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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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Comments (522)

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

  • Rupert says:

    These new changes are irrelevant. Had they been part of the new rules to start it would still have been met with the same disillusionment. It would be far easier for BA’s arrogant management to just kill status completely and only have ticket based perks. At least then nobody is under the illusion the airline cares about their custom at any level other than how much they spend on a ticket.

    Having spoken to BA staff from pilots to cabin crew, it never ceases to amaze me how much ill feeling there is toward management. It surely is one of the worst run companies in the world.

  • Thywillbedone says:

    Whoever let the statement go out with “we always knew this fundamental shift would take a while for members to get their heads around” should be taken out the back and shot out of mercy. It beggars belief that a comms team of any experience could look at that and not see that it would seriously rankle …

  • Mayfair Mike says:

    Some poor soul taking 50x economy flights/year deserves a medal, never mind silver status….what an existence!

    • Rob says:

      LOTS of people commute into London by air Mon and Fri, which is 90 flights per year factoring in holidays.

      • Points Hound says:

        🙋🏼‍♂️
        96 in 2004 including a few holiday ones as you state!

      • Mayfair Mike says:

        As I say…not my cup of tea. Each to their own but sounds horrific to me. It’s no life…

        • Rob says:

          Actually I quite like the idea on paper. Flying down from large family home and then spending weeknights in a flat a few minutes stroll from the office, letting you go out at night unemcumbered by partner or children ….

          That said, I know a couple where the husband started doing this and they divorced two years later.

    • pete says:

      i think half the country do about 4x this amount annually!! but sat in trains and traffic jams. i know which option id prefer…

  • Lady London says:

    “This isn’t an effort to reduce the number of members we have in each tier”.

    Seriously? I thought you said BA spent 2 yeara running the numbers to prepare this? Really?

    • Tom says:

      Moreover, if it’s *not* designed to reduce the numbers at each tier, what actually *is* the point of it? As someone paying £10k for full flex business flights, I thought I was supposed to be benefitting from quieter lounges etc?

  • barry cutters says:

    Ba cancelled my 241 aviosBeijing flights a few months ago and booked us on to Qatar .
    Newcastle-Heathrow- Qatar -Beijing

    All in business in a mixture of fare classes from discounted to full fare.
    Is it likely these will count as tier point earning .

    I have done the RJ status match , and the wife hasn’t – so i am planning to put mine through RJ and hers through BA in a risk split strategy that means at least one of us will be closer than the other to retain status.

    I will then continue to credit flights to RJ and she will continue with BA.
    hopefully one of us requalifies.

    Sound like a plan or is one option better than the other.
    Our future bookings are economy short haul or business redemptions

    • JDB says:

      It’s a matter of luck as to whether you will get tier points and Avios on the QR routing if you were rebooked into revenue fare buckets. If the agent correctly reissues the tickets you won’t get them, but they frequently get it wrong. We were similarly rebooked on QR from Beijing in business and first (R and F) but received no tier points or Avios.

      • Throwawayname says:

        I doubt RJ could discover different types of tickets under the same fare class on booked by another carrier on yet another one.

        • JDB says:

          It’s not by fare class that airlines work out what constitutes a redemption or otherwise ineligible flight for TP/miles collection.

          • Throwawayname says:

            How do they do it then? I think you may be giving their clunky IT too much credit!

    • MKB says:

      All my re-bookings by BA of reward flights into revenue fare classes over the past couple of years have (correctly) yielded no Avios nor Tier Points. Before that, I used to get them every time. I suspect an IT fix rather than better training of agents.

      • Chabuddy Geezy says:

        I had a BA redemption cancellation and QR rebooking that yielded no avios or tier points. I made a retro claim through Qatar Privilege Club that worked.

        • Throwawayname says:

          I wasn’t talking about Avios, I specifically mentioned crediting to RJ as I don’t expect them to have any information on underlying fares paid.

          • JDB says:

            If correctly reissued, the endorsements will block any sort of accrual, even on RJ and even if booked into the highest revenue class.

  • Londoner 79 says:

    It isn’t really hard to get our heads around at all. As a silver leisure traveller there is no value in choosing to fly BA over other airlines from April 2026 for my cash flights anymore, unless they are the best option. Perfectly happy to continue my Platinum AmEx, shop at Sainsburys and use BA for redemptions.

    • Amatrix says:

      Absolutely 100% agree, I am the same. Scrapped my plans for BA cash flight and holiday bookings this year, booked a cruise instead and flying back Club on an Avios redemption. Instead of a business class holiday booking, BA only received £12.50 contribution towards taxes from me.

  • George K says:

    While I have chosen to defer my final judgement about the new ‘Club’ after it’s all in situ, I have only the harshest words about those steering BA’s marketing machine. Everything about this change to the programme has been communicated catastrophically – not just with a lack of clarity, but with a hefty dose of condescension, bare-faced lies (which are then met with more lies that fly in the face of the first ones) and subterfuge.

    • sigma421 says:

      This is it. I realise it’s not the biggest factor in the changes by a long shot but their propensity to tell obvious fibs is really off-putting. Colm’s claim that they don’t want to reduce the number of elites means he’s either lying or stupid, because that is what will happen.

      • George K says:

        The very presence of a negative in an official statement is such a marketing faux pas: “This isn’t an effort to reduce the number of members we have in each tier…” I very rarely see such language in official releases. It reeks of desperation and of course it has the exact opposite effect. If I tell you not to think about elephants, what do you think about?

        (elephants!)

  • Nick says:

    Would be curious what most Manchester based travellers are doing? I personally have disengaged since the announcement in the hope of some type of sensible roll back, which now looks even more unlikely. Flying blue looks like the best bet but their global network holds them the back

    Personally, my work travel patterns suit OW network best, but now I have a young son, the diminishing returns of having to connect via LHR to anywhere (plus no lounge access once he is 2) means its likely time to jump off. Flying blue chap was impressive on that podcast and sounds like they understand/want loyal customers more than BA. Iberia might be a sensible option now they are daily from MAN.

    • Throwawayname says:

      I’m closer to BHX but MAN is my backup airport. Oneworld never made any sense for me, as their European network is far behind the competition and anything further afield basically consists of 1-2 sensible options when *A could have half a dozen or more.

      Ever since Virgin joined Skyteam and I can use their points on AF, oneworld has become completely invisible to me unless I specifically need an one-way to/from Madrid (LH Group still don’t really do one-way pricing).

      This is for a leisure-focused schedule with a couple of VFR trips per year and very occasional work travel, self-funded and mixing cabin classes depending on price/product on offer. Things will likely be different if you happen to work for the Qatari Sovereign Wealth Fund and/or have to fly in premium economy to Nowhereville, South Carolina on a monthly basis.

    • Lawrence says:

      Booked my first flight since the changes and it’s gone into Flying Blue. But that’s purely a convenience choice as the flight worked out so much better. Being free from having to route via eefrow is very liberating, and years of “it takes a couple of hours longer, but maintains my silver status” are behind me & I get those 2 hours back

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