The British Airways Club is BA’s loyalty programme. It used to be called the
Executive Club, and a lot of people still call it that. If you’ve landed here
searching for ‘BA Executive Club’ or ‘MYBA’ or just ‘BA Club’, you’re in the
right place. They’re the same thing, give or take a rebrand.
This page is the orientation. It covers what the programme is, what changed in
2025, the difference between Avios and tier points, the four membership tiers,
and how to set up an account. Once you know the shape of it, the rest of the
cluster (the calculators, the reward seat tools, the tier point and Companion
Voucher guides) will make more sense.
What it is, and what changed
The British Airways Club is BA’s free-to-join frequent flyer scheme. Members
earn two things: Avios, which are spent on flights, upgrades, hotels and a few
other reward types, and tier points, which determine your status (Blue,
Bronze, Silver or Gold).
In April 2025, BA rebranded the Executive Club to The British Airways Club.
The branding refresh came with a much bigger structural change underneath:
tier points moved from a distance-and-cabin model to a revenue-based one. You
now earn roughly 1 tier point per £1 of eligible BA spend, with bonuses
layered on by cabin and fare flexibility. Old name, new rules.
What MYBA means. ‘My BA’ (sometimes written MYBA) is just
BA’s name for the logged-in account area on ba.com and in the BA app — where
you see your Avios balance, your tier points, your upcoming bookings and your
saved preferences. There isn’t a separate MYBA programme. If someone tells you
to ‘check your MYBA’, they mean log in to your British Airways Club account.
Avios vs tier points: the two currencies
The single most useful thing to understand about the programme is that it runs
on two different currencies that do different jobs. Most beginners conflate
them. Don’t.
Avios are your reward currency. You spend them on flights,
cabin upgrades, hotels, car hire, BA Holidays and a handful of other things.
They’re earned in dozens of ways: flying, credit card spend, the BA eStore,
hotel partners, converting Nectar points and so on. They live in your account
for 36 months from your last bit of activity, and almost any qualifying
transaction (even a single point) resets the clock.
Tier points are your status currency. They measure how much
you fly with BA and a small set of partners, and they unlock the membership
tiers. Critically, they reset to zero each membership year (1 April to 31
March), and you can’t spend them on anything. They’re a counter, not a wallet.
|
Avios |
Tier points |
| What they do |
Pay for rewards |
Unlock status |
| How you earn |
Flights, cards, shopping, partners |
Mostly BA flights, BA Holidays, limited partner activity |
| Expiry |
After 36 months of inactivity |
Reset every 1 April |
| Carry over year to year? |
Yes |
No |
If you take one thing from this page:
build your Avios balance through credit cards and everyday earning
, and only chase tier points if you’re actually flying enough to make status
worth it.
The four tiers at a glance
Status ladders from Blue (the default) up through Bronze, Silver and Gold.
There’s a fifth invitation-only level above Gold called Gold Guest List, but
that’s not where anyone starts.
Blue is the entry point. Free to join, no requirements, no
real perks beyond saving preferences and earning Avios. You’re a Blue member
the moment you sign up.
Bronze kicks in at 3,500 tier points (or 25 BA flights in
your year). You get priority boarding, business-class check-in, and seat
selection seven days out. Useful, but modest.
Silver is the sweet spot for most people, at 7,500 tier
points (or 50 BA flights). This is where the programme starts paying for
itself: lounge access at BA and oneworld lounges, free seat selection at
booking, extra baggage, priority handling. The lounge access alone tends to
justify the spend for anyone flying a handful of long-haul trips a year.
Gold sits at 20,000 tier points. First Class lounges, the
First Wing at Heathrow Terminal 5, free seat selection for everyone on your
booking, and upgrade vouchers at higher tier point milestones. Genuinely
useful, but the gap between Silver and Gold is large enough that most
non-premium-cabin flyers shouldn’t chase it.
For a proper breakdown of what each tier delivers and what the spend looks
like to reach it, see our BA Silver benefits guide and the BA tier point
calculator.
How to join and set up your account
Joining takes about five minutes. Go to ba.com, register, and you’re issued a
membership number and Blue status immediately. From that point you can earn
Avios on eligible flights (including, usefully, any BA flights you’ve taken in
the last three months, which can be claimed retroactively).
Once you’re in, there are three things worth doing on day one:
-
Save your seat and meal preferences in your profile so they auto-apply to
future bookings.
-
If you live with other Avios earners, set up a Household Account. Up to
seven people at one address can pool their Avios into a single balance,
which makes premium-cabin redemptions reachable far faster. Note: pooling
means you can’t transfer Avios between schemes (BA, Iberia, Qatar and so on)
from that account, so think about whether you’d rather keep things separate
for cross-programme flexibility.
-
Link the BA app. Most of your day-to-day account activity (boarding passes,
tier point tracking, reward seat searches) happens there, not on the desktop
site.
That’s the foundation. Everything else, you build on top.
Where to go next
If you’re new to this and want to do something useful with what you’ve just
read:
-
To find out
what your existing Avios are actually worth in different scenarios
, use the Avios Value Calculator.
-
To work out where you stand against this year’s status thresholds, the BA
Tier Point Calculator shows the maths under the new revenue-based system.
-
To check if reward seats are open on a specific route and date, use the BA
Reward Seat Checker.
-
For the perk that does most of the heavy lifting on
premium-cabin redemptions, see
the BA Companion Voucher guide.
Or browse the full Travel Smarter blog for more Avios and
British Airways Club guides.
FAQ
What is MYBA?
MYBA, or My BA, is the logged-in member area on ba.com and the BA app. It’s
where you manage your British Airways Club account: Avios balance, tier
points, upcoming flights, saved preferences and offers. It’s a feature of the
BA Club, not a separate programme.
Is the Executive Club now BA Club?
Yes. British Airways rebranded the Executive Club to The British Airways Club
in April 2025. The membership number, Avios balance and tier status all
carried over. The bigger change at the same time was structural: tier points
moved to a revenue-based model where you earn roughly 1 point per £1 of
eligible BA spend, plus cabin and fare bonuses.
What is the difference between Avios and tier points?
Avios are the currency you spend on rewards (flights, upgrades, hotels). They
roll over year to year and only expire after 36 months of no activity. Tier
points are a separate counter that measures your flying and BA Holidays spend,
and they determine your status (Blue, Bronze, Silver, Gold). Tier points can’t
be spent on anything and reset to zero each 1 April.
