The Complete British Airways Tier Point Runs Guide, 2020 Edition
Introduction
A few years ago I pointed towards a decent deal in Asia whereby you could construct a closed-loop ticket, netting over 1200 British Airways Tier Points. In this post I cover some strategies you should use if you are planning big Tier Point runs.
What is a Tier Point Run?
Like Mileage Running, a Tier Point run is a series of flights you take for the sole purpose of getting British Airways Executive Club Tier Points. This has a slight difference to mileage running because whereas the latter would typically make you fly as far as you can for a given price in economy class, tier point runs are typically flown in business or first class and not necessarily for long distances. The infamous Amsterdam to Jersey run is an example of where you would do lots of short hops.
With that said, the North American runs, if including a transatlantic sector, can cover enormous distances! To give you an idea of how tiring it can be to do a Tier Point run, my last TP run to Hawaii a few years ago was the interest of the mini-documentary that CNN made. Apologies in advance for the my lifeless nature during the filming!
The Targets
An acceptable target is £3/TP. A good target is £2/TP. An outstanding target is £1/TP. There is obviously a huge amount of discretion here because no-one other than you will decide whether to buy a ticket or not.
As a comparison though, take a typical non-stop business route between London and San Francisco. Return flights at ‘normal' prices are about £4300 and earn 280 Tier Points which gives an earning rate of £15.36/TP!!
The Rules
To hit British Airways Gold status you need 1500 Tier Points and 4 “Eligible Flights”. From BA's “About Tier Points” page
Eligible flights are defined as those flights marketed or operated by British Airways, and those flights marketed and operated by Iberia.
- ‘Marketed‘ means the flight will have a BA flight number (in your itinerary or on your ticket).
- ‘Operated‘ means the aircraft that you travel on is a British Airways aircraft (including franchises and BACityflyer).
- ‘Marketed and operated by Iberia‘ means the flight will have an IB flight number and the aircraft you travel on is an Iberia aircraft (including franchises).
If you used Avios to pay for the entirety of your flight, as opposed to using some to upgrade or discount your ticket, then it will not be counted as an eligible flight. You would not get Tier Points for these anyway.
The amount of Tier Points you get for crediting flights to your BA account are as follows:
Short haul (up to 2000 miles):
- Business class – 40
- First class – 60
Short haul plus* (selected intra-Europe routes on British Airways):
- Business class – 80
Long haul (2000 miles and over):
- Business class – 140
- First class – 210
Long haul extra (6000 miles and over):
- Business class – 160
- First class – 240
For a complete list of ‘efficient' routes here I have written up every Oneworld route that just crosses the 2000 mile mark which can make TP running useful. If you are unsure, you can use the British Airways Avios and TP calculator to see how many you will get.
Qatar Airways
One of the most dramatic helping hands in recent times has been the aggressive Qatar Airways business class fares to many destinations around the globe. Historically Tier Point runs were either short haul trips around Europe or Asia, or intercontinental between Europe and North America. But with the arrival of Qatar Airways this has linked just about any two continents together, which makes stringing TP runs together a whole lot easier.
Another key advantage here is that, except for East European, Middle Eastern and Indian destinations, they are almost all above the 2000 mile threshold and earn 140 tier points per sector minimum, and in significantly better seats and in-flight experience than before.
Their fares can often drop to between £900-£1100, and with a connection in each direction this nets 560 Tier Points at between £1.60-£1.96/TP.
If you travel with a group of friends (don't underestimate the size of the Tier Point runner community!) then you could book a Qsuite route, and enjoy a 4-way face-to-face dinner in the sky.
The current routes served by Qsuite are listed here. Most of them feature in Qatar Airways sales (watch out especially for Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm because the Scandinavian region very frequently comes up for cheap business class fares, bookmark and monitor this page as deals come and go quickly.)
To/From North America
While the huge 1200TP journeys are a lot harder to come by now, air fares are still very decent and if you can get your head around Maximum Permissible Mileage routing rules then you can still easily hit over 800TP in one go. This equates to two transfers in North America and another within Europe, so for instance:
Outbound: London – Madrid – Washington DC- San Francisco – Las Vegas
Inbound: Las Vegas – San Francisco – Washington DC – Madrid – London
There are a few general tips I can provide:
- Wait for a cheap premium cabin transatlantic sale, where you can get transatlantic business class for under £1200 or so (approx €1350 in January 2019). They are typically held 3-5 times per year.
- You need to transfer somewhere in the east coast of USA, then again in the West coast. The reason being that you need to cross the 2000 miles threshold to get 140TP instead of 40TP.
- Check Honolulu or Oahu (both in Hawaii) as destinations during premium cabin sale fares.
- (And if you are needing to buy a supplementary domestic fare, find sectors on American Airlines which book into their domestic ‘First Class' cabin, but at business class or economy class prices. It may not be easy at first, These are sometimes known as “instant upgrade” or “A-UP” or “Y-UP” fares, which were created to circumvent company rules to force economy-only tickets.)
Here are some routes departing American Airlines' hub in New York JFK airport which cross 2000 miles.
If you are lucky and a sale fare includes both a European ‘Short Haul Plus' and Hawaii as a route, If going from Malta then your journey will probably look something like this:
- Malta – London, BA Business Class, 80TP
- London – New York, BA/AA Business Class, 140TP
- New York – Los Angeles, AA Business Class, 140TP
- Los Angeles – Honolulu, AA First Class, 140TP
- Honolulu-Los Angeles, AA First Class, 140TP
- Los Angeles – Miami, AA First Class, 140TP
- Miami – London, AA/IB Business Class, 140TP
- London – Malta, IB Business Class, 80TP
Total = 1000 Tier Points.
If you managed to do all the above for less than around £1000 or €1100, then you are onto a steal!
Reflecting on my experiences in Tier Point running, I feel American Airlines Boeing 777-300ER reverse herringbone seat is far superior to the Ying-Yang arrangement of BA's Club World (though if you can ever get Seat 64A or 64K on a Boeing 747, then that's a nice a private flight!) or even Iberia's new A350 business class. All are lie-flat business class products.
Around Asia
For collecting intra-Asia, Malaysia Airlines and Cathay Pacific are the way to go and you should look out for their deals, especially out of Taiwan. (Bookmark this Malaysia Airlines Taiwan sale page by dragging it into your bookmarks folder).
Two routes to note are between Hong Kong and Jakarta/Bali, and Taipei to Kuala Lumpur, which both just sneak above the 2000 mile threshold and therefore earn the long haul 140 Tier Points. So if flown in Business Class, both of these itineraries would earn 360 TPs.
Cathay Pacific: Taipei – Hong Kong – Jakarta/Bali – Hong Kong – Taiwan
Malaysia Airlines: Taipei – Kuala Lumpur – Singapore – Kuala Lumpur – Taipei.
Other suggest routes are just about any domestic Malaysia Airlines routes, especially between Penang and Kuala Lumpur which involves a quick flight and quick turnaround.
Finally
There are too many variants to list and would lead to an even longer blog post. For instance domestic Russian flights, intercontinental flights between North and South America although these tend to be more strict with routing rules and not so easy to string together like the examples above.
But when you finally reach the Gold status, all that's left is to enjoy it!
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If I fly BA, but post the points to Alaska do I get the BA Tier points? I’m assuming they would go towards Alaska status right?
No BA tier points for crediting outside BA. Alaska will award elite qualifying miles like most other airlines.
I recall going to your FTU presentation but at that point I already had a plan for 2015 (just reached skyteam elite plus!) Then again, I think I’ll still have time to pursue this this year but more likely for 2016.
Just to refresh my memory, the BA Gold card equates to the oneworld emerald status, thus giving me privilege to enter any oneworld F lounges?
Correct, BA gold is OW emerald. You can even use it to access AA lounges on domestic itineraries where their own executive platinums can’t
JFK-LAX usually books in to Business Class as it’s a 3 class plane. However, you can pay a little more and go First. Although the service is not much different.
New to tier points runs I am curious as to how such complicated itineraries can be booked so cheaply. Certainly not as multi-city or individual flights on on BA or AA sites?
Multi-city usually works! Otherwise if you find a skilled Travel agent then they can usually reserve the itinerary for you
Hey Tim, brilliant blog. really informative. Do you know any travel agents that understand the tier points and can find flights? I’m just starting with BA after shifting from Virgin and have paid for a couple of business class flights to KL and Miami from Spain where i live and have around 600 points. I have another 2 trips but am struggling to find reasonable flights. Any suggestions on agents would be greatly appreciated! Best
I tend to do all the bookings myself! For the most complex bookings look up Dutch_122 on Flyertalk. He’s usually very responsive to messages.
thank you for the contact…. i need to put some hours in:) The US seems pretty straight forward its the Asia side that im having problems with will ask. best
Hi struggling to find a tier point run for gold thats under 10k using your route and using matrix wanting to travel this month. any tips? thanks
I need to earn 795 tier points to get gold before October any hints I live in London
A few round trips in first class somewhere perhaps?
I’d love any advice on getting from 1,190 points to 1,500 (i.e. 310 points to go) to get Gold before my year expires at start of June 2016. Looks like a business class LHR to Cape Town (160 TPs each way) is the way forward or a trip to San Fran (same class) plus one short flight. Feeling I am flying just for the challenge though. Peter
It will depend on how much time and money you have available, but you could do a relatively cheap business class return between LHR-NYC with a domestic US transfer in one direction, which would get you 140+60+140 = 340TP. Something like LHR-BOS-JFK-LHR would do it.
1200 TP Run to Hawai. I am new to this.
Do I need to book all segments separately or can I book AMS to Hawai in on go?
You should be able to book all in one itinerary. It may require a call to the BA call centre though as the online system is notoriously hard to book this kind of itinerary.
Do people really go to such lenghts and expense just to achieve silver/gold status??? Seems crazy to me. I fly on business around Europe frequently, usually CE and I occasionaly hit silver but I can’t see how access to a lounge (you can buy access to N1/Clubrooms or similar for a few pounds and they are not so vastly inferior to BA lounges) plus a few other perks like priority boarding and fast track are worth such tribulation? If you fly business or first with BA you get the access anyway. At a rough guess it seems like people are prepared to pay upwards of thousands of pounds just to achieve “priviliged” status. Seriously, flying half way round the world and stopping off as much as possible rather then direct just to get some extra tier points? Or maybe there is more to it and I am just missing something.
Hi Marco,
Short answer – yes people do it!
For many it is fun to fly intercontinentally and back in a weekend, some of the price goes towards enjoyment of the journey. For others they may be extremely heavy fliers at work but the company policy only gets them just short of Silver. Doing the TP run makes a huge difference in the types of lounge they can visit (the first class lounges are orders of magnitude better than business class lounges in parts of Asia), the amount of Award space they can pay with Avios, and service when things go wrong.
I for one value my Oneworld Emerald status quite heavily!
Hi Tim,
If you can clarify one point about collecting Tiers would be great, as I didn’t find an answer so far.
Lets imagine I have some amount of tiers, today is 1st of August and I’m left to collect 100TP for to get next level and the “Tier Point collection year” end 1st of October. The question is: what exactly need to happen before 1st of October to get next level: 1) book an eligible flight 2)book and pay for such flight 3)not only pay but exactly complete the flight? I mean it’s not clear at what period of time tier points exactly come to my account. Thank you in advance!
Hi Sergiy,
It’s number 3. You need to complete your flight before your year end.
Call BA Exec Club on the phone and ask for a few weeks extension to complete your journey and maintain your status.
I thought AAs have eliminated first class fare buckets for most domestic routes a while ago, pnly the premium transcon flights still have them. Or am I missing something?
They did, but the Y-Up fares still exist
Thanks so much Tim I’m flying from London so really want do a tier run Do you know any great routes to do if you’re only eccomony ?
Really enjoying all your blogs thank you so much for posting!
Tier Point running is not really viable in economy class at all sadly. That’s just how BAEC is set up. Economy flights would would earn only 5-10 points in short haul and compare that to 40-80 in business class!
Thanks Tim noted and thank you for putting together the runs you can do it’s really appreciated and so helpful !
Teresa
My pleasure! Sorry it took longer than I wanted to get the BA TP run material out, but as you can see there’s a lot to write!
I can understand why it’s incredible and so are you thank you Tim
Hi Tim
Just booked two business class flights to Malaga for me and the mrs,
I need 100 points to maintain silver but I’ll only get 80 points leaving me 20 short.
Can I also claim the points from the wife’s flight?
No sadly not. You can only claim your own Tier Points
Hi Tim
Just booked two business class flights to Malaga, can I claim my wife’s points as well?
Hello Tim
Can you transfer tier points to friends ?
No
Sorry fat thumbs … I was just about to ask another question and sent it by mistake !
Due to my job I’m flying less frequently this year and so now I’m in danger of losing my silver status in a big way (hence the question can you transfer tier points ) as I will be starting off in London for tier run can you suggest one of your fabulous (economical ) runs I need to do it before October and earn over 445 points is this possible oh flight guru !
Terèsa 🙂
Hi
I am BA silver and need 420 points by the 8/12/19. I live in London and am open to doing tier point run anywhere but preferably Tokyo or Singapore or San Francisco would be great because I have friends in these cities.
Is Qatar Airways still my best bet? Hoping to do this run in September or November.
Any advice or help would be much appreciated. I love the idea of trying a Q Suite!
Thanks,
Sweta
Hi Tim,
Great site with some excellent information here on getting high tier points. Bookmarked and etched in my memory bank.
I’m planning to do a 1 year Round The World trip through Oneworld next summer. 16 biz class flights for around £8500 and travelling one direction from London to USA to South America to Asia to Middle East then back to London. 14 of these flights would be considered long haul.
I’m hoping to accumulate about 2000 TP throughout this trip which would rocket me from Bronze BA status up to Gold (or very close to Gold).
I do have a question that I’m hoping you or someone else may have an answer for as I haven’t had a response from British Airways yet.
My tier point collection year runs from January to January. I think that by November, I would have acquired enough points to move up to Silver BA status. Would my points towards Gold start accumulating from November after I have reached Silver, or would my Gold collection points start from when my tier collection begins (January)?
I have a potential 500 TP I could gain/lose in the two months between November and January and would love for these to be added towards my quest for Gold status.
I have never been higher than Bronze before so unsure of how this works.
Thanks
Jon
Hi Jon, thanks for the compliments. Unfortunately those 500TP will be lost. Actually the ideal scenario is to collect your TP in the few months immediately after your year renews that way it all counts towards the next year.
Hi Tim,
Great information. I’m now Gold with the help of a few Qatar flights. You indicated that you usually book all your flights for your TP runs. Can you comment on which websites you use. Are you using Skyscanner, Kayak and BA.com or are there other websites that are better? Many times when I use the above websites I get a generic “business class” fare but don’t get the full booking class letter code (hopefully you understand) so I don’t know exactly if I’m getting all my TPs and maximum mileage. Can you help me? Thanks
I use almost exclusively the airlines websites themselves. Eg. ba.com, aa.com, iberia.com etc. For the purposes of Tier Points it doesn’t really matter what fare bucket you are in when you hit business class and above, it only matter more for economy and premium economy.
In a way I’m doing a tier point run to Oslo, but it’s really to catch my initial outgoing flight to the US – so I’ll land, and then reboard the same aircraft. Here’s the question: (hand luggage only) will I need to go out and clear through Oslo security, or can I linger at the gate with other passengers and reboard when they begin boarding? Wondering firstly if Oslo airport’s architecture allows (i.e. we exit the aircraft in the same area where passengers board, or if it’s a separate doorway / route off the aircraft)?, and secondly, if it does allow me to do so, will I screw up the system by not passing through security in Oslo? I’ll have already checked in online the day before, so checking in won’t be an issue.
I haven’t done a back-to-back at OSL before, but Flyertalk rates this as a “good on the whole”. Can’t really advise for here, sorry! But you should not have issues with not going through security. airside-to-airside transfers are very common everywhere.
Great site !
I currently have 955 TPs so need 545 more TPs to achieve Gold. My TP year ends May 8. I have a house in Spain do fairly often do the round trip for 80TP. I’m aware at the European destinations (Tirana etc) which collect 160 TPs rtn … I’d like to achieve at least 465 TPs in a short period (2/3 days). Any brilliant ideas please would be very welcome and much appreciated.
That’s a lot of tier points for 2 days! You’ve got a few options:
1) You would need to do something like a trip to Asia via Doha or Helsinki return. That would be 560 TP if you can find a trip without a minimum stay requirement.
2) LHR-AMM-DXB return would be 360TP and then add on another 105 TP with something like MAN-LHR-HEL round trip.
3) Head to North America, so LHR-MAD-JFK-MIA and back, which would normally require a Saturday night stay, so travel on a Friday or Saturday and return on Sunday. That would easily see you over!
Let me know what you end up choosing!
Thanks for sharing these tips, Tim; very useful indeed!
I’m planning a trip out to San Diego in April, the week after Easter.
Any suggestions on a decent routing to maximise my tier points intake (just starting my membership year and would like to re-qualify for Silver or hit Gold if possible)? I’ll be leaving from FRA.
Cheers!
Hi Ajay,
I have very fond memories of SAN, as I did a few tier point runs through there about 8 years ago. One of your most viable routes, which should be able to ticket correctly, is something like FRA-HEL-LHR-JFK-PHX-SAN round trip. This would net 2*(40 + 80 + 140 + 140 + 40) = 880TP. If you can squeeze an extra sector between PHX-SAN, for instance at LAX then that’s another 80 tier points gained for 960TP total.
Let me know what you do in the end!
I absolutely love SAN, and will gladly accept any opportunity to head out there.
Thanks so much for your suggestion! I’ll have a look on Google Flights/ITA to see what’s possible and will report back!
Tim, any idea how to book or even search for the itinerary you suggested?
Tried both Google Flights and ITA Matrix, but couldn’t get any connections in Europe outside of LHR and BCN (that one surprised me actually).
Similar story with the US connections.
Cheers!
btw…
KUL – KTM on MH also 140 TP
Wow good spot, thank you!
Hi,
I am a Silver member just short of getting Gold by May. Have a trip to Mid West USA next month and considering building in a connecting flight over there just to pick up some extra points (40 I believe for a US domestic Business flight < 2000 miles…unfortunately I'm not going to the West coast and thus can't benefit from the 2,000 mile threshold). However, I will still be just 30 or 40 tier points short of Gold still. If I need to do something more extreme and build in two connecting flights in the US (i.e. 3 planes total from UK – US), will I earn yet more extra tier points? i.e. 40 Tier Pts x 2 = 80 for the US legs.
Thanks
Correct! Make sure the flight numbers are all different to each other though, because if 2 legs have the same number and you fly them the same day, you will only get credit for one (it’s a very rare situation, but it catches people out)
Tim, Thanks for confirming! It’s a little extreme behaviour (and certainly not worth it if flying Economy, since I only get 5 or 10 BAEC tier points when at the back of the plane on domestic American Airline routes), but for 40 tier points per each leg over there, it’s preferable to do once vs book a whole separate ‘mattress run’ flight before May to get me into Gold.
Hi all,
Just found the site and it is amazing, well done and keep up the good work!
I’m a UK BA member, year end 08 May and just reached Silver and I would need 765 TP to ramp up to Gold. I don’t travel for business but do like to explore. So a couple of questions (probably hugely simple and obvious) hopefully to get some informed opinions here:
Firstly I guess, what would be the easiest/most cost effective way or route in hitting the points needed?
I’m happy with Silver, but tempted to try and reach the next step.
I know Gold offers some serious perks but is it actually worth chasing at this time? I’m not sure I would be making 5 -10 long haul flights a year to truly max out the perks, but I could be persuaded.
Any thoughts, ideas, suggestions are all gratefully received.
Do you live in London, or another city where they have a separate lounge for Gold members rather than mixing Silvers and Golds? That’s one big reason why I’m not pursuing gold. 765TP is going to be around £1500 extra, but many in-flight ‘perks’ are not exclusive to the extent you can actually buy them a la carte. e.g. Luggage allowance, fast-track security at minor airports etc. The only big one I can name which Silvers don’t have access to is extra reward availability. You need to put your own price on the flexibility aspect though.
If you’re still intent on going for Gold, then with those TP requirements you’re looking at an UK->US round trip with lots of connections. You can do that all in one go. Or take a QR fare somewhere nice and stick on another couple of intra-EU business class trips and you’re done. 2.5 months to do it though!
I live in Norfolk, VA, and my family resides in San Diego, CA, making every AA hop across the US effectively a Tier Point run. As an AAdvantage user about to defect to BA Exec Club, I’m not as concerned about the Tier Points, as I am about the 4 eligible flights requirement. Are there any BA-operated flights that remain in the continental US?
Unfortunately not within the continental US that I know of! Due to cabotage rules BA cannot sell a ticket for a sector entirely within the US. However the closest most feasible option for you is to get to one of the Caribbean islands where BA do fifth freedom flights between two countries. These can be quite decent value!
Come 9th March my BA Executive Club membership year starts again… it’s time to start planning a few tier point runs. Best to get as many runs in at the start of the year as possible – worst thing is getting to the end of your membership year only to find out your options are somewhat limited.