Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Forget the Avios changes for now – just get booking!

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In what is clearly a co-ordinated plan by British Airways, they announced massive changes to British Airways Executive Club just minutes after I boarded an eight hour flight.

They forgot, though, that just because BA does not have wi-fi it does not mean that no airlines have wi-fi.  One up to Etihad.

Avios wing 8

I will do a full analysis of the changes for tomorrow.  My wife is away on business so a very late night will not lead to any marital disharmony.

In the short term, ie today, FORGET ABOUT THEM.

Because BA has released tens of thousands of Club World and World Traveller seats overnight, you have NEVER had a better chance of getting the redemption you want.

Fuss about the BAEC changes tomorrow.  Today, dust off that Amex 2-4-1 voucher and get something booked.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (November 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:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

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.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

Huge 80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

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.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

20,000 points (ONLY TO 9TH DECEMBER) Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

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.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

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

Comments (178)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • JamesWag says:

    Now it won’t be owned by BA it will definitely devalue further.

  • JamesWag says:

    They could have told me this BEFORE the USA CW sale expired midnight last night. A cheeky MR to ensure Gold would have been good as I was umming & arring as it was but will now lose the 100% Avios bonus stripped from Silver holders.

  • Mark says:

    I have just started visiting this website and learning about this hobby recently – am I right in thinking that these changes increase the relative attractiveness of Virgin FC miles, compared to Avios (if you’re happy with the USA route network, of course)?

    • James67 says:

      Post change you would be correct in relation to CW and F. However, BA economy offpeak will be better value. It will beninteresting to view Virgin response to this because to date only thing holding back a delta-lead devaluation of FC was BAEC. For north America AA is attractive in economy also because of offpeak pri ing. However, watch out for them devaluing soon when US DM merges: I expect we will see something very similar to what BA abbounced today.

  • JamesWag says:

    I hope the ‘peak period’ short haul economy & CE tickets will only be what they are NOW at their peak. Its a sod that CW & F will increase in peak times. One of the things I liked over some other schemes was the consistent pricing, if there was a flight you knew how many Avios it’d be no matter the day, time or season.

  • Adam says:

    It’s a serious devaluation for those of us redeeming in premium cabins now split into peak and off peak with peak increasing by 50% and off peak by 25%. An availability increase doesn’t justify it!

    • nick says:

      We just managed to get biz returns with a 241 later this year. Perfect dates for us too.

      After years of searching at midnight and getting nowhere, I’d given up on ever getting those flights with BA and had embarked on a, frankly, ridiculous method of collecting points to do it with another airline. It’s a bit of an odd feeling to have my 3-year-long struggle to get biz flights to Australia come to such and abrupt end and part of me is a bit disappointed as the other airline we were going to use has a much better product, but there is no way I’m going to turn down those flights. So, finally – thank you, BA.

      Bizarrely, I think the changes might mean I’ll start collecting Avios again (albeit not by flying with them as I’d never pay for their sub-standard premium products; and it is no longer worth trying to collect avios at the back of the ‘plane). I can live with the revised pricing if I can actually get the flights booked.

  • John says:

    I just looked at:

    LON- Sydney Oct/Nov
    LON-Maldives Oct/Nov
    LON- Orlando Apr/May

    Using a 2-4-1 and availability was the usual hen’s teeth. Okay, these are popular routes but surely head for points readers haven’t taken the ‘two seats per flight’ already?

    • Lady London says:

      BA covered that point. They made sure to put in their FAQs that if the minimum number of seats was already previously released on a flight, then they wouldn’t have to release any more.

      Increased availability of award seats is a con. And don’t forget any extra seats released are also available to all the AA and US members too being part of Oneworld.

      • James67 says:

        @Lady London … 7right, and the huge downside of this that I forsee is that post avios sell off, IAG will likely stick rigidly to their contractual obligations with the result that award seat availabilty in practice might actually become worse than ever. At least at the moment BA can and does release seats as it likes so there can be a lot more on some flights. If the new avios owner can get any extra seats released at all they will likely have to pay dearly for them.

    • BallSack says:


      I just looked at:

      LON- Sydney Oct/Nov
      LON-Maldives Oct/Nov
      LON- Orlando Apr/May

      Using a 2-4-1 and availability was the usual hen’s teeth. Okay, these are popular routes but surely head for points readers haven’t taken the ‘two seats per flight’ already?

      If you find some on dates which work for you, please buy a lottery ticket too as its your lucky day !! The 2-4-1 can be a real sh*t unless you have really flexible dates & durations for your trip and want a less travelled route.
      I’m seriously going off it as a benefit. Sure I’ve used it to good effect effect before but its a real faff.

      • Louie says:

        Errr? I have just looked for SYD. Availability for 2 people in Club for 20 days in November. Where are you looking?

      • Andi says:

        Feel the same about 241. Dubai is around £2k taxes and 120k points for 4 on 2×241 vouchers in CW. Cheapest WTP [is that what BA calls Premium Economy?] is around £2600 and with Avios upgrading you to CW and uses 80k points and you get WTP tier points and 8k points per traveler, 32 in total so almost half of what you spent.

        with the Faff of having to keep a card until you redeem the 241 I’m wondering if its easier to keep one Amex Gold Card permanently on my wives account and churn a Platinum for myself once in a while. i can hit the spend and bonus within a month and ditch and receive most of the fee back, making it a worth while investment. i just have to transfer out Rewards to a chosen scheme

    • Paul says:

      If you are interested in Orlando, try Tampa. BA and LH are the only international airline that fly there so immigration is very quick and it is a short 1 hour drive from the hotels in Kissimmee.

      • Poincianakings says:

        LH don’t operate into TPA. Eldiweiss the Kuoni owned charter do from ZRH seasonally. But agree TPA is a great option

        • Dan says:

          I’ve been checking most days since September for upgrade availability from JFK to LHR in June – managed to grab 2 Club World seats this morning.

          Although the increase in regional transfer costs is going to hit hard further down the line!

  • Deenesh says:

    Not sure if I’m doing something wrong but I cartainly can’t find these cheap “off-peak” redemption prices.

  • David says:

    Raffles, for those with a Lloyds Avios Rewards upgrade voucher it is my interpretation of the changes that it would be better to not use it until after the new redemption chart is live, because WTP avios requirements (for off-peak) actually seem to be reduced. Together with the much improved CW availability it seems better to wait for when it will cost fewer avios for a redemption to say Singapore with use of the voucher (91000 avios) than to jump in now and pay 105000 avios (plus the voucher). Obviously this doesn’t apply for “peak” dates.

    Likewise I think those looking to redeem in WT or WTP off-peak would be better waiting for the reduced avois requirements?

    This has to be balanced against the excellent availability showing today because of the recent bulk release of reward flights, but my reading of the changes are that availability should be much improved over the existing situation in WT and CW going forward.

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