Can I get an extension to my British Airways Executive Club membership year?

Is it possible to get an extension to your British Airways Executive Club membership year?

If you’ve read our article about how British Airways Executive Club membership years work, you’ll know that they’re a little less simple than you might expect.  In this article we’ll look at whether you can extend your membership year.

Membership years are not 12 months from the day you signed up. Instead, your first year of membership is between 12 and 13 months long. This is because British Airways Executive Club membership years cycle on the 8th day of the month following your sign-up month.

So, for example, if you joined on 10th May 2022, your first year end would be 8th June 2023, giving you just under 13 full months of membership for your first year. For every subsequent year, however, your membership will cycle on that day (8th June) and not the anniversary of your actual sign up date (10th May).

Your membership year is fixed for life.  This article (clicks) looks at whether you can permanently change your British Airways Executive Club membership year end date but the short answer is ‘no’.  Once you have signed up, it cannot be changed. This can be frustrating if you are travelling with a partner and you both have different membership years, meaning that the exact same flights might affect your elite status in different ways.

However, it is possible to ask for a short extension to your membership year.  On request, British Airways will back-credit flights in the first two weeks of a new membership year to the previous year, potentially allowing you to cross the threshold into Bronze, Silver or Gold.

This does not affect the anniversary of your membership year, it simply credits the tier points and Avios to the prior year. To do so you need to call British Airways directly.  This is official British Airways policy so you can call with confidence – the agent is not doing something they shouldn’t.

If you do this, of course, the points will not count towards your new membership year.  No double counting is allowed.

(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.