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Published today. 5 and 7 will give some people the right massive hump. 6 is just weird.
I wonder if these rules will be applied retrospectively to bookings made between the start of January and before the publication of these new rules (of which I, and doubtless many others, have a few).
1. Members of The British Airways Club who book a holiday package (Flight + Hotel or Flight + Car) for travel from 01 April 2025 will earn tier points.
2. Members will earn 1 tier point per pound (£) spent on the total price of the holiday package. No additional tier points will be earned for the flight element of the holiday package. Tier points will be evenly split between the number of people on the booking. Infants under two will not earn tier points on a British Airways Holidays package. The total eligible spend for bookings made in another currency will be converted to GBP using the OANDA rate of exchange, calculated on the date the booking was made.
3. The booking must be for a British Airways Holidays Flight + Hotel or Flight + Car or Flight + Hotel + Car package.
4. All passengers who have added a British Airways Club membership number prior to travel will receive their tier points within 14 working days of their trip completing.
5. British Airways Holidays tier points awards do not apply to any British Airways flight bookings where the hotel or car is added to a booking in a ‘Shopping Basket’ with individually priced flight and hotel and/or car components or when added in Manage my Booking after the flight has been booked.
6. Bookings can only contain one flight departing from their country of residence and departure, multiple journeys from this country within one booking will not qualify.
7. All passengers using the hotel and/or car hire must be named on the booking prior to travel, any subsequent additions to passenger mix made locally could result in the booking being deemed ineligible for tier points.
8. British Airways Club members must register their Club membership number against their booking prior to travel.
9. The British Airways Club Terms and Conditions and The British Airways Club Conditions of Use will apply.
10. The tier points awarded are non-transferable and there is no cash or credit alternative. British Airways does not accept any liability in the event that the tier points received later expire. Tier points expire at the end of each membership year however, they will be added to your lifetime tier points, the total tier points you’ve ever earned with the Club. Your lifetime tier points are shown in your account.
11. British Airways Holidays booking Terms and Conditions apply. All travel on British Airways flights is subject to British Airways General Conditions of Carriage and its Notice and Conditions of Contract as stated on each ticket or itinerary as provided. Passengers travelling on flights operated by another carrier will be subject to the conditions of carriage of that carrier.
12. British Airways Holidays reserves the right to cancel or amend without notice the terms at any time and for any reason.
13. Information is correct as at 1 April 2025.5 and 6 are nothing new – you need to book package, not flight then add hotel/car hire, and it’s been the case that you could only depart the UK once for some time.
7 is new, and I would see that as a reaction to the ‘hack’ people have been discussing about making a BAH booking for one person to gain all the TP, whilst booking flight only for others then contacting the hotel/car hire to add extra persons directly. BA do monitor forums and will have spotted people’s intentions………….
So how would this work?
1) BA Flights booked with cash from Jersey to London only, this as a BA Holiday package but with the accompanying hotel a 2 week stay in a Caribbean Hotel
2) The Onward and return London to Caribbean flights then booked through BA Amex 2-4-1 (Appreciate these don’t count for Tier Point spend)
My understanding is that as there is no longer a min 5 night hotel booking and as as the Caribbean hotel sits within the dates of the Jersey/London flights his should qualify as full BA Holiday spend under the new Tier Point rules
What do others think?How is BA going to monitor 7 on a flight/car booking?
i.e.: I book a flight car for me and my GF. Last minute my dad decides to join us and I add him as second driver just in case. BA is tracking my dealing with AVIS and then cancels all my TPs? Is that even logical?
5 and 6 are nothing new – you need to book package, not flight then add hotel/car hire, and it’s been the case that you could only depart the UK once for some time.
7 is new, and I would see that as a reaction to the ‘hack’ people have been discussing about making a BAH booking for one person to gain all the TP, whilst booking flight only for others then contacting the hotel/car hire to add extra persons directly. BA do monitor forums and will have spotted people’s intentions………….
7 isn’t really new, but more a clarification. TP have always been awarded on a per person basis, so any attempt to nab tier points that actually belong to others was something of a non runner. Also, BA takes your booking and notifies the hotel of the number of guests it is paying for. The BAH TPs are the only generous part of the new system and BA expects to get all the revenue, not just some of it.
How is BA going to monitor 7 on a flight/car booking?
i.e.: I book a flight car for me and my GF. Last minute my dad decides to join us and I add him as second driver just in case. BA is tracking my dealing with AVIS and then cancels all my TPs? Is that even logical?
I think 7 really applies more to hotel bookings although BA could theoretically apply it to cars as well. BA did find itself having to add the must pick up the car rule under the double TP promotion. You wouldn’t need to shoot many admirals for the rule to become more self enforcing. It’s not entirely logical but BA is trying to collect the revenue for all the passengers in the party, not just some of them.
7 is new in so far as it has never been explicitly mentioned before – partly as TP were awarded to each person on the flights so it was never needed. Once BA cottoned on to how some people intended to avoid the splitting TP’s under the new basis it was just a matter of time before it became specifically referred to. Just the same as when hire cars were not picked up or hotel rooms not actually used.
I have a few different permutations of BAH’s this year, so we’ll see what ends up qualifying and what doesn’t! They wouldn’t re-qualify me for anything except maybe Bronze, they were just booked for price and convenience, so it doesn’t matter either way, but it’ll be interesting …
So how would this work?
1) BA Flights booked with cash from Jersey to London only, this as a BA Holiday package but with the accompanying hotel a 2 week stay in a Caribbean Hotel
2) The Onward and return London to Caribbean flights then booked through BA Amex 2-4-1 (Appreciate these don’t count for Tier Point spend)
My understanding is that as there is no longer a min 5 night hotel booking and as as the Caribbean hotel sits within the dates of the Jersey/London flights his should qualify as full BA Holiday spend under the new Tier Point rules
What do others think?You don’t state how you created the BAH part for which you hope to get the TP. It still needs to comply with all the rules cited above, eg 5, 6 and 7. It’s definitely pushing things whatever!
Hotels will be more than happy to call up BA holidays to complain.
Just like it would have been the car hire businesses who were unhappy about the increased non collection rates at certain airports.
“Mr Burgess checked in earlier and although he booked a suite with one person occupancy instead of just him he arrived with 3 others and then argued over paying for the extra 3 sets of breakfast / city taxes” and so on.
I can’t imagine Mr Burgess making a fuss over breakfasts and city taxes, and anyone who does isn’t savvy enough to be in this game!
It depends on circumstances – easy enough to sneak your OH up to your room in a large city (indeed, I understand that hotel guests sometimes have “guests” of their own even when not abusing the Ts and Cs of a BAH), but rocking up with extra people at an All-Inclusive in the Maldives might be slightly more problematic.
In some countries and at some hotels, they are not only required by law to provide details of all occupants but can also charge more for higher room occupancy (separate from breakfast, HB/FB or local tax issues).
Can someone explain what 6 means? It’s not obvious to me how a single holiday could include more than one flight departing from the country of residence and departure. Is it saying that you can only depart from your country of residence, i.e. no hopping to DUB or AMS to benefit from cheaper flights, or is something else intended?
It’s to stop people booking things like LHR-SOF-LHR-SOF (and return), which was another popular way of (what some would say) playing the system.
A domestic-LHR-SOF would still qualify as it only leaves UK once.
Yes, and it’s a relatively recent change. Last year I did MAN-LHR-LYS-LHR-MAN then LGW-OPO-LGW-GLA-LHR-MAN on one BAH over 2 months and got double TPs for each leg. That would now technically breach the Ts and Cs, though whether the IT has been tweaked to recognise this, I don’t know!
It’s to stop people booking things like LHR-SOF-LHR-SOF (and return), which was another popular way of (what some would say) playing the system.
A domestic-LHR-SOF would still qualify as it only leaves UK once.
Gotcha, ta. No wonder I never made GGL; there were clearly tips and tricks galore of which I was never remotely aware!
Am I alone in viewing the comma splices in 6 and 7 as unexpectedly crude errors in a legal document? Every lawyer that I have ever engaged has been a stickler for grammatical correctness, as grammatical errors can easily lead to ambiguity. Were these drafted by an intern?
@jj – the BAH T&Cs, insofar as they relate to tier points have always been very sloppily drafted. The actual BAH T&Cs are properly written.
It’s a sad fact and indictment of our public education system that even newly qualified lawyers seem to have a fairly poor grasp of grammar, punctuation and spelling.
Will all legs edi lhr sof lhr edi all count – drafting refers to ‘country’ of residence or departure?
Will all legs edi lhr sof lhr edi all count – drafting refers to ‘country’ of residence or departure?
Yes because you only have one flight leaving the UK the LHR-SOF one.
It’s a sad fact and indictment of our public education system that even newly qualified lawyers seem to have a fairly poor grasp of grammar, punctuation and spelling.
Let him have it.
@JDB, I can just about forgive a newly qualified lawyer for a grammatical error, but that clause will have been reviewed and approved by multiple people. Do none of them understand the rules of formal English grammar?
Clause 7 is interesting. It clearly contains a drafting error, so it needs to be corrected by the reader. One option would be to replace the comma with a full stop or a semicolon. Another perfectly reasonable correction would be to insert a full stop or semicolon immediately before the word ‘prior’, which completely changes the meaning. Millions of pounds have been lost in court in dusputes over how punctuation should be corrected.
Am I alone in viewing the comma splices in 6 and 7 as unexpectedly crude errors in a legal document? Every lawyer that I have ever engaged has been a stickler for grammatical correctness, as grammatical errors can easily lead to ambiguity. Were these drafted by an intern?
You are not alone. At best it’s ugly and has been drafted and then reviewed by someone who failed to use one of many free grammar checkers to make sure that what is written makes a) sense, and b) the intended sense.
I’m still somewhat confused by “6”. I never bothered before with BAH as double TP’s weren’t available for non UK/US residents. Being based in Spain, must I fly, say MAD LHR DOH or can I equally book LHR DOH thus departing from a country I am not resident in ?
Clause 7 is irritating.
I’ve booked many BA US Holidays where I’m the solo traveller booking a two-double room as I’m travelling from London, and my travel mate is taking a direct flight from EDI.
I suppose there is the other issue where solo travellers on a BA Holiday may have tier points forfeited as they have a night of special cuddles with a native.
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