How to read the tier points tables
“Fare class” is one of the most confusing terms in the British Airways Club, because it now means two different things — and only one of them still decides how many tier points you earn. Since British Airways moved to a spend-based programme on 1 April 2025, the single-letter booking class that used to drive tier point earning is no longer the whole story. The tables above bring the current rules together in one place so you can look up any flight in seconds.
The big change: spend, not distance, on BA flights
On flights marketed by British Airways, American Airlines and Iberia, you now earn 1 tier point for every £1 of eligible spend. Eligible spend means the base fare plus carrier-imposed surcharges (the YQ/YR fuel and carrier charges) — it excludes government taxes and airport fees such as Air Passenger Duty. On top of that base earning, every flight also collects a fixed block of Extra Tier Points. This is where the tables matter: for BA-marketed flights the bonus depends on your cabin and your fare type, while for American- and Iberia-marketed flights it depends only on the cabin and whether the flight is short-haul or long-haul.
Fare types run from the cheapest — Basic and Plus in economy — up through Semi-Flex, Flex and Fully-Flex. A Fully-Flex Club World fare earns more than double the Extra Tier Points of a saver Business fare in the same cabin, which is exactly why a status run is so sensitive to the fare you buy. If British Airways cannot identify your fare type, it awards the lowest Extra Tier Points band for that cabin, so it always pays to book a clearly branded fare.
Where booking-class letters still count
The booking-class decoder table has not become useless — far from it. Those single letters still determine three important things. First, they drive tier point earning on oneworld partners other than American and Iberia: Qatar Airways, Japan Airlines, Cathay Pacific and the rest still use the old distance-based method, where your tier points are the great-circle miles flown multiplied by a percentage set by the airline and your booking class. A cheap economy class earns as little as 2–4% of miles; a flexible business fare can earn 50%.
Second, the letter decides upgrade eligibility — deeply discounted economy fares in G, O or Q classes usually cannot be upgraded with Avios or cash. Third, for corporate, undisclosed and travel-management-company (TMC) fares that BA cannot map to a published fare type, the programme falls back to the legacy distance-and-class calculation. For UK negotiated fares, BA awards tier points based on the equivalent BA.com published fare at the time of booking, or higher.
How to find your fare class
Your booking class appears in Manage My Booking as the “selling class”, and on your e-ticket receipt next to each flight segment. The branded fare type (Basic, Plus, Semi-Flex and so on) is shown at the point of sale when you choose your fare, and again in your booking confirmation. If you only have the letter, the decoder table tells you the cabin and rough flexibility; if you have the branded name, the BA table tells you the exact Extra Tier Points you will earn.
A worked example
Take a return London–New York in World Traveller Plus (premium economy) on a Premium fare, costing £1,418 in total with £298 of that being government taxes. The eligible spend is £1,120, so the flight earns 1,120 base tier points. The Premium fare in World Traveller Plus earns 275 Extra Tier Points per sector, or 550 for the return. Add them together and the trip earns 1,670 tier points — nearly half of the 3,500 needed for Bronze in a single return. To see the cost per tier point for your own flights, use our BA Tier Points Calculator.
The status thresholds these tables feed
Under the current programme you need 3,500 tier points for Bronze, 7,500 for Silver and 20,000 for Gold, all counted in your membership year which resets on 31 March. Lifetime Gold arrives at 550,000 tier points. Any guide still quoting 300, 600, 1,500 or 2,500 tier points is describing the old programme and is out of date. Because the new targets are so much higher, choosing the right cabin and fare type — and knowing exactly what each one earns — matters more than ever.
Earn tier points from everyday spending
Flying is no longer the only route to status. From April 2027, British Airways American Express cardholders earn tier points from card spending, and the Premium Plus card’s Companion Voucher lets you bring someone along for the Avios of one — stretching every tier-point-earning trip further. If you are weighing up the card, read our Amex BA Premium Plus review or start with the Avios beginner’s guide.