In an unexpected move, BA has this morning started sending out emails to their Executive Club members that Tier Points years will be aligned to April for everyone with a transition starting from April 2024. If your TP year resets before that point, your current year is not affected.
With a major change to Avios very recently, constant IT problems and dismal on-time performance, you’d think that perhaps BA would be wary of annoying its customers further, but apparently not. I am in several frequent flyer groups with some of BA’s top-tier status holders, who are all intelligent professional people who know the Executive Club inside and out. So far, most of us are struggling to understand exactly how BA plans to make these changes despite the FAQ on their website. If these people can’t understand it, good luck to everyone else.
The main group of people that will benefit are families and those that regularly travel together in that their years will be simplified. However, this can actually make some people worse off if you try and stagger your years between two people to get extra time to enjoy benefits if you plan to drop a tier, for example.
Those that will miss out are those whose travel is not consistent during the year and do not plan to travel much from April to their new TP year end on 31 March. Those aiming for or maintaining Gold Guest List that requires 5000 points to qualify but 3000 to maintain could also lose out due to their travel patterns and face having to requalify at 5000 points. I believe BA should do something to mitigate this.
According to BA “We’re constantly improving the British Airways Executive Club for our Members, which is why we’re changing your Tier Point collection period to make things a little simpler.” Hmm. Nothing wrong with the idea as such; however, the implementation is badly explained.
I would also not be surprised if this is not related to the fact that we recently saw a way to earn tier points with the BA American Express card. This could well indicate there will be more of this to come. You can find the current offer in this article. It also aligns BA with Iberia who are also owned by IAG.
What is changing when?
In future, the Tier Point collection period will start on 1 April and end on 31 March every year. The change will be in place for all British Airways Executive Club Members, starting from 1 April 2025. The transition will start from 1 April 2024 (how ironic).
Are there are other changes?
Yes. Currently, your collection year ends on the 8th of the month. Your actual status is extended until the end of the following month when your card expires. This means if you drop your status or lose it, you get an extra seven weeks of using the benefits. With the new scheme, all cards and status will expire on 30 April, only giving around four weeks extra.
As far as we know, any current cards expiry dates will remain the same.
How will it work?
Well, that’s a good question.
For Tier Point collection periods starting from April 2024 your Tier Point Collection Year will be shortened to end on 31 March 2025.
If you earn enough Tier Points during your Tier Point Collection Year to upgrade or renew your Tier status, this will be valid until 30 April 2026 (new Membership Card Expiry date).
Here is how I understand it:
BA will look at the full 12-month period from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 to determine the status you hold in the next membership year. So, the two shortened periods of status years from now until your current end of year and then the new year until 31 March 2025, are not “proper TP years” and not what determines your status. It is what you earn in total between April 24 and March 25.
BA will add any tier points earned between April 2024 and the normal start of your old collection year to the next shortened year until 31 March 2025.
If you don’t meet the required Tier Points to maintain your status you’ll be downgraded from 1 May 2025.
According to BA here is how it will work. Let’s take an example of an 8 July 2024 collection year end.
- Your current Tier Point Collection Year will continue as normal until 8 July 2024
- Your next collection period will be 9 July 2024 – 31 March 2025
So, in effect, you will continue the rest of your current year as normal and then have a short year of nine months to the reset at the end of March 2025. You start your next year (post 9 July) as whatever status you have earned up to the usual 8 July tier point end.
- Current collection year: until 8 July 2024
- New Collection period: 9 July 2024 to 31 March 2025
- Tier Point Adjustment: BA add on any Tier Points you earn during 1 April – 8 July 2024 to work out your Tier status on 31 March 2025.
- Collection period + Tier Point Adjustment = your Tier status until 30 April 2026
So, in this example, here are two scenarios:
You are currently gold (1500 TP) and earn 1500 before April 2024. You retain Gold presumably until 30 April 2025 when the new card issued at the end of August expires. You do not fly between April and July 2024. Your new year begins on 9 July, and you earn 1200 TPs by 31 March. You drop to silver on 30 April 2025.
You are currently silver (600 TP) and have already flown 300 TPs worth. You fly another 300 TPs worth of flights between April and 8 July 2024. Then you fly a further 300 TP from 9 July to 31 March. Your new TP total for the end of the year will be 600 TP as the 300 points from April to July are added on to your total after the reset. You retain silver.
BA has given examples for every single renewal date which you can find here.
Anything else?
The tier point adjustments will not count towards a lifetime allowance. There is no change to the validity of any existing upgrade vouchers or companion vouchers.
We do not know how new Jokers/Partner cards for GGL will be handled yet, as obviously, you would not get them twice in a short period. I will try to find out the answers.
What do you think of the changes? Let us know in the comments below.
