British Airways is member of the smallest of three big alliances operating worldwide – OneWorld. As of today, OneWorld counts 15 member airlines with Oman Air having joined the alliance in July 2025.
Back in December 2024 British Airways announced changes to its loyalty program British Airways Executive Club effective 1st of April 2025. At the same time the name of the program changed to British Airways Club.
Before the changes the British Airways Executive Club was one of the best programs within OneWorld.
Using your membership in British Airways Executive Club, you could earn award points called Avios and you could qualify for one of the following status levels: Bronze, Silver, Gold with equivalent to the status levels Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald respectively.
The advantage of Avios is that they are also used by Iberia (Iberia Plus), Finnair (Finnair Plus) and Qatar (Privilege Club) and can be moved from one account to another within these four airlines without any deductions or losses. It provides you with the flexibility to earn them in the program with the highest earning options on a certain flight operated by a certain airline and to use them for an award ticket in the program, which provides the best Avios rates for the desired award destination.
Example: let’s take a return flight in business class operated by British Airways from LHR to DOH, being in the basic program level. In British Airways Club you earn 6 Avios per 1 GBP spent on your ticket price (excluding taxes) in the basic (blue) level. Depending on the price you can earn up to 17000 Avios for the less expensive business class with British Airways while using Qatar Privilege Club brings you only 8116 Avios. If you book your return flight in business class with Qatar Airways (in this case BA Club credits you Avios in a classic way: based on the distance, booked class and your status). Taking Business Class Comfort (booking class I) you earn 11362 Avios with Qatar Privilege Club. And just 8132 Avios with British Airways Club.
Using the right program, you can earn more than double amount of Avios for the same flight and transfer them for free to another program if the award tickets in that another program have a better price.
The selection of the program to earn Avios on a certain flight depends within OneWorld not only on the airline you fly with, but also on the airline who marketed the flight and the one which effectively operates the flight. This is one of the “specialties” of OneWorld in general. As an example: you purchase a flight with Alaska Airlines which is marketed by Alaska Airlines and is operated by Alaska Airlines in the booking class X. In this case you can earn 100% of the award miles based on your flown distance. If you purchase a flight with Alaska Airlines which is marketed by Alaska Airlines but operated by American Airlines, just the change of plane livery will bring you 50% less miles in the same booking class on the same route with the ticket sold by the same airline.
Benefits of the status levels within all three big alliances were already mentioned in our previous article.
What exactly changed back in April 2025 in British Airways Executive Club and how does it impact the program use, the earning of Avios and qualification to different status levels, as well as the attractiveness of the program itself called today simply British Airways Club?
The earning of Avios by the price of the ticket when flying with British Airways was introduced few years ago.
The changes in April impacted mostly on the qualification to the status levels.
In the past, you could qualify to Bronze and Silver by flying 25 or 50 segments respectively with British Airways (marketed OR operated) or with Iberia (marketed AND operated). No qualification was possible to achieve the gold level based on the flown segments. This criterion remains valid in the new program as well.
The second option for status level qualification were status points:
- Bronze – 300 points (+ 2 flights with BA or Iberia)
- Silver – 600 points (+ 4 flights with BA or Iberia)
- Gold – 1500 points (+ 4 flights with BA or Iberia).
Having achieved 35.000 points over the lifetime, you became Gold member for life.
Now, in order to achieve the same status levels, you need to earn
- Bronze – 3500 points
- Silver – 7500 points
- Gold – 20.000 points
In the old program, you could earn the following number of status points for a direct return flight from LHR to DOH:
- Economy – 140 points
- Premium Economy – 280 points
- Business – 420 points
- First – 660 points
In other words, with two Premium Economy flights from London to Doha you could achieve the bronze status, with two flights in Business you would be in the silver status, and with two First class trips plus one in Premium Economy you would qualify for Gold. With longer distances the qualification would happen even faster. In view of the fact that there are promotions for first-class flights to the USA or other long-haul destinations for below 3000 GBP, you could reach the gold status for about 7000-8000 GBP.
In the new program, you earn 1 status point per GBP spent on tickets or other services. It means that you would need to spend at least 3500 GBP (without taxes!) to reach bronze status, 7500 GBP for silver and at least 20.000 GBP in order to reach Gold.
The qualification for the gold lifetime status requires now 550.000 status points which means that you would need to spend more than half a million GBP before reaching this status.
Overall, those who spend money anyway for flexible premium classes, like business or first, do not lose much. Those who were targeting the status qualification via cheaper promotional tickets, might have difficult times with the new British Airways Club.
After recent changes, other programs within OneWorld might become more interesting to participate in. To keep in mind that not all of alternatives offer the same benefits, like a lifetime status.
If you wish to get a consultation specifically for your travel habits and needs, do not hesitate to contact us and one of our Singabiz representatives will be glad to assist you.
