How do I join British Airways Executive Club?

In this article I want to show you how you can join British Airways Executive Club.

Executive Club is the British Airways frequent flyer membership programme, allowing you to collect and save Avios, the British Airways equivalent of airmiles. Once you save enough, you can choose to spend them by booking reward flights or part-paying cash bookings with Avios to reduce the fare.

Joining the Executive Club also allow you to earn elite status with British Airways, which come with benefits including lounge access, free seat selection, bonus Avios earning rates and many more. You can read a brief explanation of the different British Airways Executive Club tiers here.

Joining the Executive Club is very easy.  It is free to join on the British Airways website and there are no minimum requirements for eligibility, although you do have to be 18 or older.

Can children join British Airways Executive Club?

Yes.  If you are under 18, there is still a way to join British Airways Executive Club and earn Avios – see this article for details.

After you’ve joined the Executive Club ….

Once you’re signed up, you can start collecting Avios both from British Airways and oneworld flights. Executive Club also has a large network of commercial partners including retailers and restaurants where you can conveniently earn on your daily spending. As a member you’ll also receive exclusive offers and competitions from both British Airways and their partners.

When you first join Executive Club you will have Blue membership. Your first milestone, in addition to collecting Avios, should be to achieve Bronze status – the first of the elite levels – which has several benefits including priority boarding and free earlier seat selection. We’ve written here about what you need to do to become a British Airways Executive Club Bronze member.

(This article is part of our ‘BA Q&A’ series which explains how British Airways Executive Club works.  You can see all of our ‘BA Q&A’ articles here. )

(Head for Points is the UK’s biggest frequent flyer website with 2.4 million monthly page views.  Want to learn more about earning and spending Avios?  Click here to read our latest news stories and click here to join the mailing list for our weekly or daily email newsletters.)

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (January 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

There are also good bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These are available to sole traders as well as limited companies.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.