Is moving to BA Bronze worth the hassle of finding an extra 25 TP’s?

[CraigBird71]

I have 200 Tier points (not totally sure how as all my flights are reward flights, but lets not question that) and I will need 225 to move to bronze before the end of the year with the current reduced TP offer going on. We always travel Business in Europe and only do long haul every couple of years. Is it worth trying to get an extra 25 TP’s before the end of the year to move to Bronze. I am not sure it is. I would never wait 7 days before the flight to book seats in case its busy and me and the Mrs cant sit together – so not sure of any other benefits. Thoughts?

[memesweeper]

In my view? No. If you travel in business in Europe the seat selection won’t help. There are no good/bad seats in Club Europe. There’s some supposed desk check-in priority … definitely not worth paying for. You have the lounge anyway.

[AJA]

I wouldn’t go out of my way to achieve Bronze unless you are interested in getting to Silver which is to my mind the sweet spot since it allows you to reserve seats for free at time of booking.

The one advantage of Bronze is the bonus Avios on any cash bookings. And in case of IRROPS you have more status than you do currently though still far down the pecking order.

And though you don’t value it booking seats 7 days out is quite decent.

If you are interested I’d go for a 5 day BA Holiday to a 160TP return destination and get double TP which would get you to Silver.

[jj]

To be honest, if you only travel business then even Gold is of questionable value. Status is only for folk who travel economy on a regular basis.

I hit Gold this year for the first and, probably, the last time due to a fortuitous combination of reduced thresholds, BA Holidays double points, a cancellwd route adding a connection, and reward flights mysteriously posting Tier Points. But I see it as being largely worthless.

I always travel in Club or First, so I have gained very little in the 8 flights I’ve taken since. The First Wing on Club Europe is nice, but I’d pay no more than fiver for it. The First lounge is scarcely better than Wetherspoons, and, again, I’d pay no more than a fiver for the upgrade from the Club lounge. I can’t imagine wanting to travel with 3x 32kg suitcases, so that has no value to me. If have never called the Gold line; again, no value. Being able to select row 1 seats is nice, but is worth just a couple of quid to me. It’s nice being able to select seats in advance, but I wouldn’t bother unless the price fell below £10. And many of these dubious benefits are in any case only available ex UK.

So, overall, Gold status has been worth less than £100 to me thus far; it costs me more than that to get to Heathrow from my provincial home. I can’t begin to imagine why I would ever do a tier point run.

Each to their own, I guess.

[NorthernLass]

I rarely pay for seat selection so Bronze gave us a slight advantage being able to select them at T-7 (plus I think you get extra avios on cash bookings). I had the chance to get to Silver by just doing MAN-LHR return this week so jumped at it as the benefits are so much better – when my status updated yesterday I went through all my bookings up to next August picking good seats which was worth £00’s! We also use AA for US domestic flights so will get free checked bags on those. The lounge access will probably mean that we’ll be happy in economy or premium on some routes (especially day flights back from the US east coast), so there will be cash and avios savings to be had as well. With the current 450 TP offer, I would definitely recommend going for it.

[Indy500]

Did my LCY/EDI tier point run yesterday to tip into Silver. Total cost £130. I should quality for Silver during’23 anyway so should be OK though to Nov ’24.

[NorthernLass]

My year end is July, so as I understand it I am now Silver until July 2024!

[Skywalker]

I just made Bronze, and will make Silver in the next few weeks, TP y/e 8 Nov 23, card end Dec 2023.

Does this mean I will be Silver until December next year? I feel like I’m being short changed if @NorthernLass’ Silver expiry is July 24 😀

Thanks

[dougzz99]

Skywalker wrote:

I just made Bronze, and will make Silver in the next few weeks, TP y/e 8 Nov 23, card end Dec 2023.

Does this mean I will be Silver until December next year? I feel like I’m being short changed if @NorthernLass’ Silver expiry is July 24 😀

Thanks

Yes, you’ve left it late to qualify so only get a year and a bit. The real sweet deal with status is to get it early in the year, and it’ll effectively last two years. If you want to be really clever you then get the necessary TP in the 7 weeks after your TP year end before the end of the following month when your status expires. This method allows continuous status whilst only really qualifying every 2nd year.

[Skywalker]

Haha I will try to do just that @dougzz99 thanks for the heads up!

[sdahl38]

dougzz99 wrote:

Skywalker wrote:

I just made Bronze, and will make Silver in the next few weeks, TP y/e 8 Nov 23, card end Dec 2023.

Does this mean I will be Silver until December next year? I feel like I’m being short changed if @NorthernLass’ Silver expiry is July 24 😀

Thanks

Yes, you’ve left it late to qualify so only get a year and a bit. The real sweet deal with status is to get it early in the year, and it’ll effectively last two years. If you want to be really clever you then get the necessary TP in the 7 weeks after your TP year end before the end of the following month when your status expires. This method allows continuous status whilst only really qualifying every 2nd year.

I am just a bit confused by this @dougzz99, could you clarify? I am going to achieve Silver this year in November, my TP year end is January/2023. Thank you.