Reader Question: British Airways No Longer Offers Physical Elite Membership Card, Order Option Disabled?

Today we have a Reader Question about British Airways Executive Club and the ability the obtain a physical membership card for elite members, especially Silver & Gold members.

Readers are encouraged to send us questions, comments, or opinions by email, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. We’ll try to cover them here several times a week.

Many, if not most, frequent flyer programs have changed to offer their membership cards on a digital basis only, and British Airways Executive Club has been pushing this option as well.

Until now, however, it has always been possible to order physical cards and baggage tags on the website, but it appears that they have now disabled that option for many (if not all) members.

I noticed as well that for the past two years, I haven’t gotten any membership card but didn’t really bother as I didn’t need one except once at the American Airlines Flagship Checkin at LAX Airport, where it was really a pain.

A few days ago, Chris wrote to us:

What happened to BA Executive Club, don’t they send out member cards anymore? I’m a GOLD member and need a real card as I often use it to enter U.S. based AA lounges while having my AAdvantage number on the reservation to upgrade. For some reason they can’t read the barcode on the BA mobile app and always ask for my card.

This made me curious what British Airways is really doing right now so I had a look.

You can request Executive Club items on their website and order yourself a replacement baggage tag or membership card – at least, that used to be the case.

When I tried this just today, the following error showed up:

I allegedly ordered 3x already this current calendar year?

I’m not sure what they’re trying to say here. We now have 2023 and I haven’t ordered anything this year (and neither last year, for that matter). The order history reflects just that.

From the cards ordered in 2021, I haven’t received a single one either, despite the order status saying “fulfilled” (one of these 2021 orders was actually dispatched automatically after I requested a manual card replacement). For the past two years, I didn’t carry a valid BAEC Gold (oneWorld Emerald) membership card now and never bothered to press them on it.

I wrote an email to the Executive Club today and requested to finally send me a new card. Many have reported that BA currently has a response time that’s several months so lets see when they actually get back to me and if a new card ever arrives.

Conclusion

British Airways Executive Club appears to have transitioned into some kind of cardless membership program, with only a digital version being available to members. The requests for physical cards are either blocked or remain unanswered.

One of our readers ran into the issue, and I decided to verify it on my own online account – sure enough, the same problem reflected there as well. British Airways hasn’t officially communicated that they would exclusively provide electronic images of a membership card. The tab option for ordering credentials is still there, but in many members’ cases, it doesn’t do anything and results in an error.

Have you been able to successfully request a BAEC membership card recently?