        From the point of view of ex very high spending corporate traveller.

        Firstly fares were fixed, we paid X to go from A to B never mind when booked , always fully flexible and acknowledging last minute uncertain nature of business travel.

        Secondly once good deal was agreed, it had no cut offs and cliffs for discount

        Thirdly , the way the company saved money was by asking if every journey was necessary. Not by being mean and telling tired executives working long hours were going to penny pinch on your Avios.

        Finally would the company prefer you to have a meal in airport restaurant and charge them or eat for free in BA lounge

      • Ziggy says:

        2 Jan2 January 17:16

        I’m not sure you’re seeing the original suggestion in the way that it was intended (or at least in the way that I would have intended it had I made it).

        The suggestion isn’t for companies/employers to choose not to let their employees earn status points. The suggestion is that BA makes that decision for them.

        BA could say, for example, that none of its corporate fares (the ones that earn the company/employer a big rebate at the end of the year) will earn the flyer any status credits but they’ll give the company/employer an extra x% back at the end of the year instead.

        Where’s the brain drain (in the UK) going to happen? What will the companies/employers lose? What will BA lose?

        The losers are the flyers who make absolutely no difference to BA’s bottom line through their corporate spend because their company (and not they) dictates what airline they can fly.

      • Joe says:

        3 Jan3 January 02:41

        Yes Ziggy. I think everyone is being lost in the weeds of the game theory of talent acquisition etc. For context – I fly 100+ sectors a year and spend $xx,000s on my travel. I, of course, love collecting my points and status. And I’d be annoyed if I lost the ability to do that. Having said that I don’t know if I’d pick a job over it. I pick a job on the long term upside to me. But that’s not really the issue at hand.

        The point is more – if they care about spend, surely BA’s obvious move is to incentive the spenders. And if they think this is big corporate accounts, which this change really seems to suggest, it feels like this is the move BA should actually be making. The arguments here seem rather incredulous and biased by the status quo to me.

• Gerry says:

  2 Jan2 January 12:23

  Question my current status ends late March, if I was to book a BA holiday with double tier point offer, I currently have 355 points so a trip to sofia would give me additional 320 based on current system. Is my logic correct ?

  • Rob says:

    2 Jan2 January 12:58

    Yes. If you want 5 nights in Sofia.

• Flier33 says:

  2 Jan2 January 12:30

  Can someone please explain what “new business” will this bring BA? Or are they just trying to reduce customers (being paying cash/redemption/tp run) and by that less pressure on lounges, and maybe getting some cash for seat reservations once in a while? This makes no sense.

  • StanTheMan says:

    2 Jan2 January 12:46

    More BA Holiday bookings?
    And less Silver/Gold members overall.
    What’s the problem?

  • Tim S says:

    2 Jan2 January 12:47

    They are trying for the second half of your suggestion without suffering from the first.

    But the effect of this will take time to filer through. I am (as I suspect are most people) already assured of my status to April 2026 based upon already banked spend.

    and to take advantage of that I will continue to choose BA for my travel through 2025-6, cluttering up the lounge and getting free seat selection.

    What I wont be doing is making those occasional upgrades that are necessary to get enough TP to keep my status into 2027.

    By the time that BA find out there are enough of me to have made a difference, and think about a change, my status will be gone.

    • Flier33 says:

      2 Jan2 January 15:35

      How much does that really save vs the offset Rob has mentioned on business moving away from them? I can imagine as someone mentioned that less lounge users us less expenses on that end, plus staff costs.

      • Tim S says:

        3 Jan3 January 16:40

        This is exactly the same type of calculation where taking half an olive off of the salad in each individual airline meal saves £3,000,000

  • Matt B says:

    2 Jan2 January 12:56

    I keep asking myself the same question. What *new* business is coming BA’s way? How does devaluing a loyalty scheme for the vast majority of loyal customers mean that lots of new rich ones will suddenly start flying BA to enjoy perks they already generally enjoy? Baffling.

    • NottsTraveller says:

      2 Jan2 January 13:09

      Also why would this group of new spenders under the new scheme trust BA after it has shafted the current Club members?

  • Rob says:

    2 Jan2 January 12:57

    The irony is that even high spenders may spend less. Do 2 x £10,000 tickets to return Gold then move to Virgin to bank SkyTeam status as back up. No need to do 7 x BA £10k flights as you do now.

    We see this all the time in the hotel space. Retain your core status then swap to building up a backup.

    • ken says:

      2 Jan2 January 15:51

      More likely people think those 7 flights on BA will get GGL and be 12% of the way to GFL

• MRC62 says:

  2 Jan2 January 12:58

  It’s just so sneaky! I booked a BA holiday ages ago for May 2025 as the value was, marginally, better overall than booking flights & hotel separately because of the bonus avios / tier points earning. And I was about to book another BA Holiday for June but now they have changed the tier points I will earn for May’s trip from 320 to “….plus your eligible tier points” I will now only book if the BA Holiday package is significantly cheaper than booking things separately as I usually do. Plus their prices to some destinations have become ridiculous – our recent holiday to Tenerife would have been over £1k more if I had booked through BA holidays rather than booking the identical CE flights & hotel separately. Multiply ‘Mr / Mrs / Ms etc., tiny leisure business class leisure traveller’ by a few hundred thousand and that surely will harm their business? I am not saying I will never book BA again as we like the space a spare seat between us gives us (& I don’t like EasyJet or Ryanair) but I will look more closely now at what I get for my hard earned £’s and consider flying with a stopover on another airline. And probably burn the last few avios I’ve got left after booking 2 club world flights this year – right thing to do I think as I’m guessing they will also very soon devalue avios again. Nothing ever stays the same – fact of life – but BA seems to devolve rather than evolve.

  • StanTheMan says:

    2 Jan2 January 13:07

    Except when you are 1600 TPs short of Silver, and now CHOOSE to book the £3200 BA holiday (even tho its £300 more than booking separately) to get you over the line.

• Clive says:

  2 Jan2 January 12:58

  I have just found the QR credit cards mentioned by someone many pages ago. They’re both very attractive, one offering instant Silver status, one Gold (so OW Sapphire) – except that they’re only available for US residents. QR could attract a large number of customers if they widened these cards to UK residents as well. It might be hostile in OW terms, but as they own such a substantial portion of IAG (is it still 20%?) they could probably get away with it. If added to a status match it would be unbeatable for someone like me who flies to Asia, usually via DOH, at least once a year.

  • danstravel says:

    2 Jan2 January 13:15

    It looks like the status is only for one year? Which is similar to the HSBC Star Alliance CC in AUS (where you get *G for a year for free but able to retain with spending).

    • ianM says:

      2 Jan2 January 13:50

      Status is always for one year, you need to have the same spend in that year to maintain for the next.
      Some have suggested that the current ‘soft landing’ will no longer be honored but plenty of others have had confirmation from BA that it will continue as per now.

• Namster says:

  2 Jan2 January 13:07

  93 pages. Can someone please add this to ChatGPT to summarize the key takeaways. Thank you 🙂

  • Mark says:

    2 Jan2 January 13:41

    A summary of random people’s differing viewpoints. Not sure that’s terribly useful 🙂

  • NoStatusNotWorried says:

    2 Jan2 January 14:51

    This is a big one. Here are the main takeaways:
    • British Airways is rebranding and revamping its loyalty program, which will be renamed The British Airways Club.
    • The new program will award Tier Points based on how much customers spend with BA and its holiday operations, rather than the previous arrangement, which rewarded travelers based on multiple criteria, such as cabin class and distance traveled.
    • This change will occur on April 1, 2025, and will affect both new and existing bookings.
    • The change has been met with criticism from customers who feel that the new status thresholds are unfair.
    • British Airways has defended the change, stating that it offers “more ways to earn Tier Points than ever before.”

    A number of customers feel that the new status thresholds are too high and unfairly favor high-spending travelers. Some of the specific points of criticism include:
    • Customers who previously earned status through long-distance economy class flights will now struggle to achieve the same status, as the new thresholds are heavily weighted towards higher-spending customers.
    • The new thresholds will be particularly difficult for leisure travelers, who typically spend less on flights than business travelers.
    • The change is seen as a devaluation of the loyalty program, as it will be harder for many customers to achieve and maintain status.
    • The new program is seen as favoring high-spending customers at the expense of more frequent, but lower-spending, customers.
    • The change is seen as a move towards a more elitist loyalty program, which is at odds with British Airways’ positioning as a national carrier.

• AlanD says:

  2 Jan2 January 13:24

  “More than a flight
  The British Airways Experience is more than a flight. It’s about making every single journey as special and original as you are, whatever your reason to travel. We’re always here to help you feel relaxed and secure from the airport to boarding and beyond.” Jim Royle. Happy New Year.

  • Reece says:

    2 Jan2 January 14:58

    “Barbara…..!!”

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