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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.

  • grumpy chicken 81 says:
    3 Jan3 January 08:05

    A lot of people on here are saying you can only use BA Holidays to book out and back trips. Some may not realise that you can use the ‘complexItineraries’ window to book multi-centre trips with multiple hotels (generally only to places BA fly to though). I’m not concerned about not earning hotel points as I’ve only got status in one chain, the main issue I have with BA Holidays is that the range of hotels offered is in my opinion quite poor and I feel like I’m making too much of a compromise on my trip by using them.

    • Barrel for Scraping says:
      3 Jan3 January 08:21

      I did one time add in a car for half a day in a cheap city I wasn’t going to in order to make a first class trip to New York be bookable with just a deposit. That was before the double tier points promo, when that happened I started to include 5 nights car hire that I actually used.

      It’s probably best to not hire cars you don’t plan to pick up as Avis complained to BA when people kept doing that with Sofia. But with the new rules the car/hotel doesn’t have to be at the same time as your trip so if you need a car/hotel for another time you could add it into your booking

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      3 Jan3 January 08:36

      Just book an airport hotel as part of the BA Hol booking and then your preferred hotel at your destination yourself.

      Even then you don’t have to stay at it! – after all plans change.

      • Tim S says:
        3 Jan3 January 18:09

        The rules for DTP do actually say that you must check in and stay at the booked hotel.

        Here it is, rule 1(e) The hotel/car element of the package must be used i.e. hotel occupied and or car rental hired for the full booked duration.

        • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
          3 Jan3 January 21:06

          I wasn’t talking abotu the double TP offer just how you don’t have to book a hotel for your entire stay via BA.

          A single night booked via the ‘multi city’ route will turn it into a BA holiday and gain the benefits of for example only paying a deposit.

    • John says:
      3 Jan3 January 09:47

      How much do you all spend on hotels. That you think will make up the total spend needed.

    • IOW Overner says:
      3 Jan3 January 10:02

      Very interesting. Could you give an example?

  • Geek says:
    3 Jan3 January 08:27

    How will this work for Iberia? This has probably created a headache within IAG.

    There was a lot of noise about ‘harmonising’ loyalty across the business but it’s hard to imagine the Spanish/Latin American market could stomach €8000 a year for Silver equivalent (let alone Gold). Then the alternative is leaving Iberia+ in its current format which is basically like a slightly worse Exec Club (which would probably see an influx of UK members as it is ‘less bad’ than the new Club scheme).

    I suppose you could play at bonus points for the Spanish market to assist a €8k spend target but it’s hard- the credit card market or package holiday business isn’t there.

    Fundamentally a revenue based FF model is suited for the USA market but I’m not sure it can be applied too well outside of it.

    • G says:
      3 Jan3 January 09:48

      Finnair is the example here. Finnair has moved to revenue based spend, and, if memory serves me well, you need about 7,000 EUR and 12,000 EUR for OWS/OWE respectively (Ba Silver/Finnair Gold / Ba Gold / Finnair Plat).

      That said, given Finnair’s route network, the only people who I suspect can make it work are those who regularly fly to Asia, as Finnair has (vs BA) an extensive Asian network, particularly in East Asia (Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok and Phuket).

  • Phil says:
    3 Jan3 January 08:29

    I had an interesting chat with a former sales exec at a package wildlife tour operator, now working at a trekking and cycling op – they say their current and former employers are having quite a few discussions on other implications of this.

    When providing quotes to a customer for a flight and land holiday package they quote the land price and then a separate custom ‘flight inclusive’ price on request with custom flights.
    Now flight inclusive is all that appears on most statements, but it is not just flights it is a wrapper for:
    – flights
    – the company service / booking fee
    – ATOL cert fee

    This allowed the service charges to be ‘included’ but not defined or shown and so put up over the years and only explained if queried ( and sometimes not citing ‘business confidentiality’ or some such nonsense)

    Now if people see the ‘flight inclusive’ price and then have a much lower TP value the savvy ones will begin querying those values and suddenly full price breakdowns occur. Then they tell their friends / travel buddies and you have a big issue and BA style trust issue.
    It was so worrying that good customers seriously querying it were having fees waived on the booking as ‘goodwill’ rather than explained.

    The other issue is multi-year advanced bookings where a flight inclusive package is created. There ain’t no real flight purchase so they add a chunk on to advanced prices and hopefully pocket some extra there.
    So someone booking for May 2026 to go to the Serengeti for a 60th is paying complete guestimate.

    There are quite a few tour companies that do 2026 / 2027 and even 2028 bookings for low availability things. People might have paid £4k for a flight inclusive and find they flew a £2.5k ticket value in reality. Again its the people who check statements on flight apps and are premium leisure that might get a few revelations.

    Now under the distance rules everyone was just getting that and in packages they could make it opaque, but now people will get a hint at what their ticket actually cost them vs the bill.

    From a status PoV someone buying a holiday not via BA then they have no idea unless given a detailed on an invoice what TPs they will actually get and can’t be certain that what they thought got them silver or gold is actually going to do so. You might just find you actually are £600 short due to ‘hidden’ fees from the trav agent.

    Most travel agents don’t care about status but some do worry you can work this out easier now.

    • Barrel for Scraping says:
      3 Jan3 January 09:09

      How are Avios calculated on these flights? There’s a method for calculating TP based on distance and fare class which will be used if these are proper inclusive tour fares. So if these flights currently credit Avios based on distance then the same will apply for tier points too. However, if they’re public fares then they will show TP based on revenue but then the price paid to the airline will already show on their Avios statement so it won’t make any difference

      • Phil says:
        3 Jan3 January 11:12

        People are less likely to check Avios as its less visible on people’s radar.

        But from the change to revenue these will nolonger be under distance for either, the calc will be ticket value that BA received.

        Are you seeing what I mean?

        Things have become a whole lot less opaque.

        Prev you got 140 TPs and well how did you know what component was the ticket of the ‘flight inclusive’ fee charged by travel agent? You didn’t unless you priced tickets yourself at exact same time and knew the ATOL cert cost.

        Now BA will give you something giving a 1 to 1 with what the flight cost minus tax.

        So the nice arrangement fee they didn’t disclose on top of ATOL is now more visible.
        For ref someone I know was quoted an additional £1400 over the F cabin price.
        When they queried the quote and stated current prices for F for that route they were given a wishy washy excuse it was ATOL and small service handling fee.

        They got a quote from another firm for same routes & similar itinerary and were told plainly ATOL was about £500 for the package. Raised it with original firm and the entire £1400 was written off as goodwill gesture to ensure booking.

        After buying they asked for a breakdown of original quote and told flatly no, its business sensitive calc – which is complete horlicks.

        Imagine lots of people querying the BA TPs award and being told – ‘that isn’t what you paid us’ and you get BAEC-gate level of anger and feeling of trust being abused.
        Lots of these bookers are repeat loyal customers of said travel agents

  • Barrel for Scraping says:
    3 Jan3 January 09:14

    Did anyone get the offer from ITA, just book one flight and keep your status (many of us have got the status when they did their original status match and it has carried forward)?

    I can’t find the original email now, so knowing the T&Cs would be interesting. I don’t know if I need to book a return trip or will a one way suffice? ITA aren’t currently flying to LHR and I’d rather fly ITA proper in case their LCY subsidiary doesn’t count for this promo.

    I suspect ITA status will be very useful this year. As well as giving me SkyTeam status for now once the Lufthansa takeover is complete and they go to Star Aliiance then you can be sure some SkyTeam airlines will match them

    • Rhys says:
      3 Jan3 January 09:38

      As far as I’m aware it’s not a subsidiary that flies to LCY, it’s ITA mainline.

      • Barrel for Scraping says:
        3 Jan3 January 12:36

        Thanks. That appears to be the case when I look at bookings it says operated by ITA Airways. It’s just so common that LCY flights are operated by a subsidiary I wanted to be certain. Alitalia used to have Cityliner (I think Lufthansa has too), KLM Cityhopper and of course BA Cityflyer

    • Matty says:
      3 Jan3 January 09:56

      Do you remember the last time you took a flight? We at ITA Airways would love to see you on board again enjoying a great experience and renewing your Volare membership in our Club Executive.

      Book before January 10, 2025 to any destination and fly prior to January 31, 2025 and we will renew your membership in Volare Club Executive for another year.

      Book by January 10, 2025 to enjoy all of the benefits of Club Executive on your next adventure.

    • Pangolin says:
      3 Jan3 January 10:41

      One segment LCY-LIN in either direction will be enough.

      You can do the other segment with a budget carrier via BGY or MXP.

  • Dubious says:
    3 Jan3 January 09:18

    I can’t help but (cynically) think that BA have rolled out impossibly hard status thresholds as a first salvo that they can subsequently relax a bit to show that they have ‘listened’. This as a way to soften the edge on the structural changes.

    I think the overall change is strategic – moving to the revenue-based scheme is not about lounge demand/capacity (that’s a secondary benefit), but about a broader perspective on the customer relationship. Things in the world are becoming much more binary, much more transactional in practice.

    • P1cass0 says:
      3 Jan3 January 09:33

      Fully agree, expect a minor row back from the very high status thresholds to a level that’s marginally more acceptable. They have time to do that and position it as “listening to feedback”.

    • Rhys says:
      3 Jan3 January 09:36

      Given the grilling they’ve received from virtually all corners of the media I don’t think this was their strategy 🙂

      • sigma421 says:
        3 Jan3 January 09:51

        I’m sure all the unhappiness here, on FlyerTalk etc. was planned for. Topping the FT’s most read stories index probably wasn’t.

        • Rhys says:
          3 Jan3 January 10:08

          Ironically – because they announced it on the 30th – a lot of publications didn’t cover it immediately so it’s been a steady drip-drip of national press ‘catching up’ and keeping the story going.

          • Thywillbedone says:
            3 Jan3 January 10:19

            The airline equivalent of the listed company 6pm on Friday bad news release …

        • Thywillbedone says:
          3 Jan3 January 11:06

          The quote from Colm Lacy, BA’s chief commercial officer, in the FT: “The changes we have announced today underline our continued investment in our loyalty programme and in our customers.”. This must surely a typo and Colm is in fact chief comedy officer at the airline…

    • Joe says:
      3 Jan3 January 09:41

      Just no. No company operating at the public profile and size of BA thinks like this. Too much risk. It’s almost never conspiracy. It’s almost always incompetence.

  • John says:
    3 Jan3 January 09:45

    I can ‘see’ the consultants deck that outlined all the savings from this strategy and shift to high revenue customers would make all their problems melt away and give them an aura of exclusivity. A copy and paste from their playbook. Imagine all the savings: estate rental, F&B, staff and capex spend – they must have been beside themselves

    Once this fails BA need a clear out at the top as they won’t recover lost loyalty.

    • Dev says:
      3 Jan3 January 11:27

      1. Reducing lounge space = £Xm savings.
      2. Charging partner OW airlines for their elites entry into lounges = £xxx,xxx additional revenue.
      3. Reduction in champagne consumption = £Xm savings.
      4. Upsells to J lounge = £xxx,xxx additional revenue.
      5. Lower levels of Silver members = £xxx,xxx seat selection ancillary revenues.
      And so on…

      • John says:
        3 Jan3 January 18:39

        Missed those your so right !! You should work for a consultancy that’s worth big bucks that list. Wonder what code name this project had

  • Tim says:
    3 Jan3 January 10:24

    In case it’s useful for others – and so the BA spies can take note – here is my response to these changes.

    As part of my move away from BA, I have just downgraded both my BA Amex and Barclays Avios cards. Turns out I’m actually able to fritter my money away with the basic Barclays Avios card and still earn the voucher, and with hindsight their upgrade voucher is of more use to me than the BA/Amex 2-4-1. In time, I might therefore also close the basic BA Amex. Incidentally, I ended up having to speak to a real person at Amex to process the downgrade as the agent on the in-app chat said no downgrade was possible.

    The money I’ll save in fees has been used to offset the fee for the Amex Platinum card which I’ve just taken out. I might also downgrade or even cancel the Hilton debit card I have at renewal, as now I get HHonors Gold via the Amex. That saving will also help to offset the Amex fee. I sense my new “hobby” will be exploiting all the benefits of the Platinum card. Up to now, because of the need to book a flight with the card in order to fully benefit from the travel insurance, I’d stuck with the BA Amex so not to lose the Avios. Now that issue has gone if I’m using other airlines.

    Even before these changes to the BAEC, I’d already switched my Portuguese and Brazilian travel to TAP Air Portugal; and my trips to Malta have been on KM Air Malta, whose business class meals are amazing.

    Fortunately, I have only one new recently booked BA trip, and with this they’ve already cancelled one leg and BA’s woeful IT meant I had to call them to confirm their change when MMB wasn’t working.

    Looking ahead, I’ve already worked out I can save well over £200 by switching to Swiss Air business class from London to Geneva, which will also help to earn some Star Alliance tier points. So, as others have said, maybe this is the jolt I’ve needed to think differently about my travel arrangements. This has also reminded me of my philosophy when I first started flying as an adult back in the 1990s: only fly BA if they were the only option or I didn’t trust the destination country’s own flag carrier.

    • Xmenlongshot says:
      3 Jan3 January 10:50

      Tap + Swiss should put you well on your way to status within Star Alliance

    • Danny says:
      3 Jan3 January 11:33

      I bet a few BA spies have been commenting on here too

    • Barrel for Scraping says:
      3 Jan3 January 12:25

      You’ve never had to book the flights on the Platinum Amex to benefit from the insurance. The flights just had to be booked on an Amex card, any Amex

    • StanTheMan says:
      3 Jan3 January 12:54

      Not much of a philosophy if you ignored it for 30 years!

  • Garethgerry says:
    3 Jan3 January 10:40

    If there had bee an open letter from turning left for MORE., BA might listen.

    If you are flying business, then just choose best and most convenient airline and best value . As you should be doing. Get all you need.

    If you are flying economy then BA want to make it hard for you to get silver and lounge. once your status runs out , then again just go for cheapest, most convenient

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