The Ultimate Guide to British Airways Executive Club

British Airways are a famous (or infamous) brand depending on who you ask. Through their reward program, British Airways Executive Club, you can easily earn and spend air miles, Avios, to make great savings on flights. However, it can be quite confusing given the multitude of ways to earn Avios. Not to mention the dizzying array of ways to spend Avios.

Now, in all honesty I don’t have may positive things to say about British Airways. In fact, over the last year my experiences with them have all been pretty dire. British Airways used to be a dependable airline, with average quality and service, sometimes they were even pretty good. Nowadays though, whether a result of Covid or simple cost cuts, they’re soundly beaten by many other airlines. That being said, for those based in the UK they offer an unbeatable route network, and their rewards program is probably the best. I’ll go into more detail on my full thoughts about British Airways in a upcoming flight review from London to Geneva in Club Europe, so stay tuned!

I should also mention, the reward currency of British Airways is Avios, but Avios is not just limited to British Airways. It is the currency of International Airlines Group (IAG) who own British Airways, Iberia, Vueling and Aer Lingus. This means you can earn and spend Avios on many more routes than those just provided by British Airways. You can also earn Avios by flying with Oneworld partner airlines, but I’ll touch on that later…

Benefits & Membership Tiers

British Airways offer some pretty good perks for loyal customers. There are 4 tier levels: Blue, Bronze, Silver and Gold. Gold members can benefit from double Avios on all bookings, lounge access, priority check-in and boarding and much more. Other tiers receive diminishing returns until the lowest, Blue, which simply allows you to earn Avios and Tier points. Unfortunately you’ll have to fly an awful lot to actually earn these benefits. For a full list of what benefits you can expect to receive at each tier, see British Airways website.

An additional benefit of having Executive Club status is that it transfers over to other Oneworld airlines too. The image to the left shows what benefits different tiers of Executive Club members will receive on Oneworld Airlines. For instance all British Airways Executive Club Gold members are entitled to lounge access, priority boarding, first class check-in and more on Oneworld flights. This means that if you wanted to fly with Qatar Airways for instance, you would still receive pretty hefty benefits, even if you lack status with those airlines.

Another top tip is that you can create a household account with British Airways. This means that each member of your family (or friends) can link their account to the household account. That way you’ll earn points whenever a member of your household flies. And Avios points can be used accross all household accounts.

Ways to Earn

The great thing about Avios, at least if you’re based in the UK, is that there are just so many ways to earn. I wrote an article here which touches on some of the best ways to earn Avios if you want to read more. Keep on reading for a bried overview of the best ways to earn…

American Express

In my opinion, American Express provide the most effective way to earn Avios points. You can either earn points directly with their British Airways cards. Or convert Membership Rewards points into Avios with the Platinum or Gold card.

The added benefit of the Platinum/Gold card over the British Airways card is that you get a Priority Pass. This gives you free access to lounges all over the world. The Platinum card gives you unlimited lounge access whilst the Gold card is limited to 4 visits per year.

I personally use the Amex Platinum and transfer MR points to either British Airways or Singapore Airlines depending on where I want to fly.

Amex is my favourite way to earn Avios, or many other airline points for that matter.

Below is a breakdown I calculated on potential Avios values you can earn through the Amex Platinum Card and the Amex British Airways Card. I take into account varying annual spend levels so you can tailor it to how much you’re likely to spend:

Barclaycard & Barclays

Barclaycard recently launched two new cards to earn Avios with. First is the standard “Barclaycard Avios” which will earn 1 Avios per £1 spent and a companion voucher after spending £20,000. Then the “Barclaycard Avios Plus” which earns 1.5 Avios per £1 spent and a companion voucher after spending £10,000. The extra earnings on the plus version do come at the cost of £20 per month however. Both cards also have a signup bonus at the time of writing. 5,000 Avios after spending £1,000 on the free version, and 25,000 Avios after spending £3,000 on the plus card. Both of these spending goals need to be met within the first 3 months after receiving the card.

Below is a table showing how much Avios you can earn with each card. Again, I go into more details on the exact amounts these points could be worth in this article here. I worked out you could earn at least £200 of Avios with either of these cards. If you’re a high spender I would recommend the Plus card as you can earn at a better rate. For me though I use the free card as it’s my backup card for when Amex isn’t accepted, therefore I don’t spend much on it.

Additionally, Barclays are currently running an offer where you can earn 100,000 Avios simply by opening both a Premier Current Account and the Barclaycard Avios Plus card.

Through Oneworld Airlines

As a member of the Oneworld Alliance you can also earn Avios on bookings with other Oneworld Airlines too. For more details on what I think is the best airline alliance read here. Oneworld also has some great airlines, Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific being among my favourite. If you want to see my list of what I think are the top 6 airlines in the world, please click here.

Long story short, if you enter you’re British Airways Executive Club number when booking flights through other Oneworld airlines you’ll still earn Avios. Below are all the Oneworld Partner airlines:

Oneworld member airlines — Note: as I mentioned earlier you’ll also earn on flights with Aer Lingus and Vueling as they are owned by IAG, the parent company of Avios and British Airways.

Avios Subscription

Last but not least, British Airways recently announced a new Avios Subscription plan. This involves paying a monthly subscription to earn Avios at an additional rate. I wrote a full review and analysis of this product here. But long story short, I don’t think it’s worth it unless you have the disposable income. It can become very expensive and whilst you can technically get positive value from it, you are still limited on what you use Avios on vs. cash.

Ways to Spend

I have previously done an analysis showing what kind of savings you can make when redeeming Avios here. I’ve found it’s relatively easy surpassing 1p per Avios in value. For example, most recently I used 30,000 Avios + £2 for a return flight from London to Switzerland. As it’s in business class (Club Europe) it would have cost ~£437, so I’m pretty happy with the savings.

For simplicity’s sake I’ve created a brief table showing how Avios points compare to Singapore Airlines and Virgin Atlantic. If you can afford it I highly recommend booking flights in business class (BA call it Club World/Europe). This is because you get a much better £ value when converting your points. However, of you’re happy flying economy you can still save hundreds of pounds. It just won’t be the most optimal way of spending Avios.

Air mile redemption rates British Airways Singapore Airlines, Virgin Atlantic — You can save a lot with Avios, but other airlines can be more competitive

Now, when booking on the British Airways website you’ll have two choices to use Avios. First “Book with Avios” lets you book with points upfront. Whilst “Book and Upgrade” involves booking a flight in say economy and using points to upgrade to a higher class. I tend to use “Book with Avios” as you end up paying less cash. For instance I booked a flight in Club Europe for 30,000 Avios + £2. I could have done the same thing through “Book and Upgrade” but I would have had to pay the economy fair in cash, which would have been ~£150. Both methods provide a similar Avios value, you’ll just have to pay more actual cash when upgrading.

Finally, you can actually use Avios for in-flight purchases. When the cabin crew are doing the in-flight food service you can give them you’re membership number instead of paying in cash. The rates here aren’t very good, but it is an option if you don’t want to use a credit card.

Alternatives

If you don’t want to become a British Airways Executive Club member (then why read this post?) there are a few other options.

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer

Singapore Airlines are my favourite airline and a backup option for me when I want to convert American Express MR points. You can easily convert Amex MR points into Singapore KrisFlyer miles through the Amex website here. For more details on the kind of redemption rates you can expect with Singapore Airlines, check out my post here and the breakdown I provided earlier in this post.

If you live in Singapore you can also signup for the American Express Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Credit Card which is a very good way to earn KrisFlyer miles. For a full list of benefits at different membership tiers for Singapore Airlines, see their website here. It is pretty comparable to those offered by British Airways and Oneworld so the choice of airline really comes down to what suits you.

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club

Finally, another alternative is Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, soon to be a member of the Skyteam Alliance. Again, my breakdown of potential value you can get by spending points is in the table earlier in this post. I found that when booking business class flights, Virgin Atlantic provide by far the most points value. You can redeem up to 2.7p per 1 Virgin point which is more than twice that of British Airways. Though it will vary depending on the route and time you’re flying.

A breakdown of what you can earn through the free and premium version of the Virgin Atlantic Credit Card.

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