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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)

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  • Gerry says:
    3 Jan3 January 12:32

    There was an (unrelated) article on One Mile At A Time yesterday which resonates with me – the author of the blog says: “I don’t care much about airline elite status anymore. 16-year-old me would be so disappointed to hear this, but I generally don’t think it’s worth going out of your way to attain airline elite status anymore.”

    This is exactly how I feel. Let’s be honest – lounges are mostly poor and I’d rather grab a good meal before heading to the airport than eat gloop in the lounge. I mostly fly business so status doesn’t add very much. With bulk of my miles coming from point purchases and CC spend, I have more flexibility.

    For example, I recently bought 200,000 Hawaiian miles and immediately transferred to Alaska 1:1; also bought 200,000 Finnair miles and transferred to QR. Both purchases at roughly 1p per mile.

    Booked AA J from the US to London for 45k AS miles (minimal taxes), then a separate trip Europe to Australia in QR J for 90k QR miles. Booked through BA Exec Club, these flights would cost probably 2x more (Avios plus sky-high fees), and that is ignoring the fact BA doesn’t even show the same availability for some OW partners. So there’s life outside of BA…

    • Dominic says:
      3 Jan3 January 12:51

      Increasingly feeling the same. Not flying J all that often, but the cost of keeping up airline status really should be measured against what you could otherwise spend that money on (e.g., 400 GBP a year extra on flights would probably cover food in an airport in a decent ish restaurant anyway…)

      Having said that, I still value it for faster security and stopovers.

      • Hak says:
        3 Jan3 January 16:51

        Depends which airports one frequents as many do not have decent restaurants (do any?).

  • Garethgerry says:
    3 Jan3 January 12:34

    As most of BA longhaul leisure flights were out of Gatwick. They we’re never in the Premium Lesiure market . No one in their right mind would choose to fly BA Gatwick, it’s not as if CW out of Gatwick was cheap.

    So they can’t loose what they never had.

    There real money came from business out of LHR and it’s these big spenders but not GGL that they are looking after, good business

    • Steve says:
      3 Jan3 January 15:52

      Except I’m one of those LHR business flyers that enjoyed Gold status for my leisure flights. I have taken this as an opportunity to status match and switch to another program.
      It’s clearly a ridiculous set of targets, I’m slightly appalled by some of the defensive arguments, I genuinely think this will come back to bite BA.

      On a positive note I have already qualified for Gold through to 2026, so I’ll enjoy it through 2025 whilst building status with someone else.

  • RC says:
    3 Jan3 January 12:51

    It seems quite a few posters have a divorce-like separation trauma here.
    This is happening, so best move on now everything has been vented and:
    1. accept it: choose on best quality to price (a very personal choice) and best schedule. 2. Do yourself a favour and don’t define your worth by a cynical airline marketing tool, but your wider self. Your bag doesn’t need the shiny tags on it, really! 3. Perhaps use this an excuse to burn off remaining Avios (while you have legacy benefits), before those get devalued as redemption becomes dynamic.

    • Throwawayname says:
      3 Jan3 January 13:56

      I’m always horrified by the shiny tags and see them as tacky (which must also something about myself as I admittedly do glue various paraphernalia, mostly consisting of bright yellow Skyteam priority tags, on my suitcases in order to make them easier to identify on the belt) , although some on Flyertalk seem to think their use makes gate staff more sympathetic to overweight hand luggage.

  • Willmo says:
    3 Jan3 January 13:26

    Wow. Nearly 100 pages of comments

  • Nate says:
    3 Jan3 January 13:27

    Does BAH earn hotel status and allow you to access the features of your status? Appreciate many have Amex Platinum (which I have also) but am usually denied the benefits if I don’t book direct (unless Hilton) and I earn a higher rate of status than Amex Platinum award. To me, this would be a major turn off from using BAH, apart from limited ability and less flexibility (unless just paying a deposit, which is something that doesn’t interest me.

    • Rhys says:
      3 Jan3 January 13:42

      No hotel status benefits.

      • Nate says:
        3 Jan3 January 19:04

        Ouch and thank you! Not very competitive and splits the loyalty between airline vs. hotel! I really value hotel status/benefits. Likewise, when hiring a car I enjoy the benefits and presumably these are lost too if booking via BAH. I suspect I’m not alone in this.

        I’ve read about reduced status benefits / lounge access on some comments (ie for short haul Y flights). Is this speculation or is this a new “enhancement”? Haven’t found anything from BA or in articles about this.

  • Ironside says:
    3 Jan3 January 13:58

    I’ve said it before but, for those who feel they will ‘never fly BA again’: BA has been primarily a redemption airline for me for a while now. I haven’t spent my own money on a cash-only fare in years, and am very unlikely to do so in the near future.
    I sympathise for those who feel that their loyalty has been thrown back in their faces but I can tell you from experience that freed from the shackles of chasing status – although it was fun for a while – I’ve learnt that there are plenty of other airlines out there.
    A few … whisper it … are better. Go see this as an opportunity to discover them.

    • Clive says:
      3 Jan3 January 14:18

      I differ only in thinking that it’s not correct to say that a few other airlines are better, most are. Just within OW I would always prefer QR, CX or AY as far, far ahead of BA. So is EI on its Transatlantic routes, with US Immigration clearance at DUB or SNN. That’s even before we widen the net to SQ, EK……….

      I have several times suggested directly to BA that they should send managers over to T4 to see how their part-owner runs lounges, organises boarding, offers priority baggage that actually means something (as opposed to priority bags so often arriving last with BA), etc. So like so many, I put up with all this to retain status. I don’t need to reiterate the anger felt by so many at the way that this has been handled, and the way that we have all been insulted by BA’s ludicrous claim that it was requested and is an enhancement.

      • Throwawayname says:
        3 Jan3 January 14:29

        With the exception of a couple of miserable lounge visits, I’ve been successfully keeping away from BA for a number of years, but, watching them from a distance, I have absolutely no desire to fly with them anytime soon.

        Friends who work in management at easyJet say that ex-BA staff joining them tend to be both unremarkable in terms of technical skills (particularly when it comes to things like IT) and worn out by a poor/toxic organisational culture.

      • dundj says:
        3 Jan3 January 14:32

        What will be more interesting in the future is if Pre-Clearance for the US does come to the UK for the airports currently working on it. Though will be interesting to see if this continues to completion after the inauguration next week.

        If so, BA/One World will likely not have a near monopoly on flights from the UK to the US any longer, and with the A321LR/XLR, point to point travel to most cities on the East Coast to Mid West will be highly plausible from any other airport that takes up the Pre-Clearance rather than just your expected non-LHR ones. And if direct over one-stops are better then don’t be surprised to see those regional companies mandate direct travel unless absolutely necessary.

      • Tim S says:
        3 Jan3 January 19:34

        to give them their due, when I had status with LH, they never delivered priority luggage first either

    • Tim says:
      3 Jan3 January 16:43

      Absolutely spot on Ironside. I lost my BAEC status 1 months ago and now redeem my Avios for money off Sainsburys and buy cash fares with the most conveniently timed and best priced airline. I loose lounge access but can spend money saved on fares buying access if I need it or getting a better meal in a proper restaurant. It is wonderfully liberating to be free of the tie to BA.

    • Hak says:
      3 Jan3 January 16:45

      You have to pay the taxes and fees with any redemption so you have spent your own money on BA.

      • LittleNick says:
        3 Jan3 January 18:33

        But even with RFS, I try and do the option such that RFS fee is roughly equal to Tax/Airport charges so BA don’t see much of my money

  • Michael L says:
    3 Jan3 January 14:26

    I think what many people are not measuring here is ‘loyalty’ vs ‘spend’. I’ve been Gold for the last few years, and will be again for 2025, yet the vast majority of my small business spend is on short haul routes, not long haul. I live in Suffolk, so I drive past STN to get to LGW/LHR solely so as I can enjoy the pre-flight experience – and lounge access – which is an important benefit to me, coupled with the extra baggage allowance.

    I flew 32 times in 2024 with BA, and based on my spend, wouldn’t even achieve Silver status under the new rules, so my ‘loyalty’ isn’t really rewarded.

    In my business, 80% of my clients spend little-and-often, and have been regular clients for years, and years. I treat them the same as the larger clients who spend more, as I not only value their business, but know that they are the back bone of my business.

    BA appears to be missing this vital element.

    My 32 flight ‘loyalty’ should be worth the occasional bacon roll or sandwich in a BA Galleries Lounge.

    • Adam says:
      3 Jan3 January 15:53

      Don’t rule out City as an easy start-point for hopping to AMS or CDG for KLM or AF. As I sit and and ponder where to direct my budget for future travel (and lament that my decade-plus of Gold-standard loyalty to BA is clearly not reciprocated) AFKL is looking like a viable alternative.

    • Hak says:
      3 Jan3 January 16:47

      Fly with someone else then. Simple.

    • Tim says:
      3 Jan3 January 16:49

      I am sorry, but driving from Stansted to Heathrow (which takes over an hour each way when the M25 is behaving itself) just to be able to sit in a lounge and eat mediocre “free” food is deranged. It will cost you at least £60 in fuel and car depreciation and £40 in time (if you value time at little above minimum wage). Spend £30 at Stansted on a lounge and £30 to Easyjet for an extra bag and you are quids in.

      • Throwawayname says:
        3 Jan3 January 18:02

        I suppose STN may be a bit better than the regional airports, but the problem with the LCCs is that a lot of routes aren’t very frequent. I can never make them work for my travel patterns, and even when I do find them convenient in one direction I get penalised by Lufthansa who still charge an arm and a leg for one ways.

      • kitten says:
        3 Jan3 January 19:38

        Well yeah…. but then there is the full Stansted experience which is also an issue.

      • Michael L says:
        3 Jan3 January 22:44

        Only one lounge at STN, and don’t even think of trying to get a seat in the summer. Until they build – if they build – the second terminal, it’s not a great airport sadly.

    • Tim S says:
      3 Jan3 January 19:39

      I simply can’t agree with you

      your most important customer is the one who spend the most money buying your products

      Not the one who buys the largest number of 1 penny widgets.

      • Rob says:
        3 Jan3 January 20:17

        You clearly don’t run a business because nothing is further from the truth.

      • Ziggy says:
        3 Jan3 January 22:15

        “your most important customer is the one who spend the most money buying your products”

        Not if that customer has no option but to use you. Revenue from that customer is guaranteed. Customers that bring in all the other revenue and that have the option to take their spending elsewhere are considerably more important.

      • Michael L says:
        3 Jan3 January 22:46

        Ever heard the saying “don’t put all your eggs in the same basket”?

        • Tim S says:
          4 Jan4 January 09:06

          which is exactly what favouring the customer who buys the largest number of widgets does

          • Rob says:
            4 Jan4 January 09:25

            Share of wallet issue too. If the guy is buying all his widgets from you there’s not much growth there.

  • Flyingred says:
    3 Jan3 January 14:38

    I have followed this thread with morbid fascination! I was Gold until the pandemic then I have soft-landed to silver and again to bronze. For us, BA lost its shine when they cut the tier point targets and introduced double TPs for holidays. The First Wing was not what it had been previously. I had a huge backlog of 2-4-1s and Avios to burn and the increased taxes and charges made redemptions poor value compared to cash or competitors. Plus they binned off some of our favourite destinations like ICN, KUL, MCT and AUH.

    I dislike BA’s 777s, particularly the yin-yang CW layout. Our preferred routing to SE Asia/Australia now is via one of the ME flag carrriers in Y and we divert the fare savings towards staying in better hotels. DW observed that the savings between CW and Y fares will buy plenty of champagne and Michelin-starred restaurant meals. Having an Amex Platinum has given us access to some solid lounges on our travels so we haven’t missed BA lounge access at all. The RJ status match will be a decent substitute for Bronze for T-7 seat reservations. Having followed the thread on FT about alternatives to BAC, I think MH would be a good destination for our FF credits, because Enrich appears to reward Y flights generously. I’m still intending to collect Avios and will use them for redemptions on QR.
    Having sampled KE, KL, AF, EK, LX, SG, EY, GF, QR and WY in the past few years I know there are excellent options available that are more affordable than BA.

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