Thousands of members in British Airways’ loyalty scheme have had their status altered following an IT malfunction.

The airline restructured the programme, moving away from accruing points based on flight distance toward earning points through expenditure. Members now obtain one tier point for each pound spent.

The modification proved contentious, with the Silver level now demanding yearly spending of at least £7,500, while Gold status requires £20,000 or more annually.

This left numerous BA Club members vulnerable to losing their tier classification when renewals took place at the end of April 2026 due to insufficient point accumulation.

Aviation A2Z reported that frequent flyers maintained the new thresholds effectively barred dedicated leisure travellers while benefiting corporate travellers whose costly tickets are paid for by their employers.

The pushback prompted BA to implement revisions, including additional avenues for earning tier points and promotional offers, though critics maintained the core thresholds remained prohibitively high.

Perks include priority boarding, complimentary seat selection, additional baggage allowances and airport lounge access.

Some BA members wrongly told they could keep their status

This week, IAG Loyalty, the division of BA’s parent company IAG that manages the rewards scheme, contacted several thousand members, advising them they would maintain their current status despite insufficient points.

However, they subsequently clarified on Friday that some customers had received this information in error.

The Financial Times reported the mistake affected fewer than 1% of BA’s loyalty programme, although it still involved several thousand people.

In a statement, IAG Loyalty said it had renewed the status of a very small number of BA Club members earlier that week according to standard guidelines and criteria.

This raised concerns among some of BA’s members, who believed an error had occurred.

The statement added that their initial investigation uncovered no apparent problems.

However, over the following day they carried out more comprehensive analysis and discovered that due to a technical issue, some members had been incorrectly informed they had retained their status when they had not earned or been entitled to it.

Because of this, they will be reaching out to affected customers in the coming days to offer apologies and restore their accurate tier status.