What are the various British Airways fare classes?

What are the different British Airways fare classes and what do BA’s fare classes mean?

You may think that airline tickets are only divided into three or four categories: economy, premium economy, business and first class. Unfortunately, airline fares are significantly more complicated, and many airlines operate twenty or more different ticket classes.

In this article we’ll be decoding what your British Airways fare class means and how it affects you.

To complicate matters further, each airline runs its own lettering system – so this guide only applies to British Airways.

British Airways divides its tickets in nine different ways, often offering ‘lowest’ and ‘flexible’ tickets in each cabin class. Each of these categories comes with at least one designation letter, though some come with many more.

Here’s the full list, including how many Avios you will earn if your ticket falls into that category:

Economy lowest – Q, O, G – 25% Avios of miles flown

Economy low – K, L, M, N, S, V – 50% Avios

Economy flexible – Y, B, H – 100% Avios

Premium Economy lowest – E, T – 100% Avios

Premium Economy flexible – W – 150% Avios

Business lowest – R, I – 150% Avios

Business flexible – J, C, D – 250% Avios

First lowest – A – 250% Avios

First flexible – F – 300% Avios

Fare classes come with different rules such as hand baggage allowances, and each fare class also has a different Avios earning rate.

Unlike many airlines, British Airways does not have a dedicated ticket bucket for Avios redemptions.

How do I know what fare class my BA ticket is?

British Airways make it easy to see your fare class. Once you have selected your flights and cabin class, you will be directed to a summary page with a link to ‘flight details’. Your fare class will be displayed on the pop-up.

Alternatively, you can see your fare class in ‘Manage My Booking’. Under the flight details drop down, there is a link to ‘More Flight Information’, which triggers a pop-up with the aircraft type, flight duration and other flight details and your ‘selling class’, which is you fare class.

(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.