In April 2025, British Airways changed the rules for obtaining Silver, Gold and Gold Guest List status, according to multiple reports. The airline rebranded its frequent-flyer scheme as The British Airways Club and altered how passengers can acquire status. Previously, qualification was based on the number of flights taken; the criteria switched broadly to the amount of money spent in a year: £7,500 for Silver status and £20,000 for Gold. British Airways chose 1 May 2026 as the day when members with elite status who failed to reach the spending targets in the previous year would be downgraded.
Reports emerged on frequent-flyer forums that many passengers who had fallen way short of the tier targets were having their status extended by another year. Rob Burgess, founder of Head for Points, told The Independent that many people received emails from BA saying they would get another year of Gold or Silver status. According to The Independent, Burgess described the recipients as people who had done virtually no flying with British Airways. He added that he had not found anyone with a Gold extension with more than £5,000 of qualifying spend. Frequent flyers who deliberately increased spending to reach qualification levels were enraged, seeing Gold cards 'being handed out like confetti', Burgess said.
IAG Loyalty issued a statement confirming status extensions had been made in error. A spokesperson for IAG Loyalty said: 'Earlier this week we renewed the status of a very small number of BA Club members according to our normal guidelines and criteria. This raised concerns with some of BA’s members, who believed we’d made a mistake.' The spokesperson added: 'Our initial investigation didn’t identify any obvious issues, however, over the last 24 hours we’ve conducted some more detailed forensic work, and have discovered that due to a technical issue, some members (fewer than one per cent) were incorrectly told they had retained their status, when they hadn’t earned it or been entitled to it.' The Independent understands the numbers affected were below one per cent of those with Silver status.
The error has sparked frustration among loyal customers who met the spending thresholds, only to see others receive unearned benefits. It remains unclear how many BA Club members were affected, what specific technical issue caused the error, and whether BA will take any action against those who received erroneous extensions. The airline has not announced compensation for loyal members who were not given extensions, nor the exact percentage of Silver and Gold members affected.