If you fly British Airways on revenue tickets departing the United States with any frequency, then it’s absolutely worth being an AARP member, so that you can save $65-200 per ticket. This is a fantastic perk that often flies under the radar, so in this post I wanted to take a look at all the details of how this works.
In this post:
Details of the British Airways AARP discount
AARP members are able to score the following discounts on British Airways tickets:
- $200 on business class tickets
- $85 on premium economy tickets
- $65 on economy tickets (excluding basic economy fares)
To take advantage of this, you need to book an itinerary with travel originating in the United States. You need to be flying on British Airways, or can be booked on a codeshare flight on American or Iberia. Currently, this offer is valid for bookings through January 31, 2026.
While AARP is intended to advocate for retired people, the reality is that there are no restrictions on who can join. Anyone can become a member for just $16 per year, so that membership more than pays for itself after booking just one British Airways ticket (and to be clear, there’s nothing unethical about joining — AARP even encourages young people to join).
The process of taking advantage of this discount is easy. Once you’re a member, you’ll need to visit this AARP webpage, where you’ll be asked to log into your AARP account.
Once logged in, you’ll be redirected to the British Airways website, where you can start the booking process. When you find an eligible itinerary, you’ll automatically see the discount applied (eligible itineraries will be noted with the “Discounted” text).
You’ll still earn points and elite qualifying activity the same as you would for any other revenue itinerary. You can even credit the flight to partner frequent flyer programs, like American AAdvantage.
Stack this with British Airways Visa Card perks
While the AARP discount for British Airways flights is great, you can potentially get even bigger savings if you have the British Airways Visa Signature® Card (review). The card offers a 10% flight discount on revenue tickets, which can be unlocked by using promotion code BACHASE10. That can be stacked with AARP savings — that means you can save up to $200 plus up to 10% on your ticket, which could lead to some significant savings.
There are many other great perks to the card, ranging from a reward flight statement credit, to the ability to earn a companion certificate.
Bottom line
British Airways offers up to a $200 ticket discount for AARP members. That means that virtually anyone booking a British Airways ticket originating in the United States is best off spending $16 on an AARP membership before booking a ticket.
This is an awesome and often overlooked benefit. It stacks especially nicely with the 10% discount on flights offered with British Airways’ co-branded credit card.
Have you ever used the British Airways AARP discount?
just booked flight then saw the AARP discount. Does it work retroactively?
While there is no restriction in terms of age, you have to be a legal resident of the US. This is not stated officially, but if you want to enter a non-US address or use a non-US credit card to pay the USD 16, the transaction is rejected.
Will this work in tandem with BA holidays bookings? I've found that if I book a hotel with a flight the cost of the flight drops significantly.
Is this only on cash tickets? (Not Avios)
Thanks.
Glad to see it work. There was a long time where the link wasn’t working or wasn’t even available…per a “glitch”
To stack to the BA card, do you also have to book it ON that card, or can you just have the card and the code?
You have to book on the card AND the card has to be registered in your name with the AVIOS account. (E.g. the discount code only works if your avios account has the credit card bounded)
A few weeks ago I booked using my Amex Platinum after using the Chase discount code. I assume it’s because I have a BAEC account and there’s some background coding that knows I have a Chase account connected to it.