If you fly British Airways on revenue tickets departing the United States with any frequency, then it’s absolutely worth being an AARP member, so that you can save $65-200 per ticket. This is a fantastic perk that often flies under the radar, so in this post I wanted to take a look at all the details of how this works.
Details of the British Airways AARP discount
AARP members are able to score discounts on British Airways tickets:
- There’s a $200 discount for business class tickets
- There’s an $85 discount for premium economy tickets
- There’s a $65 discount for economy tickets (excluding basic economy fares)
To take advantage of this, you need to book an itinerary with travel originating in the United States. You need to be flying on British Airways, or can be booked on a codeshare flight on American or Iberia.
Currently this offer is valid for bookings through June 30, 2024, and for travel through June 30, 2025. However, I suspect this will be extended — this is always a limited time offer, but has been extended for years.
While AARP is intended to advocate for retired people, the reality is that there are no restrictions on who can join. Anyone can become a member for just $16 per year, so that membership more than pays for itself after booking just one British Airways ticket (and to be clear, there’s nothing unethical about joining — AARP even encourages young people to join).
The process of taking advantage of this discount is easy. Once you’re a member, you’ll need to visit this AARP webpage, where you’ll be asked to log into your AARP account.
Once logged in, you’ll be redirected to the British Airways website, where you can start the booking process. When you find an eligible itinerary, you’ll automatically see the discount applied (eligible itineraries will be noted with the “Discounted” text).
Stack this with British Airways Visa Card perks
While the AARP discount for British Airways flights is great, you can potentially get even bigger savings if you have the British Airways Visa Signature® Card (review). The card offers a 10% flight discount on revenue tickets, and that can be stacked with the AARP savings. That means you can save up to $200 plus up to 10% on your ticket, which could lead to some significant savings.
There are many other great perks to the card, ranging from a reward flight statement credit, to the ability to earn a companion certificate.
Bottom line
British Airways offers up to a $200 ticket discount for AARP members. That means that virtually anyone booking a British Airways ticket originating in the United States is best off spending $16 on an AARP membership before booking a ticket.
This is an awesome and often overlooked benefit. It stacks especially nicely with the 10% discount on flights offered with British Airways’ co-branded credit card.
Have you ever used the British Airways AARP discount?
