I have had quite a few people asking about how to make status, and with all the cancellations due to weather there may be a few more! So I thought I would do a quick round-up.
If your flight gets cancelled and you route a different way or don’t fly at all, it’s worth speaking to BA by phone. They have something called original route credit for last-minute changes, where they will usually award you the original number of tier points you were due to earn when flights are cancelled on the day. It is also worth asking if you didn’t fly at all due to a BA cancellation as, again sometimes, they will allow you to make your status anyway.
If you don’t need the full 80 tier points on a standard European return you could do one way Club, one way economy. Economy tier points start from 5TP up to 20TP.
In this post:
Requirements for BA status
Until 31 December 2022 you can renew or upgrade your status for 75% of the usual requirement. This no matter what the start date of your TP year, you must have got the full discounted tier points by 31 December. Note your account will not show you have made status until the end of the year at the reduced level.
So this makes the requirements:
- Bronze: 225 Tier Points or 18 eligible flights
- Silver: 450 Tier Points or 37 eligible flights (Silver members with renewal dates July-September
2022 will given a 50% reduction in the amount of tier points needed – from 600 to 300 TPs) - Gold: 1125 Tier Points
- Gold Guest List: 2250 to renew or 3750 to earn it for the first time
From 1 January 2023, these thresholds will revert to:
• Bronze: 300 Tier Points or 25 eligible flights
• Silver: 600 Tier Points or 50 eligible flights
• Gold: 1500 Tier Points
• Gold Guest List: 5000 Tier Points to qualify or 3000 to renew
It is also worth bearing in mind that you will also need a set number of eligible flights on BA to make or renew status. That’s 2 for Bronze and 4 for Silver and Gold.
These must be:
- ‘Marketed‘ means the flight will have a BA flight number (in your itinerary or on your ticket).
- ‘Operated‘ means the aircraft that you travel on is a British Airways aircraft (including franchises and BACityflyer).
- ‘Marketed and operated by Iberia‘ means the flight will have an IB flight number and the aircraft you travel on is an Iberia aircraft (including franchises).
Reward bookings and agency or industry discounted bookings are not eligible.
General principles
- European short-haul PLUS (the longest) flights in Club Europe get you 160 tier points return
- Book it as a five day BA holiday (car hire or hotel), and that gets you 320 tier points
- If routeing to the west coast of the US or Hawaii, consider adding a change of aircraft in New York to fly transcontinental. That will add an extra 140 tier points each way and is usually the same price.
Here is the list of short haul PLUS destinations:
- Algiers (need a visa)
- Antalya
- Athens
- Bucharest
- Catania
- Chania
- Corfu
- Dalaman
- Funchal
- Gran Canaria
- Heraklion / Crete
- Istanbul
- Kalamata
- Kefalonia
- Kos
- Lanzarote
- Larnaca
- Malta
- Marrakech
- Mykonos
- Paphos
- Ponta Delgada
- Preveza Lefkada
- Reykjavik
- Rhodes
- Santorini
- Skiathos
- Sofia
- Tenerife
- Terceira Island
- Thessaloniki
- Tirana
Last-minute tier points runs in December
If you fancied going between Christmas and New year:
All in business class from London:
- Day trips to Manchester for £318 (80 TP return)
- Day trips to Newcastle for £288 (80 TP return)
- Amsterdam return from £384
- Hamburg from £381 return
- Sofia (160 TP) from £529 return
Helsinki to Lisbon 280 tier points (Finnair) £825
Early 2023 (all business class)
- London on British Airways to
- Sofia from £276 in March (160TP)
- Athens from £376 (160TP)
- Istanbul £344 (160TP)
- Luxembourg £174
- Edinburgh £189
- Dublin £193
- Helsinki to Malaga £532 (Finnair) (280 Tier points)
In the next 6 months
In business class return (positioning flights not included in TPs)
- Oslo – Dubai (400 TPs) £1,484 Qatar Airways
- Sofia – Dubai (400 TPs) £1,088 Qatar Airways
- Sofia – Singapore (560 TPs) £1,655 Qatar Airways
- Dublin – New York £1,284 (360 TPs) British Airways
- Dublin – Los Angeles £1,497 (640 TP if routed via New York) British Airways
28 comments
Michele, regarding the line “Note your account will not show you have made status until the end of the year at the reduced level.” This hasn’t been the case for me or my wife. I currently have 1220 tier points and my account has already been upgraded to gold, emails received etc. It seems that much like the double tier points issues BA has fixed that particular bug.
Sorry I meant for renewals
How does one make 280TP for HEL-LIS on AY??
Because two European routes on Finnair Helsinki to Malaga and Lisbon are over the limit for long haul so 2 x140 TP in business class.
A very useful summary but it is surely slightly misleading to say ‘short haul plus’ flights get you 160 points. There are not many european destinations that do, mainly eastern europe plus Malta. Points are based on distance and eg Catania gets you 160 points but Palermo only gets you 80 points (unless you do the BA Holidays offer).
Like Dan I have been reawarded Gold at 1080 prior to the extra BA Holidays points being credited.
That’s why it says short haul PLUS. It’s a distinct category of short haul that gets the extra tier points. So it’s not normal short haul.
I took a trip on QR/BA from Singapore to get back to Gold at the reduced levels (SIN-DOH-BCN-LHR-DOH-SIN in J).
Despite being super careful at online check-in to ensure I used by BA number (and took screenshots to prove it just in case) my Tier Points and AVIOS haven’t been credited.
Looking at the boarding passes, they all have a QR frequent flyer number (which I didn’t set up) and, having got access using “Forgetten Password” I can now see the miles have been credited to this new QR account.
Is there anyone I can reach out to at BA to fix this? As said, I took screenshots showing that the ticket definitely had my BA number (due to past BA experience). I don’t have time (or the money!) to do another set of flights before the end of the year.
Thanks in advance.
I think you will need to speak to Qatar first as BA can’t do anything while it has that number on. Hopefully they should be able to change it to a BA number. Then I’d submit a claim online with BA under missing Avios.
Hello, “you must have got the full discounted tier points by 31 December”, I take it this means earned but does it also mean credited to exec account by then?
I ask as Im having terrible problems getting my BA holiday double tier points credited, outward flights were fine, return mid Nov still not showing. Emailed the exec club social to be assured the missing tier points were now credited.
However on logging in to my account not only were the extra tier points still missing but to my horror my last flight was now showing “flight reversal” and the tier points and avios for this flight were now highlighted red and negative! Contacting BA actually reduced my tier points instead of increasing. Im still waiting for an answer while the clock is ticking …
It doesn’t matter when they are credited as the date of the flight is the same. If for any reason it doesn’t work as it credited late, BA would sort that out for you.
The DUB-NYC, I don’t see for that price, can you give some date examples please?
Thanks Michelle. Not relevant to this year’s status but next year for me. The holiday double-points offer rules say for travel before end Sept-23. Does this mean departure before that date or return journey completed? Double points will be the decider on a Ex-EU routing or not. Thanks.
Depart by
15-19 Jun DUB-EWR £1277 via LHR – or £1246 via MAD
I have accrued 1290 points but my account and Gold Card status is till showing I need 1500.
My Gold Card renewal date is not until March 2023 so I assumed that as it was not this year the reduced threshold of 1125 does not apply to me.
Any help?
It does apply. It’s because BA don’t have the IT to correct this. Come 1 January it should show you as Gold.
Well, it’s no surprise, but here we are at Jan 2nd and despite exceeding the reduced threshold for gold in 2022 my gold has not been renewed.
I’m pretty sure this was only for those that had renewal deadlines in 2022, mine is not due until March 2023. Anyone else see the same thing?
I wouldn’t worry. BA will update it in due course. Given they had an IT failure yesterday and how long it takes them to do things anyway, I suspect it will take a few days for everything to be adjusted. I don’t know anyone seeing the update yet.
How does the eligible flights interact with the renewals. I have the tier points double points promotion plus another one way lhr to Glasgow. So I sit over the reduced silver threshold however do I need to make a fourth flight by 31 December?
Yes there is no reduction in flights required I’m afraid.
Hi Michele hoping you can advise me. I was due to fly back from ABZ TO LHR on Sunday night but my flight was cancelled and I was rebooked onto one Monday Morning which was also cancelled that evening and the next flight I could book online was at 7pm yesterday evening which also ended up cancelled and I had work so could not wait. As I could not get through, and there was a flight from Inverness the next morning as the plane night stops there overnight I took a train there and booked a Avios seat from there to LHR. I asked BA to refund my booking but I was wondering given the situation could I ask them to award the tier points I would have earned. I also had to downgrade from club to economy as no business seats were available until 4pm Monday and I could not wait until then. Would BA also refund me the difference between economy and business even though i chose to downgrade in order to have more chance of getting a flight and, my expenses to get to Inverness or is it better to claim on my travel insurance . BA did not message me until 1am when I had already traveled to Inverness and was asleep having had no reply before on twitter, offering me a flight from Aberdeen which was no good as I had no time to travel back . Sorry I am new to this whole claim thing so not sure best way of going about it. thanks in advance for any help you can give
It’s a slightly grey area in that they did not reply until after you had left. But in terms of EU261 I would have normally expected them to cover your expenses for the new flight. I would also expect them to give original routes credit for the tier points. The downgrade is slightly tricky as you obviously chose that to get home quicker so I’m not sure EU or UK as it is now 261 would apply. I’d certainly try to claim something for it from BA as I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect you to wait until 1am for an answer if you get back. I’d see what BA says but be mindful if there is a maximum time frame for claiming from your insurance.
Hi Michele thank you for replying so quickly. I just spoke to a lovely lady on the gold line who has sent my request for original route credit to the back office team and has also requested that I be awarded the club teir points for that leg as that was what I was booked under. She was also concerned that I had to wait till 1am for a reply back. One last and a bit of a daft question and would not be surprised if it was a no but would i still get a refund for the flight I did not fly and had to travel to another airport to get back, even though I am hopefully getting ORC or will I still be refunded given the disruption and there being no flights from PM sunday until yesterday as I explained to the agent . Only asking as the call centre agent asked which threw me slightly. Thank you and I have a month to claim on my insurance but will also lodge a claim with BA also
If you claim the new flight that you booked yourself back then they would not refund the old ones as the new one would be the equivalent to that. But I would certainly try for the refund between Club and economy. As I said bit of a grey area but given the 1am response I think they should refund that.
Thank you Michele, the new flight was one I booked using Avios and my original was a revenue booking so I was not sure if they would refund me the money for the return flight on my original booking which I paid for. The flight i have claimed for is the return flight on this original booking and not the new one I booked from Inverness with avios which was a new booking. The original return flight on Sunday from ABZ which was cancelled twice in one night and then the nearest alternative was also later cancelled. The twitter team actioned the refund for me on Monday Morning and no issues seemed to be raised at the time. Not sure if them doing that for me knowing what happened makes it more likely they will honor it . As I explained it to them and the agent today who logged it on my booking and seem surprised that I had no reply until 1am . I will certainly try and claim for compensation for the difference between the 2 classes but I do hope they refund the return flight for me given that I was left with little option but to try for a flight from Inverness rather than face another day of cancelled flights and no way of contacting them so had to cancel return leg and make alternative arrangements . Having looked online the 4pm flight from ABZ which had club was cancelled as was the 7pm so they could not have offered it to be at all and I would have been stuck another night there . Will see if they refund me as not sure if the agent today who sorted my ORC, could change it from her end so my refund could be stopped as I wasn’t sure if it would have been actioned by back office already? Hopefully will all work out OK but was not a easy or non stressful experience far from arrived in Inverness at 23.50 and then had to get up at 4.30am for my flight so was not that happy with BA that day so fingers crossed they can help as was left out of pocket quite a bit. Thank you for all your help Michele
Business class
LHR – BOS BA or AA
BOS – LAX AA
140 TP plus 210 TP
Taipei Denpasar via HK
CX Business Class
360 TP 600 quid off peak
Hello,
If i find such a fare as below how do i get it routed through NY for the extra TPs? No fares seem to be found apart from at silly prices using multi city searches. Am i missing something? Thanks
Dublin – Los Angeles £1,497 (640 TP if routed via New York) British Airways
You need to make sure you don’t break your journey by more than 24 hours. Also certain fares allow a set number of “transfers” so you have to stick within those.
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