With a fresh loyalty rebrand to the ‘British Airways Club’, British Airways is turning a new page on loyalty and perks as it ditches the stuffy “Executive Club” feel. A lot is changing.
From how you progress through the tiers towards British Airways Bronze, Silver, Gold and Gold Guest List to new “milestone” treats and Avios points in between, there’s a lot to unpack. One thing is for certain, it’s very clear that British Airways is serious about its ‘Holidays’ business, because it’s woven in to just about everything in these changes.
Here’s everything you need to know, to navigate the new British Airways Club which launches April 1st, 2025.
Earning ‘Elite Status’ With British Airways Club
The first thing to understand with British Airways is that there are two types of earning you can engage in: Avios and Tier Points.
Avios is the points currency which you can earn from just about everything you do in life and also the thing you can redeem for flights, among many other things. Tier Points you earn from flying (and now some non-flying behavior too) and tier points cannot be spent. The Tier Points simply guide your progress through the “elite status” tiers of the British Airways Club.
Starting April 1st, 2025, as suspected, British Airways will award tier points based on 1 tier point for £1 spent, and new ways to earn tier points, including from credit card spend, holidays spend and charity donations will emerge to guide you up through the elite ranks. The new British Airways Club status thresholds will break down as follows…
- Bronze: 3,500
- Silver: 7,500
- Gold: 20,000
- Gold Guest List: 65,000 (with at least 52,000 earned through British Airways-marketed flights, qualifying add-ons and British Airways Holidays packages), and 40,000 to retain (with at least 32,000 earned through British Airways-marketed flights, qualifying add-ons and British Airways Holiday packages).
Yep, this is basically a “how much you spend throughout the year will determine your level of perks” change. It’s rewarding overall spend with the brand, rather than incentivizing people to take lots of connections to artificially hit status. Lots of people that couldn’t earn status with British Airways before, can now.
People will have feelings about this money based system, understandably, but I think there are new tier point earning features which make these thresholds attainable in ways which weren’t previously, even if the thresholds are lofty. And lets not forget that now that this is uniform, it’s easy for British Airways to pull levers like “double tier points” to help push people through the tiers when it makes commercial sense.
The standout thing to me is the British Airways Holidays component.
Under the new system, you earn tier points based on money you spend on flights and any extras like bag fees, but also now on the entire holiday package including hotel spend you take with British Airways.
When you can earn unlimited tier points based on the cost of an entire holiday package, this is a no brainer way to hit status faster, and for lots of people who were totally overlooked by the previous system, too. Someone who spent a lot on one trip previously had virtually no chance of earning any elite status or airline perks – now they do.
The same goes for people who travel for work, but the company policy is economy only. They’d have had no chance to reach a high tier before, when tier points only incentivized cabins up front, but easily can now since the spend is recognized instead of the cabin type or number of connections.
Hotels are an expensive part of every trip, and by showing increased loyalty to BA, by booking the entire holiday through British Airways Holidays, a singular trip could get someone well on their way to elite status. For a 10 day trip to California, I might spend $5,000 on hotel, and to have this count towards status would be a huge positive change for me, personally.
That hotel spend alone – not counting flights – could get me circa a quarter of the way to Gold. For Silver, I’d nearly be there, and Bronze, it’d be an instant status trip.
New Milestone Rewards
More details would be nice, but one definitive positive with the rebranded program is the introduction of milestone rewards. Currently, people have very little incentive to keep moving along once they hit a status, particularly if they know they’ll never reach the next threshold.
Now, milestone rewards will provide things like points or other perks in between the main Bronze, Silver, Gold thresholds. Here’s how British Airways previews the changes…
Tier Points on credit card spending: BA American Express Premium Plus Cardmembers will be able to earn up to 2,500 Tier Points by spending on their card. More details of this offer will be announced closer to the launch date.
New milestone benefits between Tiers: By introducing more milestone moments between Tiers, Members will be able to unlock rewarding benefits before reaching their next level. This will start with gifts of 2,500, 4,000 and 5,000 Bonus Avios at milestones within Bronze and Silver. More benefits will be announced in the coming months.
Historically, tier points were earned based solely on the cabin you were flying in, per flight, and did not factor in how much you spent on a ticket. People were incentivized to take lots of connections and someone paying a fortune was not recognized.
Discounts On Wine For Different Tiers
As summarized by the great Brian Sumers, IAG Loyalty’s ‘The Wine Flyer’ business is booming. It’s become one of the largest wine merchants in the UK and you can both earn and spend Avios on purchases.
As part of these changes, British Airways Club members will receive discounts based on their tier, starting at 5% off for Bronze, 10% for Silver, 15% for Gold and 20% off for Gold Guest-list. That’s a pretty nice “always on” discount.
GSTP Take: Incentives Aligned
Money is not the perfect proxy for how much a customer should be valued by an airline. A customer who travels twice a year and stays loyal to an airline is incredibly valuable and should feel the love. That’s why on balance, this is a better system than the old one which pretty much incentivized people to build in crazy connections to artificially inflate their worth and gave people who spent a lot but didn’t fly a ton, no chance to meaningfully earn.
Frankly, and this will be unpopular among readers, I think many people who never should have been top tier flyers with British Airways became top tier flyers and started to believe that they were entitled to it — and worse — that they in fact deserved it. “Status” as a reflection of self worth, and all that jazz. In reality, most of these people were always destined to be mid tier. There’s nothing wrong with mid-tier, and they just need to come to terms with what they’re really worth to an airline.
I loved the old days of tier point runs but as someone who can take a fair look in the mirror, I certainly never drank enough Kool-Aide to believe I was really particularly valuable to British Airways, or truly deserved the extra Gold perks I received as a result.
In reality, I was probably really a Silver member who was able to masquerade as Gold for a while because of gaming savvy, not loyalty. That’s obviously not the way it should be, even if it was fun while it lasted. People have an odd way of letting their airline elite status become a part of their personal identity and sense of worth, so some people are sore today.
With the ability to earn tier points on Holidays and credit card spend now, I see a pathway forward to hit Gold again with mostly leisure travel and I value the Gold benefits enough to pursue it. I find the “First Wing” at Heathrow to be one of the most valuable status perks in the world. It’s really hard to miss out on.
What needs to happen is British Airways needs to back up these changes with more meaningful, tangible benefits at each threshold. Now that the economics and incentives are better aligned for their business, the richness of the perks needs to reach full maturity too. Milestone rewards should help, but I’d love to see new, stronger benefits announced which showcase why loyalty is a two way street.
The FAQ’s for all the changes can be found directly from British Airways.
Any insight into how Lifetime criteria or status is going to be affected?
Let me get some! I don’t have much right now, other than to say current Lifetime Golds will be super happy.
BA has ditched the economy only business traveler. Goodbye BA.
I’d actually say the opposite? Previous system, economy only travel stood hardly any chance of hitting a tier. Earning 10 tier points in economy when business could earn 140 was brutal. Now, an economy only business traveler is rewarded by the spend. So someone who has an economy only work policy, but is often on flexible or expensive economy tickets stands a MUCH better chance of progressing, even over someone on low cost business or first tickets.
Most companies enforcing a economy-only policy will also restrict purchasing expensive full flex tickets so it will still be virtually impossible for anyone travelling for business in economy to get status.
Plus a policy on economy will generally also mean booking the cheapest airline ( which is unlikely to be BA).
I travel economy for work all the time and can justify BA as I get free seat selection with status. Looking at the change I will no longer get a useful status so our corporate booking system will start booking the cheapest fare inc seat booking and that’s really not likely to be BA.
It feels like a severe miscalculation – it’s certainly going to see my business and leisure travel move away from them.
This is a really good take and one that probably is a miscalculation.
Our system does a real solid check of all options too but can be over ridden with justification. Case in point, I booked a flexible easy jet ticket because I get large carry on included. Now, I might be able to get the combination cheaper but it’s a more convoluted booking process.
So maybe there is still hope.
How will they calculate the spending? Let’s say I buy 3 Tickets for me and my familiy plus Hotel for a total of £9000.
Will it then be 3000 points for each or 9000 points for me (as I am paying).
It’s split across the 3 of you so you’d only get 1/3.
Which makes it even harder for you to get tier points.
See the examples here: https://www.britishairways.com/content/executive-club/faqs/introducing-the-british-airways-club
Your workaround is to buy a ticket and stay just for yourself to get 100% of the spend. And put the other two tickets on Avios reward. Then, figure out how to get the hotel to give you a room big enough for the 3 of you.
Good luck or find the best value holiday irrespective if it’s BA or not.
3000 each apparently!
This is the problem with the holidays – as it’s split amongst all travellers you can spend £24,000 on a family holiday for 4 and end up with all of you including the kids getting Bronze!
There’s definitely some things they need to tweak to make the holiday element useful or attractive
I mean, you could also book it for two, add them on a separate booking and get more! I agree though, there should be a slider for how distribution would work and everyone can agree to it. It’s a very good point.
You forgot to mention that this article is sponsored by British Airwayts.
Not in any way shape or form and never would be.
I can’t work out if you are delusional or just purposely say the opposite to what everyone else thinks for a reaction. There are very few people this is good for and arguing that booking holidays through BA, rather than having the flexibility of booking hotels direct or via OTA’s, doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
Just because Rob, who speaks to a vocal minority of niche travelers says something does not make it true statistically.
anyone who sees this change as a positive is drinking more than kool-ade !! Very few people will ever hit silver never mind gold. BA doesn’t offer the best holiday packages but,we go with them out of loyalty and the fact we get tier point status. Now it’s back to the travel websites for our holidays looking at best value, local airport etc. They have said to the family that takes a couple of holidays a year and maybe a couple of city breaks ” folks you’re better looking elsewhere as we don’t want you we want a share of that ever dwindling business travel market” In may case they’ve lost 5 customers.
Gee David, maybe that’s the point. Maybe there actually tons of people out there, based on decades of historical ticket purchasing data, loyalty data and other elements who statistics show will have no problem hitting these thresholds. Many of whom, haven’t been rewarded properly in the past. Good luck finding better customer service and standards with online travel agencies – that’s always been they’re strong point and the earning from loyalty with them is SO valuable now!
You really are an obsequious little shit aren’t you?
Still your tongue is firmly up BA’s backside despite a clearly massive devaluation.
Well I have bad news for you: BAcetc don’t need little creeps like you anymore so you’ll have to find a new career.
One where you can work with a little integrity and as much arse licking as you do now
Pathetic
This is a joy to the world.
All the non drinkers so excited by 5% off at Wine Flyer.
For some it will be useful to earn tier points on hotels, but most of us that fly a lot are already with hotel loyalty programs and wont want to give those up.
Hahah fair. I’d like to see broader lifestyle benefits introduced. I personally haven’t found enough sweetness in hotel programs to be truly loyal. I earn my points via transferrable currency and then convert to hotels when it makes sense, but I’ve never pursued status or prioritized those points over airline currency.
Your take on the changes seems out of step with all other travel sites and commenters. The new system basically excludes all leisure travellers and most self funded business travellers too.
The BA Holidays element is not a saving grace, as you’ll only earn a percentage of the spend unless you’re a lone holidaymaker (and then the spend will be a lot less).
The tier point levels are completely insane, £3,500 for Bronze when you get naff all in terms of benefits.
No thanks BA, I’ll be flying with other airlines.
Again, just because Rob, who speaks to a very active, very vocal small group of niche travelers who are obsessed with gaming a system says something is bad, that doesn’t mean any data or analysis actually supports this. 1,000 data points of an angry mob do not represent the views of the traveling public, many of whom have no problem reaching the status thresholds and will do so more effortlessly than before.
I can 100% see why BA have made these changes, and personally I’m happy that those who have gamed the system will no longer be able to.
However, as someone who has held gold and now silver status legitimately through self-funded travel (business and leisure) these changes do feel like a bit of a kick in the teeth. Whatever your views of Another Site (or sites) they do make a cogent point – this is now a loyalty scheme, largely, for those who don’t have a choice.
I’ve made my travel choices because of status, sometimes spending more than had I used another carrier. From now on BA are just like any other airline to me.
You’re absolutely right that they will have done extensive modelling on this, and have plenty of data to support the decision, but it genuinely wouldn’t surprise me if in a couple of years’ time – once things have stabilised – we see changes to the programme to “re-incentivise” the self funded market
I think the important detail to be seen will be the use of targeted incentives or bonuses to win people. Travelers like you cannot afford to be lost. I can only expect it’s part of the plan to gamify throughout the year. I too will be stretching to hit Gold under these new changes – maybe that’s their ambition – and I think they need to make it fun by having targeted offers, perhaps even personalized, to help get people into their right target. If there was a 1.25x multiplier for buying First or something, that could extract the behavior they want but give me enough reason to stretch. This needs to be executed well.
Well, here’s my experience. I took out a premium Amex card (with fee) because I worked out that my annual spend would meet the threshold for a Companion voucher, getting me a significant discount on my regular trips. I earned (and used) exactly one voucher, and less than twelve months after taking out the card, the fee increased significantly and the spend threshold for the Companion voucher went up by 50%, to beyond what I’d spend in a typical year. So I now have *zero* incentive to continue using the card, or even to fly BA at all, regardless of whether these changes are favourable to my travel plans or not. Total marketing and loyalty scheme fail. BA isn’t that special anyway.
Hey, I really feel this. Respect.
Here are my thoughts.
I can totally see and understand why BA have made these changes. Personally, I am glad that those who have proudly gamed the system will no longer be able to (plenty of them on X and several forums), and those who have very little flying activity with BA and claim to be ‘loyal’ to BA (plenty of them on X and several Facebook groups).
However, similar to a previous commenter, as someone who has held Gold for several years legitimately through self-funded travel, these changes do feel like a bit if a kick in the teeth, particularly with the thresholds. This is a loyalty programme especially to those who do not have a choice. I live within an easy reach of the M25 and I am spoiled for choice with airlines especially to places I travel to but there is a reason why I chose BA. After all, this is a Frequent Flyer programme and flying activity should also be heavily considered and not just purely on the amount of money spent.
I used to travel across the pond for work but since the pandemic, we have been using MS Teams heavily and we are only really advised or asked to travel IF we really need to. My business travel in the last 2 years is ZERO. My company is HQed in Jersey City which means United is the preferred carrier, naturally. Delta being the second preference. I have asked and have been lucky to be put on BA but I have to put this as an expense. Cabin class does vary but due to the short flight, we are often put in Premium Plus or WTP.
Me and my partner travel a lot for leisure every year. We spend a lot on flights and hotels alone and we often fly WTP/ CW. We make our travel choices because of status and we often pick BA even if they are the more expensive option. I have family across the pond and they live in an area where Delta (SkyTeam) holds a larger market share. AA holds a larger market share but it is a 2 hour drive from the family – I always choose this option with BA/AA even if it means a longer trek for the family to pick me up from the airport. Again, because of status and loyalty (if that even means something these days?).
If you ask me, is £20k a year for a BA Gold Card worth it? I honestly don’t think so. In the last 12 months, I have avoided the First lounge at T5 because of the crowd. The South lounge is a mess and the B gate lounge is only getting worse these days. When me and my partner fly short haul, there are times when we don’t even bother anymore. We do feel that the quality of the lounges at T5 have been due to BA’s generous double TP offer. We have seen families filling their bags with cans, putting pastries in food containers, ‘Joe’ and his mate filling his water bottle with booze, or even ‘Chantel’ live streaming on Facebook bragging about the free flowing champagne to her friends. I can’t say I have not benefited from this offer because I have – it meant that requalifying for Gold was made easier and the money saved was spent on more flights (non BAH package). I think BA have opened a can of worms and one of them is the pure entitlement of people with very little flying activity with BA.
Ultimately, there are some winners here and some losers here and I feel this change has put us in the ‘losers’ category. Business travel has gone down and the outlook with my job, there will be less travelling for work and most of my flying will be purely for leisure.
Also, me and my partner cancelled our AMEX cards – why? If we can both afford to pay up front, why not? Why do we have to spend £15k just to get a companion voucher. If a CW ticket to SFO cost £4k, wouldn’t it be cheaper to just pay for another one rather than having to wait to spend £15k? Again, I cannot say I haven’t benefited from this because we have in the past. We now have zero incentive to get the card. Our bank accounts come with travel insurance – a good one too so there’s that. Mine comes with lounge access which is a good back up in case the lounges offered by BA or whoever we fly with on that occasion isn’t as good – I have used this several times in the past. Several people at work have commented and calling me silly and unwise for letting go but it is a choice we both made that have worked perfectly for us.
I do work in a similar industry where we use data modelling and data driven functionalities to support their decisions or to rationalise them, but perhaps BA could have ‘rethink’ their decision to increase the elite thresholds. I personally do think that they could increase the flying activity with BA before achieving elite status i.e 4 for Bronze, 8 for Silver and Gold with BA/ IB operated and marketed flights. Also, they could have done better to resonate with the self-funding groups.
PS. I have just read your second post. Whilst I do agree with most of the points you’ve made, the overall tone and language could have been better!
Have a Happy New Year!
Perhaps this will be a less than popular view but I’m a frequent flyer who likes lounges that are quieter and less noisy. That’s clearly not what most comments here seem to want. Then again, perhaps I’m just the target audience for the new BA lounge and club access?
For context, I’m a business traveller also with regular holiday flights during the year. Any flight over 4 hours is business class, less is economy. Most flights for me are to US and Europe, sometimes Australia or Asia. Hit guest list before COVID, not since. As others said, Teams reduced several reasons to travel.
In my view, this change should free up lounges, even if Business Lounge will get even more swamped with (previously gold) Silver members. Right now, first lounges are regularly packed, seldom with first passengers (they’re usually in Concorde unless retired and on a trip of their lifetime) and a large number with economy tickets based on following them to board the same flight. Lots of Instagram posters, far too many hitting the bars at all times of day. Heathrow is alright, Gatwick can be nuts in both lounges.
On European flights, getting 20 tier points for an economy £400 ticket instead of 40 for a £450 business flexi makes little sense to me. Getting 400ish for either ticket just rewards both types of traveller in a fairer way.
Same with boarding. Group1 is a mess when boarding, the gate team just get swamped. Group0 is looked after and perhaps Group1 will become smaller and less of a scrum as a result. Group3 looks like it will become more congested.
So, in my view, travellers who regularly use business trips and lounges will get access to lounges that are less busy. They will appreciate that change and continue to prefer BA.
Those on Silver will have a significant incentive to go for Gold as the Silver access business lounge and Group3 huddle will become painful. Maybe £20k per year is a lot of travel expenses, but for many it’s very achievable.
I can also see, like Qatar has done, BA changing some lounges to only allow Club members to enter, and put partner airline travellers in other lounges. Qatar Privilege lounges are great, but you cannot get in without Privilege status or the right ticket. This move will stop people jumping to another loyalty programme to get equivalent status.
Finally, it may be harsh that BA are valuing some groups more than others. You could argue that it used to value people who game the system more than those who genuinely chose BA for lots of business. Now it’s valuing customers who keep it in business by spending significantly (over £20,000) with them. That may no longer be you as providing Executive Club access is not their primary purpose as an airline. Selling tickets to passengers is their only business.
The last time we flew BA Business all the BA lounges at LHR were rammed to capacity. Hard to get anything to eat as queues and warming plates empty by the time you get anywhere near. I’ve read this is a common experience with BA lounges recently with lots of silvers” flying economy but using lounges to fill up. BA only encouraged and made this by offering double TP’s on holidays.
Double TP for a weekend in Malta awards 320 tier points, for approximately £600. Do that twice, you’re in Silver and getting into business lounge all year for any other flights that you book, with a guest.
Now under the new rules, you’d have to do that same trip every month for a year.
Alternatively, a trip to Sydney staying at the Intercontinental for a week in August will secure you silver status under the new rules, and would probably do so under the old double TP rules once you made 4 flights.