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Which partners should you fly under the new British Airways tier point system?

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The new British Airways system for earning status, outlined in detail here, seemed to signal the end of the tier point run.

With BA flights earning 1 tier point per £1 of net spending, a Silver card (£7,500 of net spend) would require around £15,000 of gross spend on economy flights or around £10,000 of spend on business class. This is totally out of reach for most people.

There are, however, interesting loopholes available which will help some flyers.

Earning British Airways tier points from airline partners

Except for flights flown as part of joint venture agreements (eg flying American Airlines across the Atlantic), British Airways does not see your fare data. This is why most flights on partner airlines will continue to earn tier points based on distance flown and travel class.

BA has tried to kneecap its partners by imposing caps on the tier points you can earn.

Take a look at the airline partner chart here.

Looking specifically at business class flights, you can split airlines into two lists:

Airlines to consider, where business class earns 25% to 50% of miles flown:

  • Aer Lingus
  • Finnair
  • Japan Airlines
  • Qatar Airways

Airlines to ignore, where business class earns 12.5% to 25% of miles flown:

  • Alaska Airlines
  • Cathay Pacific
  • Fiji Airways
  • Malaysia Airlines
  • Qantas
  • Royal Air Maroc
  • Royal Jordanian
  • Sri Lankan Airlines

American Airlines and Iberia will award tier points based on money spent.

Note that if you book a codeshare flight on ba.com which carries a BA flight number but is operated by a partner airline, you will earn tier points based on the BA model, ie money spent.

Earning British Airways tier points with partner airlines

Tier point arbitrage will still exist

The airlines in the top list above are where you should be looking to earn cheap(er) tier points. This means flying Aer Lingus, Finnair, Japan Airlines and Qatar Airways.

These airlines will offer you 25% of miles flown on restricted business class flights and 50% of miles flown on semi and fully flexible business class tickets. The latter are generally in D (cheapest), C and J sub-classes.

Let’s be clear. You are NOT going to get a bargain bucket Finnair or Qatar Airways flight for a couple of thousand pounds in D, C or J.

Heathrow to Bangkok on Finnair, for example, will be around £4,000 in D class. This will earn you just over 6,000 British Airways Club tier points in the new system.

In comparison, a BA flight to Bangkok costing £4,000 would, netting out taxes and charges, only earn you around 3,500 tier points at 1 per £1 spent.

I’m not sure this offers much respite to leisure travellers looking to retain status – it’s still an expensive way to do it.

However, if you are travelling for work and you are able to choose Aer Lingus, Finnair, Japan Airlines or Qatar Airways in a semi-flexible business class ticket bucket, you will increase your chances of earning British Airways status.

Leisure travellers on sale tickets could do well on very long trips, even earning just 25% of miles flown. For example, look at a deeply discounted Qatar Airways business class flight (I or R class) to Australasia. Pick up a deal out of Europe for, say, £3,000 in a sale and – at 25% of miles flown – you’d bank 5,000+ tier points, as well as the excellent Qatar Airways seat and service.

PS. We will, as April approaches, be running a series of articles on the other oneworld frequent flyer schemes and whether you would earn status more quickly with them. The answer is, obviously, yes.

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Category

Aer Lingus and AerClub, British Airways and Avios, Finnair and Finnair Plus, oneworld alliance partners, Qatar Airways and Privilege Club

Comments (81)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Yona says:
    20 Jan20 January 04:43

    What calculator gives you the exact miles flows? The one for avios requires you to do some math as you earn some multiple of the distance based on status.

    Regardless of which system you use. You now need 4 trips to Japan to reach silver. That’s mental!

    • Yona says:
      20 Jan20 January 04:44

      *flown

    • Phillip says:
      20 Jan20 January 05:04

      Just keep the status to Blue and look at the earning rate for the Economy flexible fare – that should be the 1x version.

      Otherwise Great Circle Mapper.

      • Yona says:
        20 Jan20 January 05:06

        I was thinking on simply booking a £25k first class ticket with BA but shhhhh this is a trick few people know to get gold in just one go. Thanks! 🙂

        • Phillip says:
          20 Jan20 January 05:19

          And here was me thinking that the secret trick was in fact a tier run on Qatar’s longest routes – a “simple” return from Los Angeles or Dallas to Auckland via Doha clocks up over 30k miles flown! Good luck finding THAT fare at a reasonable cost! 😉 As for positioning…

    • Wallaj4 says:
      20 Jan20 January 07:17

      I also would like to know where to look to calculate Miles flown! . Still cannot work out my usual Qatar flights + BE flights if I will reach silver

      • Rob says:
        20 Jan20 January 07:24

        gcmap.com

        • Alex G says:
          20 Jan20 January 07:58

          That’s not what BA use to work out distances, as I found when putting together an itinerary using the multi partner chart.

          Philip gives the best answer above.

    • Garethgerry says:
      20 Jan20 January 08:28

      2 in business on ba will give you silver pretty reasonable

  • ST says:
    20 Jan20 January 05:42

    It works for gold tier, but not so useful for GGL? 32,000 TPs should be earned through British Airways-marketed flights. It left only 8,000 TPs for the other oneworld partners. I found that the price of BA codeshare flights (JAL operated) to HND is much higher than BA itself.

    • Alex G says:
      20 Jan20 January 08:00

      JAL is a superior product, so they can charge more for it. Something BA could perhaps learn from. But they won’t.

    • Scott Rice says:
      20 Jan20 January 13:43

      This is the absolute clincher; there is almost no possibility of retaining GGL without purchasing with BA on a hugely expensive ticket (often which is identical and a lot cheaper when sold by AA QR etc). Utterly depressing and, frankly, insulting as even on business expenses it’s a non-economic / non-competitive option.

  • SjB says:
    20 Jan20 January 05:49

    Rob, in the old world one could use avios to reduce price of fare and still earn the same tier points. What happens if you do this in the new world?

  • Bedminster Girl says:
    20 Jan20 January 06:23

    This is probably a point repeated elsewhere, but Amex can’t be happy about this.

    • Littlefish says:
      20 Jan20 January 06:56

      Amex spend is also on pause by me, as is ba bookings, as it is not clear 21 days after the 30 Dec announcements what the new rules actually are. It’s bad enough faced with 7500 new TPs to get Silver, but to not have a clear scoring system or details on ALL the promised benefits then why would I book BA. Seemingly Virgin with all its flaws is the better deal now if prices are the same.
      Amex may well feel some impacts over coming months too.

      • CarpalTravel says:
        20 Jan20 January 11:54

        My card BAPP has been cancelled. Not entirely due to this, but it certainly was a contributing factor.

  • Charles Martel says:
    20 Jan20 January 06:25

    Your (oneworld) flight operators are fairly fixed based on your origin and destination. Your frequent flyer programme is not, we’re better off jumping to the analysis of where to credit if you want to stay in the oneworld network.

    • LittleNick says:
      20 Jan20 January 09:24

      Yep, Iberia is not bad if you can hit enough 3000 mile segments. That’s the sweet spot for business fares or even PE gives a fair chunk. Instead of the old 2000 on BA it’s 3000 on Iberia so not as great but still has some opportunities

  • RC says:
    20 Jan20 January 06:59

    Just easier to look at a different flyer scheme. Then just for BA only when there in no better alternative.

  • blue_wolf says:
    20 Jan20 January 07:04

    Interesting how BA is (mostly) saying it no longer values partner flying. Is this a trend across Oneworld and are we seeing a reduction of benefits to airlines being in an alliance?

    • Phillip says:
      20 Jan20 January 07:23

      If you look across all the alliances, certain airlines always have closer relationships which result in higher earning rates. This isn’t something new for BA either, it’s been the case when it comes to Avios earnings for years, we’re now just seeing it filter through to tier points too and paying more attention to it because it hurts more.

  • Janie says:
    20 Jan20 January 07:05

    What happens if you book a fare with for example American Airlines but you take an Aer Lingus flight as part of your itinerary? Would it still be revenue based since you booked via AA or a mixture of revenue and miles per section?
    Also what about travel agent bookings? I have a booking via Expedia that’s a mixture of Qatar and BA flights.

    • Alex says:
      20 Jan20 January 08:06

      Which airline ticketed your booking? If your e-ticket number starts with 125- then BA will know what you paid and you’ll earn in the new spend based system. If it starts with 157- then you’ll earn via the miles flown rule. That’s the simple one.

      For AA it depends. If you fly transatlantic and book with AA, it’s part of the joint business agreement between AA BA and the others. They share revenue so you’ll earn under the new system. For AA domestic without a TATL flight I don’t know though.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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