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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.

  • Londoner 79 says:
    20 Jan20 January 07:18

    To be honest, this all seems like a lot of faff to try to retain status with an airline that doesn’t value my business. I’ll just be booking the best value business class fare for my long haul travel post April 2026 and probably get to experience some better products into the bargain.

    • Novice says:
      20 Jan20 January 08:25

      This is what I have always done. Just hit bronze status once otherwise have always been blue. Not bothered about status because if you fly business then you get all the benefits anyway; lounges etc

      • Tracey says:
        20 Jan20 January 08:34

        If you are Gold, you can fly short haul in economy. Book the exit row seats week in advance, use first check in and the lounges. That’s why people chase status.

        • LittleNick says:
          20 Jan20 January 09:27

          Gold/OWE is generally the only status that’s really worth it imho. Like it’s still a bump up in ground experience etc when flying CE/CW and of course great when flying ET/WT/WTP. Given BA Gold now unattainable I won’t be chasing status on BA for sure

          • tomtom135 says:
            20 Jan20 January 11:14

            Couldn’t disagree more, only ever been silver and have never seen a reason to chase gold. When I fly short haul economy for work I get fast track, lounge etc etc. Everything else I’m not flying economy so status has little value.

          • patrick says:
            20 Jan20 January 17:11

            This is a wildly inaccurate assertion.

        • NorthernLass says:
          20 Jan20 January 11:37

          Agree, most of my travel this year is short-haul economy, including IB cash fares which are lower than the LCC base fares.

      • Londoner 79 says:
        20 Jan20 January 12:07

        I disagree. I’ve been silver for the past coupe of years and I really do value the seat selection at the time of booking, lounge access and priority boarding, which all go to make the travel experience a lot more pleasant.

        However, for a loyalty programme to incentivise loyalty, the benefits need to be attainable. I often went out of my way to fly with BA when there were better options available, or took extra trips just to earn status. That stops now.

        As a leisure flyer I’ve worked out that I’ve no chance of retaining silver in 2026, therefore I’ll fly with the airline with the best time/price/quality combination, and just make the experience more pleasant by paying for seats or priority boarding when I need to. When taking into account not having to pay the BA price premium, stay the night before in a hotel for a pre 8am BA flight or taking unplanned flights just for the TP, I’ll think I’ll save money.

        • Novice says:
          20 Jan20 January 12:41

          I reckon status would appeal more to couples/families. As a solo traveller, if you make sure you are always on business class with exit then you don’t really need to choose seats. They are all usually same and in my experience, as a solo they always stick me into window seats which are my favourite anyway.

          And I really don’t care about status for economy travel. If I must use a lounge then I am willing to pay cash and use easyjet as economy to save on flight as there’s not a difference between budget and BA. It is same seats; just nobody sat in middle. It might be cheaper buying 2 budget seats than 1 BA economy imho.

          Having said that, I usually travel long haul as I have decided to travel outwards to inwards. I will keep regular Europe trips for when I am older.

          • John says:
            20 Jan20 January 16:13

            Status doesn’t really help with a family as both parents need to have it even if you only have one kid.

            I was silver and my wife was blue, when our son was 2.5 we got away with sneaking him into the lounge a few times but not since then

  • Zebedee says:
    20 Jan20 January 07:51

    What happens with codeshare flights? Eg a Cathay Pacific operated flight booked on a QR code share – would this qualify for the higher earning rate that QR gets compared to CX? The BA website refers to flights being “marketed” by QR qualify for the QR rate of earning points – am I right to assume this would include codeshare flights irrespective of the metal of the aircraft? If so, various arbitrage opportunities here…

  • James C says:
    20 Jan20 January 07:57

    I’m curious how AA is permitted to share full fare information with BA on routes not covered by the trans- Atlantic joint venture eg stand alone domestic itineraries, Asia, Australia and Americas without falling foul of competition rules.

    • daftboy says:
      20 Jan20 January 08:23

      My understanding was it was only JV itineraries with AA that would be in scope here, with other flights (eg standalone AA domestic) earning in another way, distance based I guess?

      • Nick says:
        20 Jan20 January 09:46

        Correct, only JB itineraries will earn based on spend. If you buy a domestic AA flight, or an international one out of scope (e.g. south America), then it will earn based on distance as fare data cannot be shared.

  • Stuart says:
    20 Jan20 January 08:01

    Just looking to book a BA holiday for the summer with 3 legs (2 Domestic) on BA and 3 on Qatar but can do it with a sector less instead if I take a direct BA flight instead of 2 Qatar flights. With the changes to Avios and Tier points and my limited knowledge of the changes, will I basically get the same return from all of the options since it’s all spend based now and the cost is the same?

    • Phillip says:
      20 Jan20 January 08:27

      That’s right Stuart. I guess the other consideration is the taxes element but I expect that in most cases an extra flight will mean more taxes and therefore a smaller proportion of the total cost qualifying for tier points.

      • r* says:
        20 Jan20 January 10:15

        But you’d potentially get more points from 2x qatar segments compared to what youd get from 1 segment on BA?

      • NorthernLass says:
        20 Jan20 January 11:39

        Is all spending on BAHs not qualifying, so the taxes are irrelevant?

  • Ian says:
    20 Jan20 January 09:55

    This is all getting too complex. We have decided just to go for value rather than status. So silver at very best, but probably fine with Gordon Ramsey

  • NN says:
    20 Jan20 January 10:20

    A have a question actually – why exactly does BA differentiate between certain OW carriers and others? Could still guess Finnair and Qatar due to them being aligned with Avios but JAL vs others? Shame that Cathay especially is on the lower list whom I love 🙁

    • JDB says:
      20 Jan20 January 10:53

      The airlines in the top list are those with which they have the closest working relationship (and Aer Lingus is obviously part of the family) and also have joint business arrangements on some routes. Iberia and American who will award TP like BA are even closer.

      • NN says:
        20 Jan20 January 11:22

        Can BA really discriminate against some like this since they’re all equal OW carriers, regardless of the ‘close working relationship’? I understand the revenue based model but since those outside the JV are kinda the same, so at least D or J or Y etc within each carrier should be awarded the same percentage? It’s not like D of CX is much cheaper than D of AY / QR (if anything, more expensive)… Wonder if the others can complain to OW mgmt about this? I don’t know if other OW FFPs give higher status points to some OW carriers over others…

        • Ken says:
          20 Jan20 January 14:47

          Of course they can discriminate.

          It’s exactly what Finnair already do, awarding more tier points for BA or AA bookings than other one world carriers

        • John says:
          20 Jan20 January 16:14

          Yes they can. Different booking classes are already awarded different percentages. And yes to your final question.

          • John says:
            20 Jan20 January 16:15

            Sorry I mean the same class on different airlines. And booking classes don’t have to “match” across airlines either

    • James C says:
      20 Jan20 January 20:51

      The difference is those in the top list all use Avios as their reward currency and therefore buy Avios from IAG Loyalty to issue in their programmes. IAG Loyalty (who also now manage BA Holidays which has a better earn rate than booking flight only) is driving spend towards carriers who generate revenue for them.

  • David O'Donovan says:
    20 Jan20 January 11:02

    So I could earn silver status with one Semi flexible fair with QR on the FRA – DOHA – CAPE TOWN? (7500 miles each way * 50).

    I see this as £3300 flying next January or £2700 with long lay overs.

    David.

    • Rob says:
      20 Jan20 January 11:04

      If that is a D class fare then yes, although it feels a bit cheap for D.

      • Gavin Smith says:
        20 Jan20 January 11:46

        How does one establish which fare class is being offered when booking? (Apologies if this widely known by others.)

        • Rob says:
          20 Jan20 January 11:56

          Depends on which airline you’re talking about and where you are booking. It can be very difficult although BA always shows it (click on the flight number during booking) as does Finnair (shows on the summary page before payment). Expedia shows it. Not sure how it goes with Qatar.

          • Gavin Smith says:
            20 Jan20 January 12:06

            Thank you, Rob.

          • NN says:
            20 Jan20 January 12:33

            I’ve managed to get it for Qatar although it’s a bit long-winded. Business Elite will always be D or above. Business comfort is sometimes D, sometimes I. The way to check however is just before the payment page, clock on Fare Rules and scroll to Cancellation, where you can see the header fare bucket.

            This does mean however that you have to book, fill in your details (which you can save to your computer after the first time) and then see…

        • CalvinF says:
          20 Jan20 January 12:58

          On the rare occasion where I use an OTA, I tend to favour Expedia because they will show the fare bucket. Click on “Show details” under the flight and it will show the cabin and then the fare bucket in brackets. Pay attention to the return leg which may be in the same cabin but may be a different fare class

      • David O'Donovan says:
        20 Jan20 January 15:44

        Aww ok, it Business Comfort, will need to check if its I or D as per the comment by NN. I assume it will be I though.

      • David O'Donovan says:
        20 Jan20 January 15:59

        Checked its I sadly. The full flex C class are £4000.

  • aseftel says:
    20 Jan20 January 11:43

    For completeness, perhaps worth adding a sentence at the end of the list about the partners that don’t earn TP (before or after the change): LATAM, China Southern.

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