Which British Airways Club Europe routes earn 160 tier points?

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Which British Airways Club Europe business class routes offer 160 tier points for a return flight?

I often get emails from readers who say “I need XXX tier points in the next few weeks to reach British Airways Bronze / Silver / Gold status – how can I do it?”.

If you need to earn a small number of tier points – between 80 and 160 – the easiest way is a weekend break to one of the few destinations flown by British Airways which offer 160 tier points return in Club Europe.

Club Europe British Airways

This is twice as many tier points as the usual Club Europe return which earns 80. On some routes, you won’t pay much more for a 160 tier point route than you would for one with 80 tier points.

I introduced ‘the Head for Points BA tier point calculator’ chart – click here. This article listed every British Airways route together with the tier points it would generate in each class.

However, to save you having to sort that, I have published the full list of 160 tier point Club Europe routes below.

Remember that, as well as earning the required number of tier points, you need to have flown four segments (ie two return flights) on cash tickets on British Airways or Iberia planes to get Silver or Gold, and two segments for Bronze. You cannot earn status purely by flying on British Airways / Iberia partner airlines. (This is not strictly true due to rules with codeshares but, for all intents and purposes, assume that it is.)

The price next to each city was the lowest fare showing on Tuesday in the ba.com Low Fare Finder for Club Europe over the next 12 months.

EDIT, September 2021: This list is from 2020. Coronavirus meant that it made no sense to update this table, and some of these routes will not return for some years, if ever.

Algiers (£557)
Athens (£352)
Bucharest (£300)
Catania (£230)
Chania (£612)
Corfu (£502)
Dalaman (£528)
Funchal (£280)
Gran Canaria (£382)
Helsinki (£296 – Finnair from Manchester / Edinburgh also earns 160)
Heraklion / Crete (£516)
Istanbul (£372)
Kalamata (£478)
Kefalonia (£466)
Kiev (£318)
Kos (£488)
Lanzarote (£350)
Larnaca (£402)
Malaga (ONLY from Manchester, London is 40 tier points each way)
Malta (£310)
Marrakech (£302)
Mykonos (£500)
Palma (ONLY from Edinburgh)
Paphos (£360)
Preveza Lefkada (new)
Reykjavik (£290)
Rhodes (£520)
Santorini (£566)
Skiathos (£410)
Sofia (£298)
St Petersburg (£320)
Tenerife (£352)
Thessaloniki (£342)
Tirana (£600)
Zakynthos (£440)

Bucharest, Catania, Funchal / Madeira, Helsinki, Malta, Marrakech, Reykjavik and Sofia are the stand-out bargains at £300 or less return. The Manchester to Malaga service is also under £300 at times (Summer weekends only).

This list is more about convenience than price, however. After all, you could easily spend £400 on two return flights to Amsterdam over two different weekends which would be cheaper than many of the places above. This list is for someone who needs up to 160 tier points and wants to achieve it in one go whilst visiting somewhere different – and, in Winter, somewhere warm.

(This article is part of our ‘BA Q&A’ series which explains how British Airways Executive Club works. You can see all of our ‘BA Q&A’ articles here. )

(Head for Points is the UK’s biggest frequent flyer website with 1.8 million monthly page views. Want to learn more about earning and spending Avios? Click here to read our latest news stories, click here to join our email list and click here to read our ‘Avios Redemption University’ series.)

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