Can I change my British Airways Executive Club membership year end?

Can you change your British Airways Executive Club membership year end?

British Airways Executive Club is a frequent flyer program that aims to reward your loyalty to British Airways.  In this article we’ll look at whether you can change your British Airways Executive Club membership year.

Membership years with British Airways Executive Club are somewhat counterintuitive, in that they do NOT cycle on the anniversary of your joining date.

Instead, British Airways assigns you a membership renewal date depending on when you signed up originally. These cycles occur on the 8th of each month. So, for example, if you sign up on the 12th December 2021, your membership will automatically renew (and your tier points reset) on the 8th January.

This means that every new member is guaranteed a first year membership of between 12 and 13 months. Every following membership year is a more regular 12 months: in the example above this would be from the 9th January to the 8th January the following year. If you joined 2nd July, your membership year would begin on 9th July and end on 8th July every subsequent year.

Because the British Airways Executive Club system groups new sign ups into 12 monthly lots, each with a starting date of the 8th of the month, it is impossible to alter your membership year end. The system simply does not cater for such changes.

This is a very frustrating thing for many people.  My wife and my children have British Airways Executive Club accounts and we all have different membership year end dates.  It is perfectly possible for us all to take exactly the same flights but, because of the timing of the years, for some of us to earn status whilst the others miss out.  I don’t think this makes sense for anyone.

However, British Airways Executive Club does show some flexibility for those who narrowly miss the tier point thresholds at the end of a membership year. If you are flying up to two weeks after your membership year ends, but would like your tier points to credit to that year rather than the new one you are in, then British Airways can effectively credit those retroactively at your request.

This does not, however, change your membership year end; the only change is that these tier points are booked in for the previous membership year.

(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.