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Updated 08:15 PT: The information in this article has now been confirmed.
Yesterday, British Airways announced that it would be changing the timeframe in which members of its Executive Club program earn Tier Points (elite qualifying points) and to say that the messaging coming from the airline has been poor would be a gross understatement. It has been a mess.
For the past 24 hours, nobody has been able to say for certain how Tier Points earned in the next couple of years will affect what elite status a flyer will have going forward, and that has a lot to do with the fact that BA’s press office doesn’t appear to really understand how the Executive Club works.
The number of changes that we have seen made to the FAQ page (relating to this) in the past 24 hours has been ridiculous.
Now, however, we seem to be getting a little bit more clarity, so this is how *I think* British Airways plans to make things work.
Disclaimer: This information is only as good as the source that it comes from (BA), so I may have to edit this if anything that we’ve been told turns out not to be 100% correct.
BA moves to a single Tier Point collection period
Up until now, a member’s British Airways Executive Club elite status year has been based on when they joined the program, so different members can have different elite years and different years in which they need to collect credits towards elite status (Tier Point collection years).
My elite status year, for example, ends in December, while Joanna’s ends in March, and that can make things awkward.
Going forward, this will change.
British Airways has said that it is aligning all Executive Club member Tier Point collection years so that all members will earn Tier Points towards elite status between 1 April and 31 March the following year.
To move members over to this system requires a transition period, and this is where things get messy and where BA’s information has been very unclear.
How the transition will be handled
A way to generalise what’s happening (so as not to overcomplicate things) is to say that for a while, British Airways Executive Club members will find that they have more than one Tier Point collection period.
Period 1 – The one that’s in progress right now and which ends on the 8th of the month.
Period 2 – One that runs from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 (BA’s ‘transition period’).
The Tier Points earned in Period 1 will go towards a member’s elite status for the 13 months starting with the month after this collection period ends (as normal).
E.g. If your collection period ends on 8 June 2024, the status you earn by then will be valid until 31 July 2025 (as usual).
The Tier Points earned in Period 2 will determine a member’s elite status between 1 April 2025 to 30 April 2026 *IF* the status earned in this period is higher than the status held thanks to the Tier Points from Period 1.
The Tier Points earned in Period 2 will determine a member’s elite status from the moment the status earned in Period 1 runs out through to 30 April 2026 *IF* the status earned in Period 2 is lower or equal to the status earned in Period 1.
I realise that probably still sounds complicated (because it is!), so here’s an example that may help.
An example:
A member’s Tier Point collection year currently runs to 8 November 2024 (Period 1). This will not change and they still have until 8 November 2024 to earn the Tier Points they need to earn/retain elite status.
Let’s say …
- They earn 800 Tier Points by 31 March 2024.
- They earn a further 700 Tier Points between 1 April and 8 November 2024.
By 8 November (at the end of Period 1), they have 1,500 Tier Points in the bank and so have enough for Gold status.
This Gold status is valid through 31 December 2025 (13 months after their collection period ends) as usual.
- They now earn 500 Tier Points between 9 November and 31 March 2025.
When BA looks at their earnings between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025 (Period 2) it will see that they earned 1,200 Tier Points (700 + 500), which is not enough to retain Gold status.
However, because they have already locked in Gold status through 31 December 2025 (thanks to the earnings in Period 1), they will not drop down to Silver status before 1 January 2026.
They will have Silver status between 1 January 2026 and 30 April 2026 unless they earn 1,500 Tier Points before 1 January 2026 (in which case they get bumped back up to Gold).
Their status from 1 May 2026 to 30 April 2027 will be based on Tier Points earned between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026.
Bottom line
At the time of writing, this seems to be the consensus on how British Airways will be transitioning all Executive Club members to a single Tier Point collection period that runs from 1 April to 31 March, but given how much has changed since this was first announced, more updates may be on the way.
Overall and other than giving people a headache as they try to digest how this will work, this probably won’t affect very many people negatively (there’s a soft landing issue that some will face but that’s about it). Personally, I may drop a tier for a couple of months between February and March 2026, but as I expect to have Gold status back by 1 April 2026, I’m not too worried about that.
How are you affected by this … and do you understand it?! 🙂
