We are now just six months away from the major British Airways Tier Point system changes. The way Tier Points are collected and tracked is about to change!
There has been a lot of confusion on this topic, so we thought we’d give you a six-month reminder!
This change has some disadvantages, especially if you’re trying to maintain Gold or Gold Guestlist status. However, the changes will make it easier for families to travel together. If you previously all had different starting dates for your tier point years, you will now all be aligned.
According to BA, the change is intended to “simplify the journey for Executive Club Members by aligning all Members to the same Tier Point Collection Year, making it easier to manage travel plans for yourself, colleagues, and family.”
In this post:
How Is the Tier Point System Changing?
At the moment, every member of the British Airways Executive Club has a unique Tier Point Collection year.
Your current Tier Point collection year will be one of 12 starting on the 8th day of a calendar month. This month is based on which month you took your first flight after joining (if you joined after the 8th) or the following month (if you joined after the 8th).
The changes mean that every BA Executive Club member’s Tier status will reset at the SAME time.
The new Tier Point collection period will begin on 1st April and end on 31st March every year. You will change to this new system on 1st April 2025.
The Transition!
Here’s how the transition will work:
- Your Tier Point collection year will end on 31st March 2025, regardless of when your current year started.
- A Tier Point Adjustment will be added to your Executive Club account during your new Tier Point Collection Year.
- If you earn enough points to upgrade or renew your Tier status, your new tier will be valid until 30th April 2026.
What Does This Mean for My Status?
If you earn enough Tier Points to upgrade or renew your status during your new Tier Point year (April 2024–March 2025), your status will be valid until 30th April, 2026. You will have an extra month beyond the typical year to enjoy your benefits.
BA has tried to reassure you by putting out this statement: “We’ll make the change gradually, and you can continue to enjoy the benefits you’ve earned in your current Tier Point collection period. You’ll also have the same opportunity to renew or upgrade your Tier status whilst we transition your Membership to the new Tier Point collection period”.
Example Scenario
Let’s say your current collection year started on 9th July 2024 and would typically run until 8th July 2025. However, due to the changes, this tier point year will end on 31st March 2025.
Tier Points earned between 1st April 2024 and 8th July 2024 will carry over into the shortened collection period, so you don’t lose out on any Tier Points.
How to Check Your Tier Point Collection Year
Some people are more affected by these changes. If you don’t know when your Tier Point collection year ends, now’s the time to find out. Here’s how to do it:
- Sign in to the BA Executive Club
- Go to ‘My Account’ by clicking your name in the top right-hand corner.
- Go to the section showing how many Tier Points you need to get to the next tier.
- This section will also show the month your collection period ends.
Once you know the month your collection period ends, you can use this table to see how the changes will affect you:
Month | Current Period End Date | New Collection Period | Tier Point Adjustment: Tier Points from These Dates Will be Added | New Status Valid Until |
---|---|---|---|---|
January | 8th January 2025 | 9th January 2025 – 31st March 2025 | 1st April 2024 – 8th January 2025 | 30th April 2026 |
February | 8th February 2025 | 9th February 2025 – 31st March 2025 | 1st April 2024 – 8th February 2025 | 30th April 2026 |
March | 8th March 2025 | 9th March 2025 – 31st March 2025 | 1st April 2024 – 8th March 2025 | 30th April 2026 |
April | 8th April 2024 | 9th April 2024 – 31st March 2025 | 1st April – 8th April 2024 | 30th April 2026 |
May | 8th May 2024 | 9th May 2024 – 31st March 2025 | 1st April – 8th May 2024 | 30th April 2026 |
June | 8th June 2024 | 9th June 2024 – 31st March 2025 | 1st April – 8th June 2024 | 30th April 2026 |
July | 8th July 2024 | 9th July 2024 – 31st March 2025 | 1st April – 8th July 2024 | 30th April 2026 |
August | 8th August 2024 | 9th August 2024 – 31st March 2025 | 1st April – 8th August 2024 | 30th April 2026 |
September | 8th September 2024 | 9th September 2024 – 31st March 2025 | 1st April – 8th September 2024 | 30th April 2026 |
October | 8th October 2024 | 9th October 2024 – 31st March 2025 | 1st April – 8th October 2024 | 30th April 2026 |
November | 8th November 2024 | 9th November 2024 – 31st March 2025 | 1st April – 8th November 2024 | 30th April 2026 |
December | 8th December 2024 | 9th December 2024 – 31st March 2025 | 1st April – 8th December 2024 | 30th April 2026 |
Another Example:
New Members of the BA Executive Club
If you’ve joined the BA Executive Club and you’re wondering if this will affect you, here’s what you need to know:
The number of Tier Points you have determines your Executive Club status—whether you reach Bronze, Silver, or Gold.
With this new system, you’ll know exactly how long you have to earn enough Tier Points to upgrade or renew your status, and it will be easier to align your travel plans with family and friends. This does NOT change the way Avios are earned or spent in any way. Tier points are separate.
Your first collection year will still run for a full 12 months. However, starting from April 2025, your Tier Point collection year will align with the new April–March cycle.
If you haven’t tracked your first flight yet, any flights tracked after 29th February 2024 will not extend to your current Tier Point collection period.
If you are yet to join, your collection period will run from the day you join until 31st March.
You Can Read More About Tier Points Here >>>
Other Things to Note
- Your status will not drop before the expiry date currently shown on your Executive Club membership card.
- If you earn a large number of Tier Points before 31st March 2024, you may be at a disadvantage, as these points won’t count toward the new post-April 2025 system.
- If you haven’t travelled much from April 2024 until the launch of the new system on 31st March, you will be at a disadvantage, especially if you are trying to maintain the Gold Guest List. Based on your travel patterns, you could lose out on getting the 3000 points to maintain your status, which would typically qualify you. You will then have to qualify again by earning 5000 points.
- The Tier Points added in the adjustment will not count towards your lifetime allowance.
- The validity of any existing Cabin Upgrade Vouchers or Companion Vouchers will not change.
Speculation
As well as the positives of this change, there has been widespread speculation in frequent flyer forums. Speculation includes:
- The new changes will make Tier Point promos easier for partners like AMEX.
- The demand and prices for Tier Point flights may increase before 1st April as many people do Tier Point runs to get their last Tier Points before the deadline each year. March will become the new ‘Tier Point run month’.
- The Tier Point grace period will change from 7 weeks to 1 month, meaning it will be much harder to get two years’ status for the price of 1 without downgrading.
Final Thoughts
Although these changes can initially seem complicated, hopefully, this post has smoothed things out a bit. Planning ahead will help you make the most of your Tier Points and benefits.
Is this change a positive change or a negative change for you? Let us know in the comments.
26 comments
I am currently fighting BA as they have not awarded me my double tier points for a trip I made in September. My year ran out on Sept 8th, but despite them saying the points would be added back in they haven’t been, and it’s hard work trying to get a resolution
I am still fighting BA since 3.1.24 for Avios and tier points for a return World Traveler Plus return flight on
18.12.23 booked 24.1.23. I have contacted them regularly each month by phone, complaint, email and letter. I received my first email stating I am out of time to receive the Avios or Tier Points.
I find that Twitter (X) is a good resource for resolving issues such as this. Have you tried there?
There is no change to the collection of Tier Points. You will earn the same as always on a BA flight. This is not a great post tbh. It’s a re-hash of previously posted info, and is not that clear IMO.
We put a lot of effort into producing high-quality articles, which are freely available for all our readers, yourself included. While we always welcome constructive feedback, your comment seemed more focused on expressing dissatisfaction without offering any real suggestions for improvement.
Not every article will resonate with every reader, and we fully appreciate that. However, we strive to create valuable content that appeals to a wide audience. Given that you’re a regular subscriber to our newsletters, I’d like to believe that you generally enjoy the content we produce.
Moving forward, unless you have constructive feedback to offer, we would kindly suggest that you refrain from leaving negative comments for the sake of it and simply scroll past content that may not be relevant to you.
The substantive point at the beginning of my post was the reason for posting. The article states in paragraph 1 “The way Tier Points are collected and tracked is about to change!” This is not correct. The way tier points are collected is not about to change.
You’re being pedantic. The way Tier Points are being collected IS changing and that is the end of the discussion.
I’m into my short test now, started a couple of weeks ago. Where can I see what my “tier point adjustment” will be? I’d like to know what I should be planning to do, in order to keep my status.
“short year” sorry
To calculate your individual tier point adjustment look at your transaction history from April 1st 2024 and add your tier points awarded from then until your current year end. That will give you a figure. It took about 10 days for my adjustment to appear in my account. All my points were present & correct.
Assuming your year ended 8th October like mine did. I would imagine our adjusted tier points will show in the next couple of days. Keep checking your executive club account where it will show soon. Then you can plan from there.
Thanks Eugene.
My tier point year ended October 8 and got reset down to zero on October 9. Will some of these (April 1 2024 to October 8 2024) be added back as the new membership year is from April 01 to March 31?
I am in the same collection year as you and mine were added today. If you check your account now it should be topped up with your adjusted tier points.
You then have between now and 31st March 25 to qualify for whatever status you are aiming for. Then from 1st April 25 onwards, it will be your new collection year, along with everyone else.
I ‘m also in the same collection year – they credited 335 points into my account. However, for my recent flight on 7 October LHR to DUB, they put 94 Avios but 0 tier points. I’ve written to them today asking them to credit this as every point for me is needed. I think because it was posted on 10th October, it could have been missed by mistake. The DUB – LHR was correctly credited at 10 TP.
I’ve just returned from a double tier point trip LHR – BRU – LHR as I included a car, all this for 6 nights. The LHR leg has been credited to me as 5 TP, I”m waiting for the BRU – LHR to be credited. Will they then add the double TP on? Or how is this done?
And I thought this was an excellent article as I have been struggling to understand it!
Hi Dawn,
Thanks for your kind words on the article. It’s clear there are a lot of us out there who needs help to fully understand all of this.
The way Tier Points work is that your flights are usually credited within 3 days of travel. Then once you have completed your last flight, your double Tier Points are usually credited within 14 days.
Today I had double Tier Points credit just 7 days after returning but I have heard of others waiting months.
What is the situation with soft landings? I’m currently Gold and not likely to renew before my current TP collection year ends in January though I may make a concerted effort before 30th April 2025. Assuming I don’t make it, will my soft landing to Silver only apply until the 30th April 2025 or will it apply through the next TP collection year until April 2026? TIA
If you are currently Gold, your very next year should be Silver assuming you don’t qualify for Gold before March.
What is your current collection year expiry date?
Kris’s comment is spot on the headline was alarming and my immediate thought was BA were switching to spend based tier point collection. Anyone who hasnt grasped the changes to tier point collection years at this stage is obviously way behind the curve.
I am certain many people still do not grasp it. As confirmed by the constant comments on the forums and social media. Hence why we thought it would be a good time to publish a summary article.
Good reminder article, thanks. On the April-Your Current Anniversary date Adjusted TPs rollover, these are done on the 20th of the month after your anniversary.
Do I like it or not? At first it seemed an admin hassle for customers for something that benefitted BA and not us, as I didn’t see any benefit for us other than the “nice to have” benefit of all our family BAEC dates aligning, but that was no great issue anyway. If it seems that Amex and other partners will find it easier and therefore more attractive to do TP promotions as a result of this expiry dates alignment, however, then I’m all in… except for the price spike possibly for the March TP runs ofc 🙂
I was very fortunate to do a BA Holidays Double TPs trip with Qatar Airways to KL thru Doha in early April this year, so benefitted from 8 x 140TPs, which rolled over as part of the TP Adjustment into my new year starting 8Aug. I can see if I had done that in March I would have felt annoyed.
Thanks for your kind comment, Martin.
My year ended 8th of October and as of 11am this morning my adjusted tier points were still not there. Your comment made me check again and sure enough 900 tier points have arrived! It may be the closest working day to the 20th.
Great work with the Qatar flights. That sounds like a great trip (especially the Tier Points earned)
My objection is that as a February member, although I have already retained my Gold status for 2024-25, which will now last until 31 Mar 26, any Tier Points earned between 09 Feb and 31 Mar 25 will effectively be wasted. Although we are assured that any ‘status’ earned in that 7-week year (!) will be recognised, as I have already retained Gold and can hardly get from a standing start to Gold Guest List in 7 weeks then that is why earned Tier Points will be of no value. I’ve already booked two Reward flights in this period and a trip with Star Alliance, but I would have preferred to be earning Tier Points that would be useful.
As far as I can see, other than the collection year being made standard for everyone, this has the bonus for BA of forcing people, keen to maintain their status (and thus likely to take a tier point run) to do this in the off-peak period of January to March each year, thereby increasing the posteriors on seats at a relatively low demand part of the year and flattening out the demand cycle. I will hand it to BA that this is quite clever on their part.
I would imagine the proportion of passengers flying to simply keep status is quite small. It would make a difference to BA but probably not too much.
You are right in another sense though. If everyone trying to achieve status in the first 3 months of the year then we are likely to not see the usual EX-EU prices.
Those travellers will need to be better prepared and fly earlier on.
I’m a bit confused . I actually haven’t yet joined the BA program.
I was planning my first flight, a return flight leaving on 30 March 2025 and then returning on 16 April.
Will I have a very short year that starts from the time I take my first flight? (30-31 March 2025)
And then Tier points from my return flight on 16 April will be count towards the new year?
Will I still get the benefit of both those flights counting towards my status for the new 2025 year?
Or will I lose the Tier points from the first flight?