British Airways has told thousands of its most loyal customers that Gold and Silver tiers they were assured would be extended will now be removed, with downgrades taking effect on 1 May.

The climbdown comes barely 48 hours after the airline told BA Club members their status had been retained, leaving frequent flyers who had already begun planning trips and travel budgets around their renewed perks facing an abrupt reversal.

In a statement issued on Monday, British Airways said: “Earlier this week we renewed the status of a very small number of BA Club members according to our normal guidelines and criteria. This raised concerns with some of BA’s members, who believed we’d made a mistake.

“Our initial investigation didn’t identify any obvious issues, however, over the last 24 hours we’ve conducted some more detailed forensic work, and have discovered that due to a technical issue, some members (fewer than 1%) were incorrectly told they had retained their status, when they hadn’t earned it, or been entitled to it.

“Because of this, we’ll be contacting affected customers in the coming days to apologise and reinstate their correct tier.”

An explanation that invites scrutiny

The airline’s account leaves several questions unanswered. The scale of the issue was plainly visible on enthusiast forums including Head for Points, Reddit and FlyerTalk, where thousands of members, not hundreds or tens, reported unexpected status extensions. That British Airways needed “detailed forensic work” to establish what its own loyalty systems should display in real time has drawn scepticism from industry observers.

Notably, few if any members have come forward to say their status was extended after falling only marginally short of the qualifying threshold, the cohort that would legitimately benefit from a discretionary extension under “normal guidelines and criteria”. Recent changes to the scheme’s spending thresholds had already drawn criticism from members who called the £25,000 Gold target unreasonable.

That has fuelled speculation in the business travel community that the reversal owes less to a technical glitch than to commercial pressure. A vocal contingent of flyers who failed to retain status but kept spending with British Airways complained they were being treated as fools, watching less loyal travellers keep perks they had narrowly missed.

The original communications were not random either. Members reported that the BA app and account pages had been updated to reflect their new tier, suggesting the changes were applied systematically rather than dispatched in error.

What it means for business travellers

For corporate travel buyers, the episode is the latest in a string of customer-experience missteps to dog the Heathrow-based carrier in recent years. It will do little to reassure travel managers weighing loyalty to the British Airways Club against rival schemes from Lufthansa Group, the Gulf carriers and Virgin Atlantic, which has already targeted tens of thousands of BA frequent flyers with a status upgrade campaign.

SMEs whose travellers rely on Silver and Gold benefits such as lounge access, priority boarding and free seat selection should check their tier status in the app before booking, and budget on the assumption that any unexpected extension will be withdrawn.

British Airways has not said precisely how many members are affected, nor when the downgrades will appear in the app. It confirmed only that affected customers would be contacted “in the coming days”.