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In late December, British Airways announced major changes to its Executive Club program. After the backlash the airline faced, British Airways unveiled a few tweaks aimed at making the transition less painful for loyal members blindsided by the announcement. While the changes are small positive steps, they still won't make most once-loyal travelers happy with the changes.
Note that these changes were announced a couple of weeks ago. But we waited to see if British Airways would continue to “evolve” its new program before covering these changes.
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British Airways Adds Elite Earning Through Segments
Until April 1, 2025, British Airways Executive Club status is achieved by earning Tier Points — where each flight segment earns a certain number of elite-qualifying points based on the fare class and distance band. It isn't truly a segment-based program, but taking more flights generally earns more Tier Points.
In its initial announcement, British Airways announced a switch to a fully revenue-based elite status program. No matter how many segments you flew, you wouldn't be able to earn status through flights.
Now, British Airways has announced a tweak after backlash from many regular British Airways flyers. The company has announced a path to earning Bronze or Silver status through segments alone:
- Earn Bronze status by flying 25 segments of BA-marketed flights.
- Earn Silver status by flying 50 segments of BA-marketed flights.
This is great news for those who take lots of short flights or commute for work. For instance, earning British Airways Silver status will be possible by flying 13 round-trips connecting through London each way (4 segments per round-trip).
British Airways Bonus Tier Points Promotion
British Airways announced that it would be extending its bonus tier point promotion to soften the blow of the switch to a revenue-based loyalty program. You can now register for the promotion through December 31, 2025, and you are set to earn bonus tier points between April 1, 2025 and December 21, 2026.
With the promotion, you will earn the following bonus tier points per flight segment as follows:
- Euro Traveller earns 75 bonus Tier Points.
- Club Europe earns 175 bonus Tier Points.
- World Traveller earns 150 bonus Tier Points.
- World Traveller Plus earns 275 bonus Tier Points.
- Club World earns 400 bonus Tier Points.
- First earn 550 bonus Tier Points.
Example Tier Point earnings with the new system
Let's take a look at how this can work in practice. Take a round-trip from San Francisco (SFO) to Prague (PRG) in business class. Flights this April currently cost around $3,375 round-trip — before any British Airways AARP or Chase card discounts. Of that price, $3,214 is the base fare and carrier-imposed surcharges. At current exchange rates, that's equivalent to around £2,541, meaning you'll earn around 2,541 Tier Points from this flight.
This promotion will add another 1,150 Tier Points — 400 bonus points each for the long-haul Club World flights and 175 bonus points each for the short-haul Club Europe flights. In total, you'll earn 3,691 Tier Points from registering for this promotion and flying this round-trip.
That's enough Tier Points to earn British Airways Bronze (Oneworld Ruby) elite status through this one booking! And you'll be just under halfway to earning BA Silver status (Oneworld Sapphire) — which requires earning 7,500 Tier Points.
Our Take
British Airways seems to have been taken aback by the extent of the backlash it faced from switching to a revenue-based loyalty program. Realizing it may lose a huge amount of business from all the people who take many short cheap flights as they commute for work, British Airways has decided to tweak its new Executive Club program.
Also, the bonus tier point promotion is a temporary measure that only eases the pain of switching to a revenue-based system. However, at some point, this offer will end, and then what? Earning status becomes very difficult, and loyal program members will likely look for ways to leave BA if they have not done so already.
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