In this article
What are the changes?- How many tier points will you need to move between membership tiers?
- When do these changes take place?
- Are these changes good or bad?
- Why are BA making these changes?
- Has anything positive been announced?
- Earning BA tier points via American Express.
- How all of this works in reality for Avios users
BA announces the biggest changes to their frequency flyer club in a generation.
It’s long been rumoured that the BA Executive Club is due for a change, and change rarely means positive things in the airline industry. What might have been unexpected is how brutal the changes are and that the whole scheme is being rebranded.
What are the changes?
- Firstly, a name change. The BA Executive Club will become The British Airways Club. BA refers to it as “The Club”.
- Tier points needed to move between Blue, Bronze, Silver, Gold are changing, effectively making it harder to reach a higher tier.
- The way you collect tier points is changing and is now based on spend rather than distance
- Earn 1 tier point per £1 spent on BA flights, excluding airport and country taxes. This excludes all spending on flights booked wholly with Avios.
- Also, earn 1 tier point per £1 spent via BA Holidays.
- Earn 1 tier point per £1 spent on Sustainable Aviation Fuels, upto a maximum of 1,000 tier points per year. This appears to be a way to buy tier points. More details will be provided on the 1st of April.
- You will also be able to earn up to 2,500 tier points (~70% of the tier points needed to hit bronze) via the American Express Premium Plus card.
How many tier points will you need to move between membership tiers?
| Tier | Tier Points Needed (in that year) |
|---|---|
| Bronze | 3,500 |
| Silver | 7,500 |
| Gold | 20,000 |
| Gold Guestlist | 65,000 to achieve, 40,000 to retain |
When do these changes take place?
Ironically, this will happen on April Fool’s Day, the 1st of April 2025.
Are these changes good or bad?
What this means for travellers who book using Avios
If the majority of your flights are booked using Avios, including using the 2-4-1 voucher, then these changes will have either no impact or a slightly positive impact. Avios flights do not result in tier points being issued; under the new rules, that remains the same.
However, if you pay for seats or pay for an increased baggage allowance, these fees will generate tier points for you.
Just to be clear, when you book a flight using Avios, according to BA, the taxes and carrier-imposed surcharges will NOT generate tier points, but spending on seats or baggage will.
At the end of this article I’ve pulled out an example of where these changes will be positive for Avios users. It’s now possible to hit Bronze status without ever paying for a flight.
What this means for travellers who use cash for flights
The impact of these changes will be significant and negative. Unless you’re spending a decent amount of money on flexible tickets, this new scheme will mean you earn fewer tier points, likely significantly fewer, and it will make it harder to reach Silver or Gold.
Whereas before, you could get to Silver with a couple of well-timed US business class flights, that opportunity has now gone. You’d be lucky to get Bronze unless you tagged on a holiday.
Why are BA making these changes?
They have said that these changes have come down to customer feedback. The reality is more nuanced.
These changes will dramatically reduce the number of people who sit in the upper tiers of the new scheme, so there will be fewer silvers and golds. That will result in quieter lounges and business class check-in queues. The former will reduce costs for BA.
The increase in customers who have no status (i.e. Blue) will also increase revenue, as people are more likely to pay for seat selection ahead of time rather than wait until 24hrs before the flight.
The biggest advantage of having bronze status is being able to select a seat for free seven days out from the flight. That’s why the Royal Jordanian status match (or get BA Bronze for £38) was so popular.
There’s been quite a few comments online about people moving away from BA because of these changes. There’s no doubt that there will be negative sentiment. Over the last few years, BA has made far more negative adjustments than positive ones. The airline is smart enough to know that customer frustration is inevitable, and the pros (for them) outweigh the cons. They’re not in a race to the bottom; they want to increase profitability.
If you’re based in the UK, especially in the regions, your options are limited but not zero. If you’re heading east on long-haul, then Emirates or Qatar (Which owns 25% of BA’s parent company) could be a potential alternative.
Finnair is also a possibility. If you’re heading west to the US, then that’s where BA will have you by the gonads. There’s limited service if you live outside of London, and even if you’re in the capital then your options for flying outside of the biggest US cities are limited.
Has anything positive been announced?
BA has announced bonus tier points if you make a booking before the 14th of February 2025 for travel after the 1st of April that year. You’ll get 330 tier points (which under the old system would have been quite a bonus; under the new one, much less so) if you pay for a cash fare in First, which is on top of any tier points you would earn from the spend.
There’s a 210-point bonus for travel in Club World, 140 in World Traveller Plus, 70 in World Traveller, 100 in Club Europe, and 50 in Euro Traveller.
There’s no indication of whether this offer is a one-off, but my gut feeling is that it’ll be used again in the future.
You’ll also be gifted Avios when you move between the tiers. The amount on offer is pretty meagre, but it’s something for nothing (if nothing excludes spending more). The details on this are sparse, other than you’ll get 2,500, 4,000 or 5,000 Avios at milestones (not yet confirmed) when you’re Bronze or Silver.
This is a small positive, and the assumption is that this rewards customers who will never get to the next tier but who could earn a few more Avios by choosing BA.
Earning BA tier points via American Express.
Earlier this year (2024), BA ran a promotion with Amex where you could earn extra tier points by hitting certain spending levels. I want to think my credit card spending is reasonable, but with a short timeframe on the offer, it was difficult to hit the requirements, and so I ended up with a big fat zero.
The new British Airways Club will allow you to earn up to 2,500 tier points per year based on credit card spend, but just on the Premium Plus card.
They have not announced how this will work, just that this will be announced “closer to the launch date”. If it’s achievable, that will mean you need just 1,000 more points to get to Bronze.
How all of this works in reality for Avios users
My goal with BA is to retain at least Bronze, as it will make our travel more manageable by allowing us to select our seats 7 days out from the flight. As someone who uses Avios for travel, I have been Blue for many years. I only jumped into Bronze this year through the RJ status match.
Now, I have an opportunity to hit that status without paying for any flights.
We travel two or three times a year, spending around £6k on hotels for each trip, so £12k each year. If we can tie half of that spend into a BA Holidays booking, that would give us (myself + wife) 3,000 tier points each.
I’m also going to assume that I could achieve half of the 2,500 tier points available via a credit card. So that extra 1,250 would give me a total of 4,250 tier points in the year. That’s enough to hit Bronze.
If I missed out on the credit card tier points, I could top my tier points using the Sustainable Aviation Fuels. At 1 tier point per £1, that’s £500 to get me to a status I couldn’t have achieved before.
