What that means is if you got to 1,500 tier points by the end of this summer and that was the last tier point you earned, you would be a Gold member until the end of the membership year on March 31 2026, you would then be a Silver member until March 31 2027 and a Bronze member until March 31 2028.
Burgess says: “If you are on, say, 1,200 tier points and someone says to me is it worth spending £500 on flights to get the extra 300 tier points, are you going to get £500 in value on Gold over Silver next year? No, you are not. But if you get to Gold now, you don’t have to do anything next year, you can take every flight in economy next year because you are guaranteed to get a year of Silver after a year of Gold, and that’s two years of lounges and two years of different seat selections and two years of priority boarding.
“Even then you get a year of Bronze after that which [gives] you free seat selection within seven days of travel which is still a few hundred pounds on long haul, it’s not totally worthless and you are still higher up in the boarding process.”
How to build your own tier run?
There are numerous ways to build your own tier run, Brassington says. The most cost-effective method would be to look at the short-haul destinations which offer 80 tier points in business class rather than the usual 40.
These tend to be routes that are slightly further away or have lower demand than other routes. There are 36 destinations in total but Brassington has selected seven destinations which work well as part of the double tier points deal because the hotel stay is relatively inexpensive in these countries.
The best value route involves flying to Fuerteventura, in the Canary Islands. The route which leaves Gatwick on Thursday 14th November and returns the following Tuesday on the 19th November is outside school holidays, meaning you can get great value for money and still enjoy favourable temperatures of around 23 degrees. Booking the self-catering option at Pierre & Vacances Fuerteventura Origomare through the BA website means the entire trip costs £552.50 for 320 points.
Another route Brassington says offers great value is Sofia in Bulgaria. “You could fly to Sofia, rent a car, drive to Sunny Beach, spend a week at the beach and drive back and get your double tier points that way or have five nights in Sofia and get a hotel there and that’s another inexpensive way to do it.”
Of course doing this a number of times might become tedious and leaves you missing out on the chance to travel the world while building points.
For the more adventurous travellers, Brassington has designed a route which costs £2,849 per person and earns you 1,530 points getting you to Gold status in just 10 days. The world-trip leaves Manchester on September 21 before stopping in Abu Dhabi, Colombo, Jakarta, Hong Kong and Taipei returning back to Manchester on October 1.
