The 2026 BA Tier Point Alignment: Is the Amex Bonus Worth Chasing?

The transition period is officially dead. As of April 1, 2026, every single member of the British Airways Executive Club is staring at a Tier Point balance of zero. The messy 2024 and 2025 transition years are behind us, and the entire membership base now shares the exact same April 1 to March 31 collection year.

Because the whole board has been wiped clean simultaneously, the way we earn and retain status has fundamentally changed. You can no longer rely on a perfectly timed summer holiday to push you over your personal July collection date. To soften the blow and drive premium card spend, British Airways and American Express have brought back the Tier Point earning bonus on the BA Amex Premium Plus card for 2026.

Here at Points Uncovered, we get asked daily whether locking up heavy credit card spend to chase these bonus Tier Points is a smart move. Honestly, I am not convinced the maths works for most people. The opportunity cost of pushing £25,000 through a single card is steep. If you want to play the newly aligned 2026 board effectively, you need a specific strategy right now, not next February.

The April 2026 reality for British Airways flyers

Every British Airways Executive Club member is now on a universal April 1 to March 31 Tier Point collection year. Your personal anniversary date no longer matters. Whatever status you earn by March 31 dictates your benefits for the following year.

This universal alignment creates a massive behavioural shift. Previously, Tier Point runs were spread evenly across the calendar. If your collection year ended in October, you might book a quick weekend trip to Sofia in September to secure your remaining points. Now, hundreds of thousands of flyers share the exact same deadline.

This means Q1—January through March—is going to become heavily congested. We are already seeing prices for traditional short-haul Tier Point run routes spike in the early months of the year as panicked members scramble to retain Silver or Gold status before the March 31 cutoff. If you leave your status retention strategy until January 2027, you are going to pay a premium for those final few flights.

How the 2026 British Airways Amex Tier Point bonus works

The current 2026 promotion allows British Airways Amex Premium Plus cardholders to earn a maximum of 200 bonus Tier Points strictly through credit card spend. You earn 100 Tier Points when you hit £15,000 in eligible spend, and a further 100 Tier Points when you reach £25,000.

This offer is tied exclusively to the £300-a-year Premium Plus card. The free British Airways Amex card is excluded. The standard status thresholds remain completely unchanged for the 2026/2027 collection year. You need 300 Tier Points for Bronze, 600 Tier Points for Silver, and 1,500 Tier Points for Gold.

Maxing out the 200 Tier Point bonus covers exactly 33% of the requirement for Silver status, or 66% of the requirement for Bronze. On paper, knocking out a third of your Silver requirement without stepping on a plane sounds excellent. But the reality of achieving that £25,000 spend requires a closer look at what you give up along the way.

Does the math work for chasing 200 Tier Points?

Pushing your spend all the way to £25,000 on the BA Amex Premium Plus is generally a poor mathematical decision unless those final 100 Tier Points are the only thing standing between you and losing Silver status.

The first £15,000 of spend is highly lucrative. Hitting this threshold triggers the prized 2-4-1 Companion Voucher, earns you 22,500 Avios at the standard 1.5 per £1 rate, and drops the first 100 bonus Tier Points into your account. The return on investment here is undeniable.

The part I keep coming back to is the next £10,000. Pushing your spend from £15,000 to £25,000 yields exactly 15,000 Avios and 100 Tier Points. That is your total reward for tying up ten grand in spending capacity. Earning 100 Tier Points via flying is relatively cheap and easy. A single return flight in Club Europe to a mid-haul destination like Athens or Istanbul will net you 160 Tier Points. Locking up massive credit card spend for a reward you could earn on a single weekend city break is an inefficient use of your resources.

The £15k stop-and-swap strategy

The smartest play for most UK-based points collectors in 2026 is to stop spending on the BA Amex Premium Plus the moment you hit £15,000, and immediately swap your daily spend to the Barclaycard Avios Plus.

Once you hit £15,000 on the Amex, you have secured your 2-4-1 Companion Voucher and your first 100 Tier Points. Move the card to the back of your wallet. Now, route your next £10,000 of annual spend through the Barclaycard Avios Plus.

When you hit £10,000 on the Barclaycard, you trigger a Barclays Cabin Upgrade Voucher. This voucher allows you to upgrade a cash or Avios booking by one cabin class. Booking a World Traveller Plus (Premium Economy) ticket and using the voucher to fly Club World (Business Class) provides immense value, often saving you hundreds of pounds or tens of thousands of Avios.

Compare the two outcomes for £25,000 of total annual spend. Strategy A (Amex only) gets you a 2-4-1 voucher and 200 Tier Points. Strategy B (Stop-and-swap) gets you a 2-4-1 voucher, 100 Tier Points, and a Cabin Upgrade Voucher. Unless you desperately need 100 Tier Points to retain lounge access, Strategy B wins every time.

Important rules and hidden traps

Earning Tier Points through card spend comes with strict terms and a few nasty traps that catch out experienced flyers every year. The most dangerous trap is the posting timeline.

The March 31 posting danger zone

Once you hit the £15,000 or £25,000 spend threshold on your Amex, the Tier Points do not appear instantly. They are currently taking roughly 7 to 14 days to sweep into your Executive Club account. If you trigger your spend threshold on March 25, 2027, those points will likely land in the first week of April. Because the collection year ends on March 31, those points will be stranded in the 2027/2028 collection year, leaving you short for the current period and costing you your status.

The minimum flight requirement

You cannot earn British Airways status purely from your sofa. Even if you secure 200 Tier Points from the Amex promotion, you are still legally required to fly a minimum number of eligible cash flights on British Airways or Iberia metal. You must fly two eligible sectors for Bronze, and four eligible sectors for Silver or Gold. Reward flights booked with Avios do not count toward this minimum.

Lifetime Gold tracking

On a positive note, any Tier Points you earn via the Amex promotion are permanently added to your Lifetime Tier Point balance. British Airways requires 35,000 Lifetime Tier Points to grant Lifetime Gold status. While 200 points is a drop in the ocean against a 35,000 target, every point helps if you are playing the decade-long long game.

Practical tips to secure Silver status this year

If you want the lounge access, free seat selection, and priority boarding that comes with Silver status (600 TPs), you need a cohesive plan that combines card spend with efficient flying.

Front-load your credit card spend immediately. Do your best to hit your £15,000 Amex threshold by December 2026. This banks your first 100 Tier Points early. You now have exactly three months (January to March) to evaluate your position and figure out how to earn the remaining 500 points.

The most efficient way to close that gap is by combining your Amex points with the ongoing British Airways Holidays double Tier Point offer. If you book a package holiday (flight plus a minimum five nights hotel or car hire), BA doubles the Tier Points earned on the flights. A standard return flight to Tenerife in Club Europe earns 160 Tier Points. Booked as a five-night BA Holiday, that same flight earns 320 Tier Points. Add your 100 Amex points, and you are sitting at 420 Tier Points from just one holiday and your normal household card spend. You are now just 180 points away from Silver, which you can easily clear with a single long-haul flight or two short-haul hops.

The final verdict

The universal April 1 reset brings much-needed simplicity to the British Airways Executive Club, but it also creates a brutal end-of-year bottleneck. The 2026 Amex Tier Point bonus is a useful tool to relieve some of that pressure, provided you use it correctly.

In my experience, treating the Amex offer as a 100-point bonus rather than a 200-point bonus is the smartest approach. Hit your £15,000 spend, take the Companion Voucher, take the 100 Tier Points, and walk away. Tying up an additional £10,000 of spend just to earn 100 more Tier Points is a bad trade when alternative cards offer significantly better rewards for that same financial heavy lifting. Plan your flying early, bank your card points by December, and stay well clear of the March 31 panic.

If you want to optimise your Avios earning and find the best redemptions for your newly minted vouchers, explore more guides on Points Uncovered.