When Phil Brassington sold shares in his software company at the end of 2021, he was faced with a choice.
He knew he could make the wise choice and invest the money in his retirement.
But after years of working behind a desk, combined with his wife unexpectedly filing for a divorce, Brassington decided he wanted to take a gap year. Only, unlike the 18-year-olds who left to spend three months in Thailand as cheaply as possible, the then 49-year-old wanted to travel in style.
Inspired by the book Mileage maniacdetailing how Steve Belkin racked up 40 million frequent flyer miles by taking advantage of loyalty programs and credit card deals, Brassington wanted to know if it was still possible to game the system.
His goal was a British Airways Gold card.
The highest level of status the airline offers comes with a range of benefits, including access to first-class lounges, separate check-in and security, extra baggage allowance and the ability to choose where you sit.
Not only that, but since British Airways is part of the OneWorld Alliance, all benefits can be used with its other member airlines, including Qatar Airways, Qantas and Cathay Pacific.
However, the Gold card is only reserved for the most frequent flyers. To qualify, you must earn 1,500 tier points within one year.
Passengers earn points on every flight, but this can be as little as five points for cheap short-haul flights in economy or up to 360 points if you fly first class to Sydney.
Most long-haul business class flights earn 140 points, meaning it takes 11 journeys from London to JFK, the equivalent of £19,338, to earn a Gold card. Brassington wanted to do it for less than £3,000.
His plan was to run a ‘tier point run’, where he would only select destinations based on their points value, aiming for flights as close to £2 per point as possible.
But his initial research showed that it wasn’t possible to game the system on nearly the same scale as Belkin was able to do in the early 2000s.
That was until he came across a way to double his points.
“If you book a BA holiday, which means you book the flight and five nights of accommodation or car hire, the airline will double your points. So suddenly it meant that if you flew business class from London to Bucharest, you could get 320 points for a return flight, compared to 80 points for a normal one-way ticket,” he says.
“So I started thinking, okay, you could fly from London, but is it that much more expensive to fly from Manchester or Edinburgh? For example, London to Sofia would be 320 points return, but if you went from Manchester it would be 480 as you would have to go via Heathrow.
“You get 40 tier points from Manchester to Heathrow and then 80 tier points from Heathrow to Sofia and then of course you get the same on the way back and then you double that because you take advantage of the double points offer. There is not a huge price difference and that is what makes it so lucrative. If you made three of those trips you would almost be at Gold.”
The double points offer was first introduced post-pandemic as the industry tried to recover and was first set to expire in September 2022. However, the offer has been extended several times and is now valid until June 30, 2025.
According to Rob Burgess, editor of Head for Points, the frequent flyer website, the offer is “almost becoming part of [BA’s] strategy”.
Brassington has benefited from the deal over the past two years and he has no plans to stop just yet.
Under his name, The Gray Gap Year, he has amassed nearly 300,000 views on YouTube by creating videos showing the cheapest flights and routes.
Here he shares the best perks, how to build your own level run and whether it’s really worth paying £3,000.
Good food before every flight
“The biggest benefit is access to the lounges,” Brassington is quick to say. “Although that actually starts with Silver (600 points), with Gold you get first-class lounge access. Now at Heathrow Terminal 5, the differences [between the business and first lounge] are quite minimal. But if you fly from Terminal 3 you can use the Cathay Pacific lounge, which is beautiful, or the Qantas lounge, which is also pretty good.”
These lounges are a step beyond the overcrowded self-service buffet lounges that have become commonplace in recent years. Expect access to showers and massages, as well as a three-course meal with wines paired by a sommelier.
“One of the things some people like to do when they have Gold status is do a lounge crawl around Heathrow Terminal 3.
“They literally buy an economy ticket somewhere on a OneWorld airline, get there really early with just carry-on luggage in an attempt to do this really long lounge crawl and try them all out,” Brassington adds.
He describes one of his best memories as follows: “I was in Melbourne and it was one of the best dishes I ever ate. It’s like being in a fine dining restaurant in London or central Melbourne. And I flew economy class with Malaysia Airlines, in the first Qantas lounge with BA status.”
Skip the lines
There are two very different types of queues that you can skip with the card.
The most obvious are the long check-in and security queues, which can keep you waiting for up to an hour. With Gold status you go to your own separate check-in desk, regardless of which travel class you are flying in.
The same protocol applies to security, where you can use a separate lane to reduce queues.
But Burgess believes it’s another, subtler queue-skipping that’s a much more useful benefit. He explains that if you have Gold status, unlike other passengers, you can choose your seat at no extra cost as soon as you book your ticket.
This means that if you want to make sure your family or group sits together, or if you want to sit at the front of the cabin or in a row near the emergency exit, which can be particularly useful in economy to maximize legroom, you can potentially save yourself hundreds of pounds.
Another benefit for those in economy: with a Gold card, BA blocks the seat next to you, meaning if you’re traveling with a partner you can keep the middle seat free while you both enjoy the window or aisle .
Burgess says: “If you have a Gold card you can pick it up at Heathrow Terminal 5, you can be dropped off at the end and walk straight into the First Wing. [the BA lounge]separate check-in, within five seconds you are in the lounge, crashing, having breakfast.
“If you were flying on business you would get row one because they block this for Gold members, even if you weren’t on a business trip you would still board first in group one, guaranteed your bags are above your head safe.”
The soft landing
You may still be thinking: £3,000 for a less stressful airport experience and lounge access is just not good value for money.
It’s something Burgess says he gets asked often. He admits that silver status is the sweet spot for most people. Silver requires almost a third of the points and comes with almost all of the same benefits.
But he adds that the main advantage for gold is that “you get a soft landing to silver.” What Burgess means is that once you earn Gold status, even if you don’t take another flight in the next year and earn zero points, BA won’t just release you from all the benefits.
Instead, you will be moved to Silver the following year, followed by Bronze.
What that means is that if you reach 1,500 tier points by the end of this summer and that is the last tier point you earned, you would be a Gold member until the end of the membership year on March 31, 2026. You would then have a Silver member until March 31, 2027 and Bronze member until March 31, 2028.
Burgess says: “For example, if you have 1,200 level points and someone says to me is it worth spending £500 on flights to get the extra 300 level points, will you get £500 worth of gold next year instead? of silver? ? No you are not. But if you reach Gold now, you don’t have to do anything next year, you can take any flight in economy next year because you’re guaranteed a year of Silver after a year of Gold, and that’s two years of lounges and two years of different seat choices and two years priority boarding.
“Then you will also receive Bronze for a year afterwards [gives] you get free seat selection within seven days of travel, which still costs a few hundred pounds on long distances, it’s not completely worthless and you’re still higher up in the boarding process.
How do you build your own level run?
There are numerous ways to build your own level run, says Brassington. The most cost-effective method would be to look at the short-haul destinations that offer 80 points in Business Class instead of the usual 40.
These are usually routes that are slightly further away or for which there is less demand than other routes. There are 36 destinations in total, but Brassington has selected seven destinations that work well as part of the double points deal because hotel stays in these countries are relatively cheap.
The cheapest route is to fly to Fuerteventura, in the Canary Islands. The route, which leaves Gatwick on Thursday 14 November and returns the following Tuesday on 19 November, falls outside the school holidays, meaning you get great value for money and can still enjoy favorable temperatures of around 23 degrees. If you book the self-catering option with Pierre & Vacances Fuerteventura Origomare via BA’s website, the whole trip costs £552.50 for 320 points.
Another route that Brassington says offers great value is Sofia in Bulgaria. “You can fly to Sofia, rent a car, drive to Sunny Beach, spend a week at the beach and drive back and get your double points that way, or stay in Sofia for five nights and get a hotel there, and that’s also a cheap way to do it.”
Of course, if you do this a number of times, it can get annoying and you’ll miss the opportunity to travel the world while collecting points.
For the more adventurous travelers, Brasignton has designed a route that is more expensive but allows you to earn a Gold Card in just three weeks when visiting cities such as Colombo, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur.
When is it not worth it?
There are two things worth considering before you start planning your world trip.
How often will you use your status? Ultimately it’s a personal decision as to how much flying would make these perks worth the £3,000 cost, but you have to remember that the perks don’t last forever.
If you reach Gold status, you have until March 2027 to use lounges, so you’ll need to calculate how many flights you’ll do between now and then to justify the cost.
The other thing to consider, Burgess says, is which part of the plane you’re already flying. He says if you normally fly business or first class, you don’t need Gold status.
The only benefit you get is choosing your seat at the time you buy your ticket, but the separate check-in and security, lounge access, because you’re the first to get on and off the plane, that’s all included in your ticket, so the value of Gold status would actually just be… status.