Bits: Barclays / IHG compensation payments, BA toilet trouble

News in brief:

More news on Barclaycard / IHG compensation

Following on from my article this week about Barclaycard closing the IHG Rewards Club card, it seems that the call centre has now been officially briefed to offer you £25 compensation for every £1,000 you have spent on the Premium card if you have not yet triggered your free night voucher.

This is in addition to the pro-rata card fee refund that you will receive in April.

By a huge coincidence, this is exactly the same amount that I suggested readers should ask for when I wrote my article on Tuesday …….

When BA cabin crew clean your plane ….

A couple of weeks ago, The Sun ran this story about BA cabin crew at Gatwick being paid £10 to clean short haul aircraft when they arrive late.  They don’t do a great job as they have no cleaning materials but it does allow the plane to take off again more quickly.  As part of the time saving measures, the toilets are not emptied.

I didn’t write about the story at the time because, frankly, a steady drip drip of ‘anti BA’ stories isn’t a lot of fun to read or write.

Yesterday, however, I received a shocker of an email from a reader.  British Airways had done this on a LONG-HAUL flight to Mauritius.

Our reader boarded his delayed Club World flight from Gatwick last Monday to find his seat covered in crumbs and grease marks on the windows.  It had already been announced over the PA that the cabin crew had tried to clean the plane instead of the contract cleaners due to a marginally late arrival.

However, as with ‘quick turnaround’ short hauls, it seems that the toilets had not been emptied.  After 10 hours of a 12 hour flight, the crew announced 3 of the 4 Club World toilets were closed as they were full.  A few minutes later, it was announced that ALL of the toilets on the plane were now full and closed.

BA has offered our reader 10,000 Avios as compensation.  This is, apparently, the most they are allowed to offer for any disruption now following the new ‘compensation scale’ introduced last year.  As the readers was on a £7,000+ BA Holidays package I have encouraged him to reject this and seek a larger sum through the Small Claims Court.

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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.

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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.