What are the benefits of having a British Airways Executive Club Silver card?

What are the benefits of British Airways Executive Club Silver status?

Silver is one of four tiers of the Executive Club, British Airways’ frequent flyer membership scheme. In this article we’ll look at what the benefits are of having British Airways Executive Club Silver status.

Silver status is the second of the elite status levels on British Airways. To get Silver status you first have to acquire Bronze membership. Like Bronze, you achieve Silver when you cross the threshold of tier points or eligible flights flown. You can read the requirements for British Airways Silver status in this article.

Although British Airways bronze status comes with some good benefits, Silver is where things really start to get interesting. You’ll get:

50% bonus Avios on all British Airways, Iberia, American Airlines and Japan Airlines flights

Free seat selection at the time of booking for you and anyone else on your booking, excluding “extra legroom” upgrades and all hand-baggage only fares

2 free 32kg bags per person in all classes, for everyone on your booking

Club World, Club Europe or oneworld equivalent business class check in desks, regardless of your flight class

Access for you and one guest (travelling on a British Airways or oneworld operated flight) to the British Airways Galleries Club, Terraces and Executive Club, or the equivalent oneworld business class departure lounge

Priority boarding

Reservation assurance on full-fare economy tickets, guaranteeing you a seat even on full or overbooked flights.

The official ba.com list of British Airways Executive Club Silver benefits is here.

As you can tell there are almost twice as many benefits in Silver as there are for Bronze.  The two key benefits are:

access to the British Airways or oneworld equivalent business departure lounges, letting you escape the crowds in the airport

free seat selection

It’s also worth noting that your checked baggage allowance increases to two 32kg bags – useful if you like to travel with plenty of outfits.  I’d say that 90% of the value to me of Silver status comes from the lounge and seat selection benefits however.

The good news is that Gold is even better than Silver status.  You can read all about the benefits of a British Airways Gold card here.

(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.