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Too little, too late? British Airways backtracks on sector based tier qualification

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As expected, British Airways has announced a rollback of some of the Executive Club changes.

What wasn’t expected is how weak the rollback is, especially as it doesn’t address the Iberia-shaped elephant in the room.

I suspect it will do very little, if anything, to calm those who are already planning to break with the airline.

British Airways Executive Club changes

Qualification by sectors will return

From 1st April 2025, Bronze and Silver (but not Gold) status will again be possible based on sectors, as it is now:

  • Bronze will require 25 sectors
  • Silver will require 50 sectors

Unlike the current system, these flights must all be on BA-coded flights. Iberia flights will not count.

This is good news for weekly short haul commuters, without a doubt. (A number of cabin crew on Flyertalk have said that this change was made to placate commuting crew members, of which there are many.)

However, it makes little sense if you believe that these changes were driven by a demand from members for quieter lounges. Someone taking 50 one way economy domestic commuter flights each year will be using the lounges 50 times per year more than their tickets would usually allow, with all 50 visits at peak commuter times.

Someone taking three long haul Club World flights, however, will not be retaining Silver status under the new system unless those flights are quite expensive. This person won’t be adding any additional lounge capacity (their Club World flights came with lounge access) and yet won’t be earning status going forward.

Why would you do this when RJ is out there?

Royal Jordanian will give you British Airways Gold equivalent if you credit 46 segments to its programme (our series on the other oneworld schemes is on its way). This is for your first year – after that it is even better, requiring just 80 segments every two years.

You don’t need to fly a single segment on Royal Jordanian itself.

Why credit 50 BA flights to Executive Club to earn Silver when 46 of those flights could get you Gold equivalent? OK, you will lose the Avios from those flights, but you will have some RJ miles instead which can be redeemed on British Airways.

The bonus points scheme will be extended

The weak bonus points scheme, for bookings made by 31st March 2025, will be extended and the bonus points increased. You need to opt in to this – it is not automatically applied.

It now covers bookings made by 31st December 2025 for travel at any point.

You will earn:

  • 75 bonus tier points per one-way Euro Traveller flight
  • 175 bonus tier points per one-way Club Europe flight
  • 150 bonus tier points per one-way World Traveller flight
  • 275 bonus tier points per one-way World Traveller Plus flight
  • 400 bonus tier points per one-way Club World flight
  • 550 bonus tier points per one-way First flight

Whilst better than nothing, these numbers remain a drop in the ocean compared to:

  • 7,500 tier points for Silver status
  • 20,000 tier points for Gold status

You could, for example, spend £5,000 on a Club World flight and the bonus represents just (800 / 20,000) 4% of what you will need to earn Gold status.

The requirement to book by the end of 2025 also means that business travellers can’t benefit for the final quarter of the new qualification year unless their plans are fixed well in advance.

British Airways Executive Club changes

BA says ….

British Airways has supplied the following examples – which INCLUDE the limited time bonus – to show how you could maintain status:

Silver (7,500 tier points):

  • 1x Geneva in Euro Traveller (economy), with bag £343 + taxes
  • 1x New York in Club World (business) £3,240 + taxes
  • 1x Singapore in World Traveller Plus (premium economy) £2,561 + taxes
  • 1 x BA Holidays package to Barbados in World Traveller (economy) £1,429
  • £300 spent on Sustainable Aviation Fuels

Gold (20,000 tier points) for a modest 16 business class flights:

  • 13 x return flights to Geneva in Club Europe (business class) £9,971 plus taxes
  • 3 x return flights to Club World (business class) to JFK £9,720 plus taxes
  • A British Airways Holidays package to Tenerife in Euro Traveller £759

These are very bizarre travel patterns (are any New York-bound bankers taking economy holidays in Tenerife?) but there you are. Remember that when the bonus points promo is stripped out you will need to fly more than this.

The Silver example is also assuming that you hand British Airways £300 for nothing … well, some SAF credits, but you get nothing from it except good karma. Whilst I’m sure some members will do this, using it as an actual example is bizarre.

BA made the following statement:

“Our members are passionate about their status, and we always knew this fundamental shift would take a while for members to get their heads around, considering how long we’d had the previous system in place.

This isn’t an effort to reduce the number of members we have in each tier, but to reward our members more fairly, and we want to do more to reassure them that retaining their status is achievable, so we’re providing more examples of how they can do that.”

Conclusion

It’s hard to see what is going on here. Placating commuters removes any idea that these changes were made in response to member concerns about lounge overcrowding.

It also does nothing to fix the issue that someone paying £500 for Club Europe flights to Frankfurt is no more valuable than someone on a £500 economy ticket to Bangkok, although they clearly are.

In some ways these changes are helpful for you. If you had already decided to step off the status hamster wheel because you had no chance of retaining it, nothing here will change your mind. This is an easier decision than spending your life keeping speadsheets of the net cost of all your planned flights to ensure you reach the spend targets. Walk away and enjoy your ‘free agent’ status.

As US site View From The Wing says:

What remains most striking to me here is that in trying to get more card spend, more vacation package bookings, and more ticket spend, they aren’t giving customers any carrot in the process – just a stick.

The real issue is still to come though, and it is with Iberia. Iberia, we understand, has already delayed its own changes until 2026, giving a one year window to earn status there. There is also very little chance that Iberia will set its thresholds for status so high given the nature of the Spanish market.

British Airways is facing an exodus of frequent flyers to its own sister airline if the Gold threshold at Iberia is set at, say, €15,000 – although this is arguably better for IAG than an exodus to Royal Jordanian and Gold equivalent with 46 sectors.

Details of Executive Club changes are on ba.com here.


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In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

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There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card

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British Airways American Express Credit Card

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You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

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There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

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Comments (522)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Andrew. says:

    Perhaps they have identified that the majority of people who are doing 50+ domestics a year aren’t actually troughing their own bodyweight of food in the lounges week-in week-out?

    People who are doing 50+ domestics a year are minimising the amount of time they have to spend at the airport. The food & beverage in the BA lounges may be thrilling for people who do the occasional trip, but when you see the same selection of pie and mash, sandwiches and scones every Sunday evening at 20:00, or Friday evening at 17:00 they aren’t appealing.

    The only thing that differentiates BA from Easyjet and Ryanair, for the regular domestic commuter, is that they have the Exec Club. Most of the time Easyjet and Ryanair are far more reliable.

    • Barrel for Scraping says:

      Quite right. If you have to travel every week in economy BA can make your life easier by giving you things like fast track and lounge access, but like you say they’re not the ones who are going to turn up early and drink their fare in food and booze they just want the lounge in case boarding isn’t ready to begin when they get to the airport.

      BA still have some advantages over the low costs as they fly GLA/EDI to LCY, also LHR can be more convenient to some but if you don’t have a hassle free experience (fast track and lounge) you might as well take the train into Central London

    • Steve says:

      So why have they done this change then ? Your argument makes no sense

    • Richard says:

      I hadn’t realised until a recent trip that some of the delays to BA flights are internally caused by the tardiness of the crew. On this occasion the majority of the crew on a return flight had obviously spent a lot of time in the duty-free shops, judging by the number of bags they were carrying, and they boarded the aircraft 20 minutes later than the first few crew members to board. Needless to say, boarding was delayed well beyond the time stated on boarding cards and the eventual take-off delayed even further!

  • Thywillbedone says:

    When this post landed in my email it was titled “New BA Cape Town flight added, huge amounts of Avios availability” …not the first time this has happened on a post landing in the middle of the day rather than overnight (as per usual). I think you may be re-using a template without renaming it. Apologies if mentioned before.

  • Simon Adams says:

    Wow, talk about tone deaf. Who is calling the shots on this PR disaster?

    The 50 flight offer will apply to so few people that it’s pointless offering that alone and the sustainable fuel thing is frankly bizarre.

    Very poor from BA, but then again so is their entire land based service and organisation.

    • Barrel for Scraping says:

      It’s not unusual KLM also offer tier points (XP) for purchasing sustainable aviation fuel.

      • CJD says:

        I reckon most airlines will end up offering this because it’s an easy way to point to green credentials while doing nothing.

      • Simon Adams says:

        Airlines buy their own fuel, not the customers. So very, very odd.

  • Keith Purdom says:

    laughable I’m with AF now and already booked two USA trips on VS
    I feel so insulted, so unwanted that even if they reverted 100% to the previous system i doubt id move back

  • James C says:

    I really find the comms and implementation of this whole saga to be the biggest insult. The patronising quote above (attributed to Lacy in the Times but not here) and the deluded examples of how to earn status are prime example are precisely how not to communicate with an informed customer base. People seem to have directed a lot of anger towards McKinsey but the chaos which is ensuing is entirely at the hands of BA’s senior leadership and their decision to proceed half baked. I don’t think this will be the last row back and the entrenchment in this round makes it harder for some of senior leadership to maintain positions when that comes.

  • vlcnc says:

    Given the level of anger, this barely moves the needle. BA’s statement also comes across as egregiously patronising and they seem clearly content to gaslight us all about what these changes actually mean.

  • JDB says:

    I think the very limited improvements were somewhat inevitable as anything major would be too embarrassing after only a month or so. Equally the point where they wish to end up is clear so anything good would have been or been perceived to be temporary.

    The three months notice is also potentially an issue.

    It seems more likely that BA will introduce promotions to sweeten the pill which affords more flexibility.

  • Kenny says:

    Is there a sectors option to get Silver with RJ?

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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