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Are you a points nerd? If you’ve been waiting eagerly since April for British Airways and American Express to announce how frequent flyers can earn “tier points” on credit card spending, then we can safely assume the answer is yes.
Even those who don’t compete in the peculiar sport of gaming airline loyalty schemes may recall the furore when BA announced sweeping changes to its frequent flyer club.
Since the rules changed in April, it has become harder to achieve gold, silver or bronze status and access perks like lounge access, seat selection and priority check-in. But this week, travellers holding the BA American Express premium-plus card finally found out how to earn up to 2,500 extra “tier points” to help qualify — and turbulence has hit.
To get the full whack, £25,000 worth of spending must be pumped through credit cards in the next seven months. At over £3,500 a month, that’s higher than the average UK gross salary.
Changes to this and other airline loyalty schemes reflect a wider erosion of benefits for UK consumers — causing some to question whether there’s much point left to the nerdy obsession with collecting points.
Credit card rewards have been getting steadily worse since the UK capped charges for processing payments in 2015, restricting a key revenue stream for card issuers. As the unwritten rule of points geekery is clearing your balance in full every month to avoid interest charges, margins are tight so benefits are narrowing. John Lewis has just announced it will slash the value of points that holders of its popular Partnership Card can earn on spending in other stores, prompting middle-class umbrage.
But that hasn’t deterred the UK’s most committed point collectors who are doubling down in their quest to get something for nothing. “If you want to get the benefits, you have to do the work,” says Tom, one of 400 frequent flyers attending the travel website Head for Points summer party in London this week. Dubbed “Glastonbury for points nerds”, the crowd of City workers and retired couples feverishly swapped tips and hacks, moaned about airlines and card providers changing the rules and boasted about the lengths they go to in the hunt for extra points.
One man convinced his boyfriend that they should do five layover flights on Christmas Day between London, Dublin, Brussels and (eventually) the US in order to get enough tier points to qualify for BA silver status. “A fun Christmas,” his partner grinned.
Many partygoers regularly fly long haul for work, and use the rewards for pleasure. Plenty had brought their other halves (“he’s the points guy, I’m just the beneficiary,” says one). As I learnt, referring your partner for a credit card can net you both a bonus, and each get their spending points. “I have trained my wife to always pay by card,” one boasted. Another made his wife return £200 of John Lewis shopping and re-buy the same items via the portal of a credit card shopping website to earn airline points.
There were just as many conversations about the difficulties of spending the points; those who unlock coveted 2-4-1 companion flight vouchers complain they’re having to book much earlier in order to actually use them.
Those who booked a BA holiday or spent large sums on their BA Amex cards after April’s rule change are furious that point collection will not be backdated until then (BA has awarded everyone 500 extra bonus points instead). This means those who spend £25,000 just to get bronze status will probably still be one flight away from being entitled to free seat selection and priority boarding, meaning their cabin bag will never be put in the hold on a full flight. Is that really worth the effort?
The category of points nerd known as “status chasers” definitely think so. One guy who has only ever flown business class applauded the BA rule change, believing it will make the first-class lounge less crowded. Long queues for airport lounges are a common gripe, but there’s a hack for that — a “digital wait-list” for other lounges for selected Amex cardholders.
“The bottom line is, anyone who pays their credit card bills in full every month and gets nothing back should do something to get some kind of reward,” says Rob Burgess, the ex-investment banker who founded Head for Points.
At the very least, he advises that cashback cards offer better value than most retailer schemes (around £70 back a year on £1,000 of monthly credit card spending). Even with high annual fees, the benefits are worth more, such as travel insurance and restaurant deals.
Constant rule changes and tweaks to Ts & Cs will certainly give the nerds plenty to talk about, but sadly I fear the point of it all is lost on me.
Claer Barrett is the FT’s consumer editor and author of the FT’s Sort Your Financial Life Out newsletter series; claer.barrett@ft.com; Instagram and TikTok @ClaerB
