diff --git a/playbooks/roles/zuul-status-backup/tasks/main.yaml b/playbooks/roles/zuul-status-backup/tasks/main.yaml
index 8f6977b718..8cb3c0777e 100644
--- a/playbooks/roles/zuul-status-backup/tasks/main.yaml
+++ b/playbooks/roles/zuul-status-backup/tasks/main.yaml
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
     state: present
     user: root
     job: |
-      timeout -k 5 10 curl https://zuul.opendev.org/api/tenant/{{ tenant }}/status -o /var/lib/zuul/backup/{{ tenant }}_status_$(date +\%s).json 2>/dev/null
+      timeout -k 5 10 curl https://zuul.opendev.org/api/tenant/{{ tenant }}/status --fail -o /var/lib/zuul/backup/{{ tenant }}_status_$(date +\%s).json 2>/dev/null
 
 # Rotate backups and keep no more than 120 files -- or 2 hours worth of
 # backup if Zuul has 100% uptime.