As part of the major changes to the British Airways Executive Club rebranding to ‘The British Airways Club’ on 1st April, there is now a new way to earn Tier Points without flying.
You can earn up to 1,000 Tier Points per membership year by purchasing Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) credits. You can do this via cash or Avios and effectively buy tier points.
In this post:
What Are Sustainable Aviation Fuels?
If you’ve seen the term SAF pop up more often recently and wondered what it means, here’s what you need to know. SAF is an alternative to traditional jet fuel made from synthetic aviation fuels, aviation biofuels, or recycled carbon aviation fuels.
When burned, they produce carbon dioxide levels similar to conventional aviation fuels, but the carbon dioxide generated is already part of the carbon cycle and not extracted from the ground specifically for creating aviation fuel.
The end result is a reduction in carbon emissions compared to traditional jet fuel. SAF is still in short supply and accounts for just 2.7% of British Airways’ total fuel use. BA was legally required to use a minimum of 2% SAF by 2025, which will increase to 10% by 2030.
The Cost and Value
Reminder: 1,000 Tier Points do not have the value they used to. You now need 1,500 for Bronze, 7,500 for Silver and 20,000 for Gold.
You can spend a maximum of £1,000 on SAF contributions each membership year (1st April to 31st March) or each £1 you spend on SAF, you will be awarded 10 Avios and 1 tier point.
You can track the number of Avios and Tier Points you would earn on the SAF calculator on the landing page:
You can also purchase this amount using 125,000 Avios.
However, you would get 10,000 Avios back paying with Avios, making it 115,000 Avios, which is still a very poor value.
Spending £1,000 or 125,000 Avios is equivalent to saving 4.31 tonnes of CO₂e. You can track the amount you spend on SAF contributions on your British Airways Club statement. You can also look at the Tier Point awarding tracker on the landing page:
When Would Purchasing SAF be Worth It?
Forget about Tier Points for a moment. If you would consider contributing to SAF without your transaction being able to earn Tier Points, that’s a personal decision.
If you’re purchasing SAF to increase your Tier Point balance, this is only really worth it if you’re short of just a few tier points needed to reach the next tier without flying. Even then, you need to think that each Tier Point is £1 and how much reaching the next Tier in The British Airways Club is worth for you. If you’re using Avios to purchase SAF for this purpose, is the transaction the best use of your Avios?
Where is Your Money Going?
The SAF transaction is processed by BA’s partner Chooose.
According to the T&Cs:
“When you contribute to SAF today, you are doing so by purchasing the attributes associated with a given amount of unblended, physical SAF which British Airways has flown or will fly on in the next 12 months. The sale of these attributes provides you, a buyer, with a claim to the carbon reduction benefit associated with the purchased amount of SAF“.
How This Differs from Other Airlines
- Iberia Plus: The revamped Club Iberia loyalty programme offers plenty of ways to earn tier points from non-flight activities. At least these are live, as opposed to BA, which has launched the new British Airways Club without revealing details of how to earn tier points with AMEX! With Iberia, you can earn up to 30% of your status requirement through non-flying partners.
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Air France-KLM: Instead of relying on a separate platform or asking members to manually “boost” their balance post-booking, Air France and KLM have integrated SAF donations directly into the flight booking process.
It would be good to see more BA partner activities count towards status!
Other Things to Note
- There is a £10 minimum per transaction.
- Your tier points and Avios should be credited to your account within 72 hours.
Final Words
There’s no doubt that contributing to Sustainable Aviation Fuel is a good thing in principle. It’s great to see BA making it part of their net zero push.
Before you rush to start spending Avios, you should know that while it’s great to have more ways to earn Tier Points, this is arguably one of the worst-value opportunities unless you’re in a very specific situation. Unless you’re just short of the next tier and have no travel planned before your membership year ends, spending £1,000 or 125,000 Avios for 1,000 Tier Points is hard to justify.
It’s up to you whether you want to contribute to SAF. If you do this, it’s best not to do it solely to earn tier points but more for the environmental benefits.
Go to the dedicated SAF British Airways landing page here >>>
What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments below:
6 comments
It’s just another failing on BAs part as well as another way for them to demonstrate the level of their contempt for it’s frequent flyers.
The Avios rates are laughable and I view this ( true or not, based on the recent behaviour) as nothing more than a, poorly valued way for them to dress it up pretty to get their customers to part fund a commodity they’re now obligated to purchase a minimum volume of
THE MOST POWERFUL GOVERNMENTS IN THE WORLD CAN’T SOLVE HOMELESSNESS. BUT THEY CAN CHANGE THE EARTHS TEMPERATURE IF YOU PAY MORE TAXES….
Are tier point requirements showing on accounts accurate yet or will it take time for IT to catch up? Mine shows 3,500 to retain Bronze.
Michelle / Katrina
BA seem to have extended status in some cases. I was due to expire in September 25 on an August 25 card but my Silver has been extended to April 26.
Apologies if you have already covered this.
Mine too – seems to be a common “generous” gesture! Good news.
This is definitely the most foolhardy way of spending your cash.
£1000 will buy a lot more than a 4 ton carbon offset. Think £40/ton if you think that will be the best way to help people. (hint: you can do more good by spending in many other ways).
Avios at 10p each is lunacy.
Spend £1000 on a BA holiday and get 1000 tp.
This is really a way that fools can subsidise BA’s SAF obligation and therefore help them make about £800 more profit (after costs).
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