The airline has changed the way the scheme works, as points are now earned based on how much a customer spends rather than how many miles they fly.

For every £1 spent, customers will earn one tier point.

This drew some criticism as Silver status now requires a minimum annual spend of £7,500 with the airline, while Gold status demands at least £20,000 per year.

It meant many members of the BA Club could lose their status upon annual renewal at the end of April 2026 due to not accruing enough points.

Aviation A2Z reported: “Frequent flyers argued that the new thresholds effectively shut out loyal leisure travellers and reward corporate passengers whose premium tickets are funded by their employers.

“The backlash forced BA to introduce tweaks, including additional ways to earn tier points and bonus tier point promotions, but critics maintained the core thresholds remained far too high.”

Members’ rewards include priority boarding, free seat selection, additional baggage allowances and airport lounge access.

Some BA members mistakenly told they can keep their status

This week, IAG Loyalty, the unit of BA parent IAG that manages the rewards programme, contacted several thousand members of the programme, telling them they would retain their previous status despite not having enough points.

However, they then revealed on Friday (April 24) that they had told some customers this in error.

The Financial Times reported that the mistake affected less than 1% of BA’s membership scheme, but still impacted several thousand people.

In a statement, IAG Loyalty said: “Earlier this week we renewed the status of a very small number of BA Club members according to our normal guidelines and criteria.

“This raised concerns with some of BA’s members, who believed we’d made a mistake.”

It continued: “Our initial investigation didn’t identify any obvious issues.

“However, over the last 24 hours we’ve conducted some more detailed forensic work, and have discovered that due to a technical issue, some members (fewer than 1%) were incorrectly told they had retained their status, when they hadn’t earned it, or been entitled to it.”

“Because of this, we’ll be contacting affected customers in the coming days to apologise and reinstate their correct tier.”

Are you a member of the BA Club, and did you have your account downgraded? Let us know in the comments.

Courtesy of Harrow Times | Local News