How easily or cheaply can you get BA The Club silver status now and is it worth it?

After the latest changes to the Club, which I wrote about here, and the tier point year about to end, I thought now was a good time for a quick dive into what the changes mean in reality. A couple of years ago, before all the changes, I would have been feverishly planning my trips for the next tier point year at this time of year to make sure I kept my GGL or Gold status. Now, it is not really a consideration. However, this year I did manage to earn over the tier points needed for silver, even with far less BA travel than usual.

Is it worth it?

In the old days it may have been worth pushing for Gold, but now with the associated costs, I honestly don’t think it is really worth it for the First Wing, some seats at the front and access to the First lounge. If you fly from T3, the Cathay First lounge was worth it, but now they are often refusing access to BA members due to capacity, so even that is not guaranteed.

The sweet spot is really Silver in my opinion. If you have Gold, hopefully you should get one of BA’s unofficial soft landings to Silver. While there were rumours they may do away with this, as of now, there appear to be no firm plans to end the scheme.

If you would like to keep silver for the odd BA flights (even on Avios) then here are some ways to achieve silver from 1 April 2026.

So why is Silver the best option? 

Silver gives you two key elements that are worth having if you will be flying BA a few times, lounge access and free seat selection at the time of booking. With seat selection on long haul costing well over £100 most of the time, this can save a considerable amount of money. While I am not a fan of the main Galleries Club South at Heathrow, the B Gates lounge and the Gatwick lounge are both pleasant spaces to wait.

Silver also comes with:

• Free seat selection on British Airways flights from the time of booking for everyone on your booking, excluding exit row seats on long haul flights
• A checked baggage allowance of two pieces in economy for everyone on your booking, except on the Basic fare, which is hand baggage only with no checked baggage included. This benefit also applies to others travelling with you on the booking. Not available on group rate bookings
• A weight allowance of 32kg (71lb) per checked bag in any travel class. This benefit also applies to others travelling with you on the booking. Not available on group rate bookings
• A direct silver line to customer support staff 
• Silver Members receive 10% discount on almost all purchases at The Wine Flyer.
• Priority on standby and waiting lists.
• 50% bonus on base Avios for flights with British Airways, Iberia, American Airlines, and Japan Airlines.
• Earn 8 Avios per £1 spent with BA and American Airlines versus 5 Avios for Blue members.
• Collect 7 Avios per €1 with Iberia
• Use Club World or business class check-in desks with BA and other oneworld members.
• Priority boarding on all BA flights (except at London City Airport)

Silver needs either 7500 tier points or 50 return flights. 

How can you earn tier points?

These figures are all from 1 April 2026 as there are a few improvements from then:

• Buying SAF – buy up to 2000 TP per year at a rate of 2 Tier Points per £1
• British Airways Premium Plus American Express card – earn up to 2500 TP for spending up to £25,000 (post 1 April 26, exact details are yet to be published)
• Flying with BA (earning does not include the tax  and charges element of ticket) at 1TP per £1 spent
• Flying with oneworld partners at varying rates
• Flying with American and Iberia where you will also get bonus cabin points each way:
  • Economy short haul: 75 tier points
  • Business class short haul: 175 tier points
  • Economy long haul: 150 tier points
  • Premium economy long haul: 275 tier points
  • Business class long haul: 500 tier points
  • First class long haul: 650 tier points
• British Airways Holidays – £1 = 1 tier point on British Airways Holidays “Flight + Hotel” and “Flight + Car” bookings. Tier points will be split evenly between the number of people on the booking. All passengers (except infants under two) who add a British Airways Club membership number will receive tier points. You also get the cabin bonuses on the flights
• Cabin bonus on BA flights: each way
  • Euro Traveller: 75 extra tier points
  • Club Europe: 175 extra tier points
  • World Traveller: 150 extra tier points
  • World Traveller Plus: 275 extra tier points
  • Club World: 500 extra tier points
  • First: 650 extra tier points
• Extra baggage fees – 2TP per £1
• Seat selection fees – 2 TP per £1
• Bonus points on fare types each way (the standard fares do not have any additional TPs, these are the same as the cabin bonus quoted above).

When you see the list, it makes you laugh that BA introduced this as a way to make things simpler!

The simplest way to get Silver

While there are other simple ways to get silver, such as 50 flights, this assumes that you want the minimum hassle, and you won’t spend enough on flights to make status on its own. You also don’t want to spend lots of time flying around to get points, and don’t mind paying extra to make sure you achieve silver.

• SAF – 1000 TPs (£500)
• BA Premium Plus card maximum spend 2500 TPs (cost £300, but you may have paid that anyway, in which case zero cost)
• One first class return to New York for £2664 (currently available in November and December). Cabin bonus 1300 return plus 964 for the fare element (yes, that low). However, if you add a car and make it a holiday, this brings the total to £2757 and you will earn 2757 TP plus the 1300 bonus. You could also choose to add a hotel for £900 instead of a car, rather than buying SAF, but it will be more expensive.
• Total Tier points 7557 for £3257 with only one return trip

The cheapest ways to get silver if you plan to fly a couple of times a year

If you are more concerned about spending as little as possible but want to do some flying, here are some alternatives:

• BA Premium Plus card: maximum spend
  • 2500 TPs (assumes you may have paid that anyway, so zero cost)
• Semi-flex Club Europe: The cheapest Club Europe return I found was for Dublin. In semi-flexible business class, it costs £366 return.
  • This gives you 278 TP on the fare element + 275 bonus on the cabin for semi flex = 554TP
• BA Holidays:
  • Club Europe – for the cheapest 2 night break it costs £353 for the delightful Yotel in Glasgow based on two sharing. This gives you 353 for spend plus 175 cabin bonus = 528 TP. You could gain more TP as a solo traveller as all the hotel cost would be on your BA Club account for the hotel room. So BA Holidays will usually be better value than purchasing a semi flex flight and paying for your own hotel. 
  • Club World: if you don’t mind going long haul this can be a way to earn TP with less flights and similar costs. The cheapest 3 night break in Club was £2029 which would give you 2029TP + 1000 cabin bonus = 3029.
• Flying on a partner airline: If you can get a cheap ex Dublin or mainland Europe fare, then flying on Aer Lingus, Finnair or Qatar can give a decent return with 25% of the miles flown in TPs for standard fares (R,I) and 50% of miles for flexible fares (J,C,D). Japanair is another option although they usually are more expensive.
  • If we look at Heathrow to Bangkok on Finnair, as an example, it will be around £4,000 in D class which will give you 6,000TP. Longer flights, such as Australia, can give better returns, but given the current Middle East situation, I think it is unlikely you will get any decent fares for a while. 
• You can top up small amounts with
  • £20 each way for club Europe seats to give 80TP per trip
  • SAF at £1 per 2 TP
  • Upgrades – these also earn TPs from the cash element. There is not much information about the rate of earning. This was previously 1TP per £1, and it was not mentioned in the recent changes, so I assume it remains the same. This does not apply to airport upgrades. You should also get the cabin bonus. 

So if we assume you are an average traveller and did one long haul business class holiday trip for £3500pp you would get 4500 TP +2500 from BA Amex, you would then have 7000 TP. Add on a European short break or semi flex for £370 giving a total of 7545. Obviously, you could do a cheaper Club World trip and have a couple of short breaks instead.

If you look at the simplest example above, flying on a cheap first-class BA holiday will most likely work out cheaper than the options in this section. However, not everyone wants to go to New York. However, I can recommend it at Christmas time when it is cheapest as they really know how to do Christmas decorations!

You can check how much you will earn on the BA flight calculator

Have you found some good ways to get BA Tier points cheaply? Let us know in the comments below.