British Airways had been planning to move to a revenue-based system of elite status earning since before the pandemic. They announced it was coming back in 2022 and then finally pulled the trigger, with details on December 30th. That’s come under an avalanche of criticism, and they’re taking mitigation measures to ease the pain with customers.

Here are the changes they announced:

• They’re renaming the Executive Club frequent flyer program as The British Airways Club.
  

• Starting April 1, 2025, how status is earned will be based on spending through the program. You’ll earn 1 Tier Point per £1 on fare, fuel surcharges, and ancillaries such as seat selection and extra baggage.
  

• And there are new status thresholds. Bronze: 3,500; Silver: 7,500; Gold: 20,000; Gold Guest List: 65,000 (at least 52,000 must come from British Airways-marketed flights, qualifying add-ons, and BA Holidays) with 40,000 to retain (including at least 32,000 from BA-marketed flights, add-ons, and BA Holidays).

• You can earn elite credits by donating money to BA for sustainable aviation fuel (1 tier point and 10 Avios per £1 spent, up to 1,000 Tier Points per year). Vacation packages count towards status (so you can book hotels, etc. and have that count). And British Airways American Express Premium Plus Cardmembers will be able to earn up to 2,500 Tier Points through credit card spending.

Members Found These Changes To Be Brutal

The airline took an absolute shellacking from members and in the press. They’re asking a lot more from members, and not giving members more in return. This change fires a lot of customers!

• A British Airways member who is flying to earn their status (and not booking vacation packages, etc.) would need about £20,000 (~ US$25,000) in qualifying ticket spend to reach Gold status, which is oneworld emerald.
  

• An American Executive Platinum member has to spend just over $11,000 to keep oneworld emerald status for the next year. (An Executive Platinum member would need just over $18,000 in flight spend to keep their status, but Platinum Pro is oneworld emerald like British Airways Gold is.)
• And fares originating in the U.K. are frequently much less expensive than starting a trip in the U.S.!

BA Is Making It Easier To Earn Status For A Year

British Airways has come out now with what looks like a bit of a rapprochement – they aren’t backing away from the new status model, but they’re offering bonus tier qualifying points instead. They say they always intended to do this but just hadn’t told anyone about it earlier.

With the initial announcement, British Airways shared that new bookings made by February 14, 2025 for travel April 1 onward would receive bonus tier points, on top of the tier points laid out in this new system. Now, they’ve extended the offer of bonus tier points and increased it.

Bookings made by December 31, 2025 for travel starting April 1 onward will earn the following bonuses towards status qualification:

		INITIAL OFFER	NEW OFFER
SHORT-HAUL	EURO TRAVELLER (economy)	50	75
SHORT-HAUL	CLUB EUROPE (business class)	100	175
LONG-HAUL	WORLD TRAVELLER (economy)	70	150
LONG-HAUL	WORLD TRAVELLER PLUS (Premium economy)	140	275
LONG-HAUL	CLUB WORLD (long-haul business class)	210	400
LONG-HAUL	FIRST	330	550

And They’re Trying To Reassure Members That The New System Isn’t As Bad As They Think

There are better ways to approach your customers who thought they were in a loyalty relationship.

• Most Golds don’t just squeak into Gold, what does their modeling show about how current elites overall will be affected? That could be useful in comforting members… many have nothing to worry about.

• Help members see what their qualifying spend in the current and last membership year was, so how their current activity ends up!

• And show them what they could do in the program going forward to make up for any shortfall. That could help encourage the kind of behavioral shift they want to see.

Towards that last end, BA is promoting several scenarios for earning status – like earning Silver after:

1x Geneva in Euro Traveller (economy), with bag 343
1x New York in Club World (business) 3,240
1x Singapore in World Traveller Plus (premium economy) 2,561
1 x BAH package to Barbados in World Traveller (economy) 1,429
£300 spent on Sustainable Aviation Fuels 300

And earning Gold with just 16 business class roundtrips – and a vacation package!

13x return flights to Geneva (e.g. a commuter) in Club Europe (business class) 9,971
3x return flights to Club World (business class) to JFK 9,720
A British Airways Holidays package to Tenerife in Euro Traveller economy) 759

It’s disingenuous to suggest this is good for members. I have never seen a program move to revenue-based qualification and make their program better for elite flyers still earning status after the change. But it’s not going to change things for everyone.

What Members Should Do Now

Consider whether these 2025 tier bonuses will help them keep their status. There may be nothing they need to do for a year.

However some people should become free agents, buying on schedule and price or quality (pick Singapore to fly to Singapore and Southeast, Emirates for Dubai, Mideast and South Asia, maybe Delta/Virgin across the Pond).

And other folks might prefer to earn oneworld emerald status through a different program. BA’s Gold doesn’t provide that many benefits over and above oneworld emerald, BA Silver not that many benefits beyond oneworld sapphire. And note that a discounted business class ticket on BA booked through Alaska will earn 250% bonus qualifying miles in addition to flown miles (distance-based).

What British Airways Should Have Considered Instead

British Airways offered a lot of relatively cheap connecting business class fares from Europe to the U.S. over London Heathrow. And that meant they were investing in customers whose business they want (the customers were buying fares BA was selling!) but they don’t want to spend as much rewarding. I suspect that there are also poorly-aligned internal incentives between the airline and loyalty program that may be driving some of the changes.

There’s nothing magical about distance-based status-earning, but revenue-based status isn’t magic either. A 400 pound one-way flight from London to Paris isn’t the same thing as a 400 pound one-way from London to Los Angeles or Hong Kong, yet the program treats them the same. In any case, the value of a loyalty program is in shifting wallet share, earning incremental business the airline wouldn’t otherwise get. It’s not highest gross spend, but spend as a result of the loyalty investment.

It was pretty clear that Delta realized they made a mistake with their fall 2023 announcement of changes to elite status qualifying. They got scared by the response from customers cancelling their co-brand Amex cards, and significantly rolled back the adjustments. And they didn’t revert to them for 2025 either. I guess BA is following Delta’s playbook here – admit defeat without actually saying so, and then see whether the furor dies down and you want to move fully ahead or not later.

But what remains most striking to me here is that in trying to get more card spend, more vacation package bookings, and more ticket spend, they aren’t giving customers any carrot in the process – just a stick.

The move here reminds me of when United Airlines CFO John Rainey said in 2012, “We had certain groups in this program that were over-entitled if you will.” Or when, in August 2002 as Vice President at US Airways, Ben Baldanza said that customers buying inexpensive tickets (that the airline was offering for sale) didn’t represent the kind of loyalty they were looking for.

It may be true that British Airways was overly generous for earning status. That remains to be seen – they also have a lot of premium seats to fill. But as they make the program tougher for status-earning, why not own that but deliver more to the customer at the same time? Declare that status is exclusive – but also more valuable than ever?