What Happened?

In December 2024, between Christmas and New Year British Always announced new changes to it’s loyalty system, the Executive Club.

Previously, BA’s loyalty system was Tier Point based. A short haul flight in Business Class earned 40 Tier Points, long haul was 140 (or 160 for extra long haul) and First Class flights earned 210 Tier Points. The staples for this program were Bronze at 300 TP’s, Silver at 600 TP’s and Gold at 1,500 TP’s. Additional benefits existed hitting 2,500, 3,500 and 5,000 TP’s for Gold Guest List. The Tier Points reset after 1 year.

The new announcement is revenue-based, meaning that it is spend-based – and achieving Bronze would need an annual spend of £3,500, Silver £7,500, Gold a staggering £20,000 and Gold Guest List a whopping £65,000! Critically, this spend excludes Taxes and other Fees – so £20,000 isn’t £20,000 of ‘cash’ – the requirement is far more than that.

Mistaken Loyalty?

For some reason, BA seem to couple the idea of spend with ‘loyalty’ – seemingly they believe ‘loyalty’ benefits should apply to those who spend the most rather than fly the most. Some may question wether spend and loyalty amounts to the same thing – and the answer is “clearly not”.

For example, booking last minute flights to/from New York in Business Class can be advertised by BA as much as £8,500 to £12,00 each way…..

However, for those who plan their journeys in advance, a return trip to New York may be £3,000 return in Business Class…. So 7 trips or 14 flights and £21,000 of spend.

Ultimately the person who has booked a last-minute flight and spent £24,000 gets Gold in 2 flights – and the person who has flown 14 times (and spent £21K) in the same cabin may still not achieve Gold. Surely the person who flys 14 BA flights is more loyal than a person who flies twice?

Of course from a business point of view you want to try and sell an identical product at £12,000 than £3,000 – so perhaps there is some perceived loyalty there. However, someone prepared to spend £12,000 on a LHR/JFK flight is likely to be a Business Exec, Celebrity or High Net Worth Individual – booking this type of flight may be convenient as it’s direct – but if next time they need to fly to say Frankfurt, the loyalty will stop and they’re spend their £12K with Lufthansa and go direct.

The flip side of that is the person who consistently spends £3K to achieve loyalty probably will inconvenience themselves to perhaps fly JFK -> LHR -> FRA to keep the status up with BA.

So the question is where does British Airways’ loyalty apply? Does it apply to the person who comes back time and time again and spends consistently? Or does its loyalty apply to a one-off customer who probably really doesn’t care who they’re flying with.

What happens when someone who is prepared to pay £24,000 on their round trip discovers that BA’s Business Class is no better (and in some cases worse) than other carriers? Now you have a Gold Member who has achieved that status in 2 flights and may not be rushing back.

Additionally, BA seem to think it’s still the 1990’s and that their changes are going to increase a splurge in business travel. As someone who does corporate travel for living; long-haul travel is being quished in favour of Zoom Calls. When long haul travel is needed Business Class as a general ‘thing’ is becoming an argument than a standard, with some major corporations demanding their employees fly Premium Economy – even on overnight flights at 8+ hours.

The reason all of this is a problem is because BA (like other airlines) have a life-time loyalty scheme. Loyalty to airlines isn’t earned in year, it’s earned over several years of putting your eggs in one basket to achieve loyalty over the years. Many people are close to achieving lifetime loyalty, but now won’t get it and/or don’t see the point, despite decades of loyalty.

Service Problems

If the British Airways experience was exemplary in every way, it may be easy to see how how they could make this dramatic turn and demand so much money – but to be frank it simply isn’t.

For example, the ground experience can be variable. For Gold Members the First Wing at Heathrow is great and does feel exclusive – however this only exists in Heathrow (and partially at JFK).

Lounges in my view are poor quality compared to other carriers. For example, flying Business with Etihad to Abu Dhabi gives you automatic access to their Business Class lounge in Heathrow, which has a la carte dining, cocktail bar, waitered drinks service, showers, etc….. Flying Business Class with BA on the same route will give you access to the Galleries Lounges at Heathrow – which is a limited buffet, a fridge of self-service drinks and usually a long wait for showers. It’s often challenging to get a seat in BA’s Business Class lounges. That is aside from the fact that many partner lounges are often pretty poor. By contrast BA’s lounge in London Gatwick is exemplary.

On board experience with British Airways flying Business Class can also be hugely variable. Flying from Austin to London was probably the worst Business Class experience I have had with British Airways, with a flight from Philadelphia to Heathrow being in the ‘old’ Club World, which is lacking privacy and space to work. I’ve also had an exceptional flight from Tokyo to London with BA in First, and flight from Heathrow to Seattle in First which was really nothing special.

Customer service is also an issue. For example, you still can’t pre-order food if flying Business Class. Something which American Airlines, Qatar Airways, JAL, Singapore Airlines and many others have had in place for years…. BA’s IT systems are known for being terrible and will crash when mid-way through a booking… The telephone service is also poor, often waiting for long periods of time and whilst some operators can be great – many don’t know BA’s own rules and often a call back is needed.

All of this is against the backdrop of things getting worse and not better at BA with no apparent resolution to make things better, and despite many people having ‘stuck with’ BA during Covid and over the years – funnily enough out of loyalty.

The Bottom Line

The above are problems well known to British Airways. Logic would dictate that if you wanted to make a change so radical, that you would spend years 2024 (or 2025) radically updating your lounges, on board experience, customer service, etc – so that introducing an unpopular loyalty program in 2026 wouldn’t be such a kick in the teeth. Instead BA have done the opposite, they’ve let the standards slip, had the arrogance to assume loyalty will continue from its customers, and now ‘reward’ its loyalty customers by making them pay substantially more for less.

The reality is that when looking at the cost of flights BA, are rarely the cheapest – many people like me over the years have paid more with BA to continue to climb its loyalty ladder and get to lifetime Gold and then Gold of Life – even though its alternates/rivals may be cheaper, more convenient and offer better service all round.

What Next?

As I said above, the types people who are prepared to pay £24,000 for a round trip to JFK are unlikely to be loyal to BA or use its loyalty schemes – and may well quickly find there are far better airlines around.

For me personally and like many people, in the future I will forget my British Airways alliance and loyalty and book future flights based on price/convenience/service, no matter what airline. In some cases (ie picking Singapore Airlines Business Class over British Airways at the same price), BA will be exposed for the weaknesses of the airline and quickly with people having spotted the ‘greener grass’, they will never come back to BA.

For the foreseeable future, it’s bye bye British Airways for me – and possibly even bye bye OneWorld!