Will British Airways match my status with another airline?

A common question I get asked is whether you can get a status match with British Airways.  Will BA match your status with any other airline?

Some airlines will match your elite status with a competing company in order to encourage you to give them a try. Since you already have status with another airline, they know that you are likely to become a frequent flyer with them if given the same benefits, and are unlikely to switch unless you are given benefits from Day 1.

This can be useful in many cases, especially if the airline you achieved status with is closing a particularly important route for you that means you no longer consider them your airline of choice. In this case, a status match lets you jump over to a new airline without a loss of status benefits whilst you start from scratch.

Unfortunately, British Airways Executive Club very rarely matches status from other frequent flyer programs. You will often receive this generic response:

Tier status, as you know, is our way of recognising and rewarding our most loyal and frequent travellers. To upgrade certain Club members to higher tiers which other members have worked hard to achieve would be unfair and undervalue their continued support.

Take a look at the statusmatcher.com site if you want further proof.  This is a site where people post their successes and failures in requesting status matches from airline and hotel companies.

However, there are certain rare exceptions to this. For example, British Airways offered a status match following the bankruptcy of Air Berlin in the hopes of enticing German residents to join Executive Club. Unfortunately, such offers are severely time-limited.

Other rare exceptions to British Airways’ firm stance can be had if your employer signs a large corporate contract with them though these are on an ad-hoc basis and there is no guarantee of success.  You need to be prepared to work your way up through the British Airways Executive Club ranks from scratch.

(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.