Since 2021, British Airways‘ loyalty program Executive Club has been running a promotion that doubles the tier points earned on holiday bookings. In its earliest iteration, it was possible to gain Executive Club Silver (=Oneworld Sapphire) status for less than €800 when taking full advantage of the offer. While this was mainly possible because of the relaxed status thresholds during the Covid-19 pandemic, the promotion is still running.
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Terms & Conditions
The rules are very simple on the surface: For every Flight+Hotel package or Flight+Rental Car package booked through British Airways’ website, Executive Club members earn double the usual tier points for the flight segments. However, there are some important restrictions to the promotion:
- The promotion is valid for travel in 2024
- Your journey must start and end in the United Kingdom or United States of America
- You need to be a UK or US citizen to be eligible (though non-UK and non-US citizens have received double TP in the past, there is no guarantee it will work again)
- Your trip must be at least 5 days long
- Your trip may not exceed 30 days
- All flights in your booking must have a BA flight number
- Codeshare flights with Aer Lingus, LATAM or China Southern are excluded
- You must use your hotel or rental car for the booked duration
You can find the full terms and conditions for this promotion here (for US residents, here). Perhaps the most crucial aspect is booking your holiday through ba.com, severely limiting your opportunity to compare prices. You cannot book a flight and hotel separately.
Reasonable Examples: 320 Tier Points for £553
This promotion can be a charming way to gather some tier points, quick and efficiently. A £703 (~€819) business class trip from London to Madrid is rewarded with 160 tier points instead of 80:
Flights to Sofia represent even better value. This 8-day-trip to Bulgaria earns 320 tier points for £553 (~€645) and includes an eight-day car rental:
You can amp up the number of tier points by adding a connection flight within the UK before the London to Sofia flights.
Of course, you can also aim directly for the stars:
Unreasonable Examples: Instant Oneworld Emerald for £3,573
It is possible to use this promo as a fast way to get Executive Club Gold (=Oneworld Emerald). For example, this £3,573 (~€4,165) first class ticket from Jersey to San Diego, California, earns you 1,640 Tier Points, 140 more than the 1,500 you’d need for Gold.
A five-day car rental in Southern California is included in the deal.
The segments in the screenshot above earn the following tier points:
| Segment | Booking Class | Tier Points |
|---|---|---|
| Jersey – London | I | 40 |
| London – Philadelphia | A | 210 |
| Philadelphia – San Diego | I | 140 |
| San Diego – Philadelphia | I | 140 |
| Philadelphia – London | A | 210 |
| London – Jersey | I | 40 |
| Total: | 780 | |
| Promotion (x2): | 1,640 |
While there might be other ways to get enough points, the cheapest usually is a first class ticket from Jersey to the American West Coast. Starting in Jersey is necessary to circumvent the UK departure tax. A West Coast destination ensures that two 140-tier-point US domestic flights are part of the trip.
Search & Book
While BA’s search mask for package holidays is not the most customer friendly, finding itineraries with just a single stop is not too difficult. Simply search for cheap business class roundtrips on Google Flights, then proceed to ba.com. Add a hotel room or rental car to your booking and check out how much the price raises. When travelling alone, a rental is usually the much cheaper option.
Finding itineraries earning BAEC Gold is more difficult. To ease your search, check Google Flights for discounted first class itineraries from the United Kingdom or the US. Then search for package holidays on British Airways’ website on the same dates. It’s much easier to us the Create custom trip option on BA’s website than their regular search.
The custom trip option has two advantages: You can split up your journey into more segments, making it easier to get a stopover you either desire or need to get enough tier points. Also, it allows you to book a hotel or rental car for the necessary five days instead of the entire trip.
You need to split up your journey into four different segments to get the itinerary in the screenshot above. During our trials, we noticed that packages including rental cars are usually much cheaper than hotel stays, so we recommend using that option.
The initial results will most likely include flights that either won’t generate enough tier points or include a AA flight number and therefore won’t be eligible for the bonus.
To make sure you will get enough tier points, your itinerary must include two 140-tier-points US domestic flight. This includes all East Coast to West Coast flights and vice versa. On the inbound, that means you either need a SAN - PHL or SAN - NYC leg. SAN - DFW won’t do the trick.
To make sure your itinerary is eligible for the bonus in general, be sure that only BA flight numbers are included. You can change flights in your itinerary by clicking the View Flights button underneath the segment you want to mix up.
While a £3,600 first class ticket surely isn’t the cheapest way to gain Oneworld Emerald status, it surely is a convenient one.
Bottom Line
The double tier points promotion has become more and more restrictive since 2021. Despite that, many people can still earn a decent amount of tier points with and getting pretty good value-for-money. Especially business class bookings for trips just longer than 2,000 miles (BA rewards them with 80 TP per direction) have some hidden gems among them.
If you want to go totally bananas with it, you can aim for Oneworld Emerald tier on a single booking. But the amount of planning involved, and the price tag attached to it means that only a small group of people will benefit from that.
There are two entire FlyerTalk threads discussing various way to get the most out of this promotion. You can draw inspiration from there. Our Tier Points calculator allows you to experiment with different routings and see which one is most favorable to you: