How many British Airways tier points do I earn per flight?

A question I am often asked is how many British Airways points you can earn from a particular flight.

We have our own British Airways tier point calculator in the form of this article (click).  We list every British Airways route together with the tier points earned in each class.

As you probably already know, tier points are used by British Airways to track your elite status as part of the Executive Club, their frequent flyer program.

At certain thresholds you will find yourself being upgraded to British Airways Bronze, Silver or Gold – and enjoying all the associated benefits. However, unlike Avios, the reward currency, tier points cannot be spent and can only be earned by flying with British Airways or its partners.

The number of tier points you earn is generally based on both the flight length as well as your class of travel.  If you just want to check a single flight, either with British Airways or a partner airline, you can do so with the British Airways Avios and tier points calculator.

Nonetheless, it’s good to know the rules. Longer flights and those in higher classes earn significantly more.  You can use gcmap.com to calculate distances and plug them into the chart below.

Here are the one-way earning rates (click for enlargement):

Unfortunately, there is no logical distinction between short or medium haul flights when it comes to British Airways. The distance bands shown in the table are applied strictly to flights on partner airlines but not on BA itself.  British Airways is known for adding or removing destinations from bands as it pleases.

You can see a full list of the current destinations that are in the higher tier point earning band here.  Click here for an article which applies some of the data and lists British Airways Club Europe routes which are treated as ‘medium haul’ and so earn a tempting 160 tier points return.  Do two weekend breaks in a year to cities on this list and you’d have a British Airways Bronze card.  You can learn more about the benefits of British Airways Bronze status in this article.

As you can see, British Airways has a separate earnings rate for fares to Australia. However, there is a benefit in not flying direct as it is possible to earn more tier points if you break up your trip with, say, a 24 hour stop in Singapore.

In business class, this would allow you to earn the fare 300 tier points instead of 240 one way, since London-Singapore is over 6000 miles and falls into the ‘ultra long haul’ category with 160 tier points whilst Singapore-Sydney is over 2000 miles and therefore earns you 140 tier points.

On a return trip, this would net you an additional 120 tier points – and in fact you could earn Silver status just on a flight to Australia by taking a mini-break in Singapore, even if just for 24 hours, in each direction.

(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.)

---

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.