British Airways’ recent overhaul of the BA Club programme created plenty of speculation, but one question kept popping up in WhatsApp groups and FlyerTalk threads: what exactly are the BA soft landing rules under the new system? After watching several Gold members slip gently down to Silver over the last few weeks, we finally have clarity. Soft landings are still here, and they behave exactly as they did before – just without all the drama people were bracing for.
The biggest takeaway is simple: if you fail to requalify for Gold, you drop to Silver for a full membership year, tied to the original expiry date printed on your current card, not to the universal 31 March BA Club status-year deadline. So, if your Gold card expired in October 2025, you now keep Silver until October 2026. That puts to bed the fear that former Golds would get a measly couple of months before tumbling further to Bronze on 31 March.
This is especially good news for anyone holding Gold that expires in December, January, or February 2026. Under the worst-case interpretation of the new rules, these members might have enjoyed Silver for only a brief winter cameo before the March reset pushed them down again. Thankfully, the observed behaviour proves that isn’t happening.
Tier Points will still zero out every April, but it appears BA has decoupled that universal reset from individual membership expiry dates. In other words, your soft-landing Silver year still runs on your personal membership cycle, not the scheme’s fiscal one. You keep Silver until your next scheduled expiry unless you claw your way back to Gold or fall to Blue. It’s the old logic applied to the new regime, which finally gives us confidence in how the BA soft landing rules actually behave.
Given the uncertainty that followed the December 2024 announcement, this is a welcome stabiliser. BA Club members can plan sensibly rather than gambling on whether Silver will evaporate after a few short weeks.
If BA reveals anything different in official guidance, we’ll update this story. But for now, the practical evidence is clear: soft landings persist, they last a full membership year, and they follow the original expiry date – not 31 March.
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