British Airways

[Watershed]

Lloyds World Mastercard for £15 a month is a way to get Priority Pass unlimited for far better than actually paying for Priority Pass itself

Of course the problem with "Priority" Pass is that you'll often be turned away at lounges, because the card schemes only pay lounge operators a fraction of the amount they get from full-service airlines for premium/status pax - so they only let in Priority Pass holders to fill in the troughs between full-service airline departures. This is particularly prevalent with UK lounges and at airports dominated by budget airlines, such as STN/LTN/MAN, due to the number of people holding Priority Pass cards and the like.

You can now pre-book entry at a number of airport lounges, but it slightly defeats the object if you have to pay an extra ~£6 every time (if you want to guarantee entry). Even then, pre-booking is often unavailable during peak periods (e.g. school holidays).

Realistically I think easyJet plus for £249/year has a lot of appeal if you live near to one of their main hubs (e.g. LGW). There's currently a 15% discount (available to MasterCard holders, i.e. basically everyone) if you sign up by tomorrow. It gives you guaranteed emergency exit/front row seat and extra cabin bag, plus priority security and boarding, which is most of what you get with status (except lounge access, of course).

 

[Red Onion]

I’m leaving their club too, to get any status is beyond astronomical and it is only the non discretionary business traveller who will benefit. Leisure travellers will lose out massively and the idea that booking on BA holidays will help is nonsense, it’s now a minimum of £3500 BEFORE tax and fees. Plenty of other airlines to consider. I’m cashing all my avios in for a trip later in the year and will be done with it. Been nice to have but much better options out there now.

 

[eoff]

Looks like Silver at best once Gold expires for me in March 26, which presumably will still be the step-down point anyway.

I don't think landing down one level was ever an advertised part of the terms and conditions so I'm concerned that this will go and we won't find out until April '26.

 

[Alex C.]

I don't think landing down one level was ever an advertised part of the terms and conditions so I'm concerned that this will go and we won't find out until April '26.

There was a head for points article which specifically said soft landings were being scrapped, according to an insider.

 

[Huntergreed]

An extremely disappointing change for BA to implement and it’s unlikely I’ll be able to achieve anything above bronze with this new system.

I think (given lounge overcrowding and double tier point offers etc…) many would agree it’s likely slightly too easy at the moment to achieve status (certainly silver) compared to what BA intended. That said, this change swings far too far the other way and makes even silver unachievable for many of the most dedicated travellers, let alone gold.

I wouldn’t be surprised if BA end up losing a good amount of revenue (and reputation) over this, and dare I say, rightly so.

 

[nlogax]

Indeed. Have just read comments on HfP and FT that suggest soft landings will exit stage left. For me silver only really be achievable from 2026 using any sweetener offers throughout the course of the next year. Tbh I need figure out if it's even worth putting in the financial and admin effort in to maintain status.

 

[John R]

From what people have said, it seems the Double Tier points on BA Holidays was responsible for a lot of what presumably BA feels is an excess number of Silver/Gold status holders. So why did it not just finish that offer?

From my perspective, I've booked a few flight/hotel trips through BA rather than any other means precisely to ensure I maintain Silver with double tier points. Will I do that in future? Nope, I'll look more critically at the separate flight and hotel options, and will be much more likely to use my local airport than LHR. So they will undoubtedly lose business from that. And moreover, I'm off to the Ashes next winter (non-flight package booked), and Tier Points will no longer be a factor in my choice of airline. So now very unlikely to choose BA.

 

[Red Onion]

From what people have said, it seems the Double Tier points on BA Holidays was responsible for a lot of what presumably BA feels is an excess number of Silver/Gold status holders. So why did it not just finish that offer?

From my perspective, I've booked a few flight/hotel trips through BA rather than any other means precisely to ensure I maintain Silver with double tier points. Will I do that in future? Nope, I'll look more critically at the separate flight and hotel options, and will be much more likely to use my local airport than LHR. So they will undoubtedly lose business from that. And moreover, I'm off to the Ashes next winter (non-flight package booked), and Tier Points will no longer be a factor in my choice of airline. So now very unlikely to choose BA.

Sums it up for me too. I’m away to book a trip to Madrid next year which would have been through BA holidays to maintain the status but as it’ll no longer earn anywhere near enough, it’s likely to be booked using as many Avios as possible to clear my balance and then I’m off to check out other airlines. I feel this is a massive own goal for them as I’m sure I’m not the only thinking like this.

 

[yorksrob]

So much for a "flag carrier".

 

[Alex C.]

Only BA will know the specifics on who will benefit and who won't - the lounges will be quieter which might encourage a few higher status people to book, and they are likely to become cheaper to run.

But my gut says that will be far outweighed by people like me who are not gaming the system (I've never done any TP runs) but get a reasonable number of tier points via work flights (2-3 WTP or CW a year to the US), but then switch their personal travel and holidays to BA as well. That was worth it for Silver or Gold - free seat choice, fast track security and lounge access for me and my wife but really isn't worth it for bronze status. I also upgraded to Club Europe a few times to boost my points. I think I represent the type of traveller a loyalty scheme should be targeting (they've probably had 9-10x the spend they would have from me over the last 3 years purely because of the scheme when you factor in holiday bookings)

I can choose who I fly with, and the soft product on Virgin Atlantic premium economy is a lot better (and business is a lot cheaper on other airlines) so I can't see any real reason to book with BA going forwards. I've got some Avios to use up but outside of that I certainly can't see me making any bookings via BA unless they really are the cheapest.

As with other posters, I think they had to do something given the ease of obtaining Silver but scrapping the double tier points offer would have been the easiest way to do it, or introducing a minimum spend for the offer to kick in. The levels they've set are so far removed, I suspect a huge number of people who fit into my category won't even try to achieve status.

 

[kingston_toon]

Disaster for me - I can usually earn Silver (Oneworld Sapphire) on a spend of well under £1.5k and even made Gold (OWE) last year on a spend of under £2.5k using various "special offers" and cheap AA biz fares. This has encouraged me to book BA single fares for £70-80 one way instead of Ryanair for £20 (plus big bag and exit seat) but that's finished now - I'll either look for a new FFP that isn't revenue based or just book the cheapest. I get that I'm not the kind of customer BA care about from a loyalty perspective but still sucks.

 

[Mojo]

I’d probably describe myself as an “accidental Gold,” as last year I achieved Gold based upon trips where BA or other Oneworld airlines offered the best price for the journey. I hadn’t achieved status with a tier point run or BA Holidays offers or anything like that.

Going forward, this year and next, I’d enjoyed the perks so much so that I‘ve gone out of my way to book with BA or other Oneworld carriers even if they were more expensive or less convenient because of how having the status made travelling a nicer experience. Which is surely the point; to generate loyalty. It does help that Heathrow is my closest airport; I can get there for free, and it is a pleasant place to travel through.

Being realistic; some level of reform was probably always going to happen. The system generated some perverse incentives to avoid travelling with BA, for example going to the Far East, you’d do better off travelling Qatar and get twice as many Tier Points.

 

[Failed Unit]

I know this was only announced yesterday but I haven’t seen any winners yet. Maybe the people who us BA holidays. I suspect BA will be getting some robust feedback.

It is also interesting when you look at thier competitors.

I flew London - New Zealand. Did think about BA for tier point, however went via Singapore airlines. Don’t regret it as the quality of service was so much better. Even BA versus Virgin, I think Virgin is better.

They run the risk of now the tier points boundary is out of reach, people try other airlines and find the are better then BA. BA don’t handle disruption well, have frequent IT issues. This could actually cost them a lot of business unless they try and get back to marketing themselves as a quality airline.they don’t seem to want to play that card going east. I am not sure how the compare to the American carriers going West.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I know this was only announced yesterday but I haven’t seen any winners yet.

I’m probably just about in the category of winner. My BA travel involves a connection through the Loganair codeshare to London and I do it this way to benefit from the protection a through ticket offers. But the Loganair codeshare isn’t cheap, it often adds £300-£400 per person to any return or holiday I book, but for that £300+ I usually only get 10TP (2x 5TP).

As a couple we’ve spent the thick end of seven grand on BA Holidays this year and, even with the double TP offer, I still only have 150TP. Under the new scheme we’d both be about 85%-90% of the way to bronze.

I do think there may be some tweaking of the thresholds though, as £20k for gold is insane. Probably not an official tweaking, maybe “bonus TP” offers and the like.

 

[nlogax]

I know this was only announced yesterday but I haven’t seen any winners yet. Maybe the people who us BA holidays. I suspect BA will be getting some robust feedback.

A few on Flyertalk and Reddit are anticipating lounges becoming quieter while their sizeable corporate travel spend will easily keep them at Gold beyond the transition. Certainly a minority of posts though.

This could actually cost them a lot of business unless they try and get back to marketing themselves as a quality airline.

Indeed. I'm eager to understand where the carrot actually is. Yesterday's announcement felt mostly like the stick.

 

[camflyer]

Sums it up for me too. I’m away to book a trip to Madrid next year which would have been through BA holidays to maintain the status but as it’ll no longer earn anywhere near enough, it’s likely to be booked using as many Avios as possible to clear my balance and then I’m off to check out other airlines. I feel this is a massive own goal for them as I’m sure I’m not the only thinking like this.

Same here. I recently re-qualified for Siver and have 200,000 Avios in the bank so over the next year I will just burn those on flights and then use EasyJet, Emirates or whoever is the cheapest. I've been a loyal BA customer for over 20 years, Silver for most of them, but they've lost my long time business over thi.

Their PR around this is embarrassing. " to give you more opportunities to unlock rewards" and "simplifying the way we reward your loyalty". They are dropping the Executive name yet making the Club more exclusive for business travellers who don't pay for their own tickets.

 

[sh24]

It is all very incoherent. There are a lot of people who go out of their way to achieve Silver for the perks (it’s the sweet spot). That is now out of reach so why not just fly Easy or Virgin or whoever is cheapest.

 

[Royston Vasey]

13 years of silver and above, it's been a real struggle to requalify this year as it is, though I'll just manage it, but on mainly non-flex economy fares £7500 spend will be tough without some change of company travel policy. Not impossible but a stretch.

That's me probably chasing Star Alliance from next year as my mix of 2-3 US trips, 3 Asia trips, and lots of Germany trips lends itself to United, ANA, Singapore and Lufthansa, crediting to whoever has the better programme. Need to do some research.

On the lookout for a status match now!

 

[eoff]

Perhaps the only winners would be a subset of people doing a lot of pricey economy travel which was not getting much points and single travelers with a large holiday spend who don't mind giving up hotel status points.

 

[Failed Unit]

A few on Flyertalk and Reddit are anticipating lounges becoming quieter while their sizeable corporate travel spend will easily keep them at Gold beyond the transition. Certainly a minority of posts though.


Indeed. I'm eager to understand where the carrot actually is. Yesterday's announcement felt mostly like the stick.

Not sure if it just me, the only time I would say the lounge is full is at the times of disruption. But granted I may not be using it at peak times.

I guess the ones BA operate are not really the issue. I suspect it is at airports where they are having to pay (I assume per passenger) is where BA want to make savings, where a 3rd Party operates the lounge. In many of the European lounges, you don’t get much anyway so I normally opt for a cafe closer to the gate. (In some cases the lounge is the wrong side of passport control)

Hard to know what BA stands for now. It certainly is playing catch up. It’s premium economy and club world (on the older layouts) are some of the worse on the market. (In my opinion)

 

[Royston Vasey]

Perhaps the only winners would be a subset of people doing a lot of pricey economy travel which was not getting much points and single travelers with a large holiday spend who don't mind giving up hotel status points.

The former may still be me, I need to do the analysis. Most of my transatlantic economy fares these days, for which I'm able to electively fly on BA, are £1200-£1600, so roughly £900-£1300 qualifying spend per fare. Similar fares to China or Japan although I usually fly those via Hong Kong or Doha (DOH really maximises tier points as one trip earns four long haul tier points). Occasionally I may be permitted to travel premium economy for ~£1800-£2000 a ticket.

FT are expecting partner earning to be measly though, rather than the predictable carrier-agnostic mileage-based TP earn rates.

So, 6 long haul returns a year in economy with a few short hauls and occasional premium fares. Not out of the question for me... but is it worth the effort? With the current state of the airline I am inclined to say no.

There will be an awful lot of Golds having a hard landing due to not spending £20k though. If guess a lot of Golds are Gold on a spend of mid 4-figures, if that.

I'm looking forward to watching Matt's Planet's verdict on YouTube. He is an excellent no nonsense dry humoured reviewer, and extremely well informed on what was BA Executive Club.

I guess the ones BA operate are not really the issue. I suspect it is at airports where they are having to pay (I assume per passenger) is where BA want to make savings, where a 3rd Party operates the lounge.

Same with Oneworld lounges. I shudder to think how much they pay Cathay Pacific, Qantas and American Airlines every time I do a T3 lounge crawl for three hours on a routine £150 hop to Stuttgart

 

[TravelDream]

Same with Oneworld lounges. I shudder to think how much they pay Cathay Pacific, Qantas and American Airlines every time I do a T3 lounge crawl for three hours on a routine £150 hop to Stuttgart

Definitely!
Last time I flew from T3 with BA, I made sure we got to the airport over five hours early. It was a miracle I got on the plane.

 

[Failed Unit]

Definitely!
Last time I flew from T3 with BA, I made sure we got to the airport over five hours early. It was a miracle I got on the plane.

I didn’t realise you could do that. I may do the same myself in T3. See what the competition is like.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Perhaps the only winners would be a subset of people doing a lot of pricey economy travel which was not getting much points and single travelers with a large holiday spend who don't mind giving up hotel status points.

On my last BA Holiday I got the IHG points- including the 5,000 points on every 2 nights bonus I'd signed up for- but I wouldn't want to bank on it.

FT are expecting partner earning to be measly though, rather than the predictable carrier-agnostic mileage-based TP earn rates.

It's similar to how it is now for Avios, a percentage of the miles flown depending on airline and cabin.

British Airways - Information Page

There's too many to copy and paste into here, but at a quick glance it goes from 2% (cheapest economy) to 30% (fully flexible first) for most OneWorld partners but, as you'd expect, earnings from Qatar (who own 25% of IAG), Finnair, and Aer Lingus are doubled (4% to 60%).

 

[TravelDream]

I didn’t realise you could do that. I may do the same myself in T3. See what the competition is like.

Club passengers and Gold/Silver can check in any time during the day.

So you could head to the airport at 5am for a 10pm flight if you wanted. I'd only do it at T3 though. Not worth it if you're flying out of T5.

If you need a quiet place to work, the Qantas lounge is open all day and is pretty dead during the morning/ day. It only starts to get busy late afternoon/ early evening. The al a carte restaurant only opens then - around 5pm I think. Before that there's just a small buffet. There's no problem heading next door to the Cathay lounge for lunch and heading back.

 

[Tetchytyke]

It is all very incoherent. There are a lot of people who go out of their way to achieve Silver for the perks (it’s the sweet spot). That is now out of reach so why not just fly Easy or Virgin or whoever is cheapest.

It depends on your viewpoint.

The current BAEC scheme disproportionately rewards ridiculously convoluted routeings compared to rewarding pounds and pence. Flying, say, Heathrow-Sofia-Heathrow-New York-Los Angeles could easily generate triple the tier points of flying direct, and the direct fare was usually much higher to boot.

I have a sneaky feeling they've overshot with the new thresholds, especially gold, but you can see where they're coming from.

 

[telstarbox]

While that may be true I've assumed that the majority of the target market - business leaders, politicians, diplomats and sports / entertainment stars - have better uses of their time than doing tier point runs

 

[Failed Unit]

It depends on your viewpoint.

The current BAEC scheme disproportionately rewards ridiculously convoluted routeings compared to rewarding pounds and pence. Flying, say, Heathrow-Sofia-Heathrow-New York-Los Angeles could easily generate triple the tier points of flying direct, and the direct fare was usually much higher to boot.

I have a sneaky feeling they've overshot with the new thresholds, especially gold, but you can see where they're coming from.

When I was researching my trip to New Zealand, I found the opposite. I thought the points were very stingy for the distance flown. But I know what you mean a no direct flight can really help you stack up the tier points.

London - Sofia has a reputation for cheap tier points, I have notice that myself as the fare seems very cheap for the distance involved (not sure why). I understand people use that route (along with others for the tier points) To me I dont see the logic when you probably need a night in a hotel.

Be interested to know if the “Willies“ Work in Work in London - Live in Edinburgh will find it harder or easier to get silver now. They tend to only get low tier points per flight but get in by the quantity rule, because the book their tickets so far ahead of time.

 

[Tetchytyke]

When I was researching my trip to New Zealand, I found the opposite. I thought the points were very stingy for the distance flown. But I know what you mean a no direct flight can really help you stack up the tier points.

The tier points are stingy, especially for economy. It's long rewarded the cabin flown not the price paid. 40 TP for a £150 Club Europe single was double what you'd get paying £300 for an economy single light to New York.

But flying LHR-SYD (Heathrow to Sydney) on the direct flight (the Singapore layover is ignored for tier points IIRC) offers fewer tier points than flying on Qatar via Doha LHR-DOH-SYD.

Be interested to know if the “Willies“ Work in Work in London - Live in Edinburgh will find it harder or easier to get silver now. They tend to only get low tier points per flight but get in by the quantity rule, because the book their tickets so far ahead of time.

They'll find it much harder, instead of 50 flights they need an eligible spend of £7,500. So unless they're regularly paying £170-£180ish per flight they'll really struggle.

 

[nlogax]

Interesting. BA confirming on X in response to queries that they've "not made any changes to their 'soft landing' proposition". If that holds true then great. I can status match to KLM Flying Blue / Platinim and then make a major (already planned) booking with them for autumn 2025. Will still be BA Silver until April 2027 which gives me time to spend remaining Avios and vouchers. It's definitely time for a change and if this forces the point then fine.