New British Airways leisure routes launched for Summer 2014

British Airways announced a number of new leisure routes last week for Summer 2014.

What is fascinating about this selection is that they are mainly leisure routes. BA has spent a lot of time in recent years moving leisure routes over to Gatwick, and moving semi-leisure routes like Prague over to Heathrow Terminal 3 instead of Terminal 5. This appears to be an attempt to utilise aircraft at weekends which are not required for core business routes.

The new routes are Heathrow to Oporto, Mykonos and Santorini.

Oporto (home of a snazzy new InterContinental if you have a lot of IHG points) starts on March 30th with the other two starting over 3rd/4th May.

There will be only two flights per week on each route so you may end up flying one leg on another airline or being very inflexible over when you travel.

Full Avios availability for these routes does not yet seem to have been loaded, looking at a few tests I tried.

BA is also launching Heathrow services to Malaga and Faro. These routes are already served from Gatwick / City. Among routes with service increases, the stand-out is Palma, which goes from two to five flights per week.

It is not yet clear where all of the slots for these services will come from. So far, the only announcement is that Heathrow to Agadir and Alicante will cease at the end of March 2014. This only frees up five slots per week, though, so there must be more to come.

One interesting bit of long-haul news is that a NINTH daily Heathrow to JFK service is being launched. This is replacing one of the American Airlines services. I get a feeling that – since AA only has a limited number of 777’s with the new flat bed seating in business class – they are doing this in order to be able to claim that all AA / BA services to New York will have a flat bed.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.