Get 2,000 free Avios if you fly British Airways over Christmas

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• meta says:

  11 Dec11 December 07:55

  O/T: Miles&More going revenue based from 12 March. It showed briefly on the app. It’s not there anymore. From what I remember 4x euro spent for no status, with up to 6x for status. Think HON Circle are unaffected as are any tickets booked before 12 March.

• Andrew says:

  11 Dec11 December 07:59

  To be frank a large issue is with Heathrow and/or the companies that provide de-icing services to airlines (I.e not Heathrow).

  I arrived into LHR at 21:00 yesterday on Finnair from Helsinki to find another 2 Finnair aircraft already there, delayed due to de-icing I presume. That did mean a 40 minute wait for a stand as icy planes = not going anywhere = no gates available.

  I get the economics of it: for the few days a year we get snow the least-costly option is to buy the level of equipment they have and when it gets bad, come to a grinding halt. Economically true possibly but cold comfort to those affected.

  I’m grateful I got off lightly, only a 100 minute delay (the BA flight diverted to NCL) and the border was empty for e-gate/EU arrivals. Others were very, very much worse off.

• Prins Polo says:

  11 Dec11 December 08:07

  Let’s not forget 2,000 avios is worth mere £20 (even less at Raffles’ conservative valuation) so not a life-changing experience.

  • Barry cutters says:

    11 Dec11 December 09:07

    And zero avios is worth £0.
    4 of us are flying on a £200 return to Edinburgh over xmas period. That’s 10% rebate for us. Will gladly accept the 8000 avios thanks

    • TripRep says:

      11 Dec11 December 09:33

      Looking forward to finding out if its per sector, if Avios redemptions qualify and BAs definition of Christmas period.

      BC – Going for Hogmanay??? As I know you like a tipple, you might want to check out the Caley cocktail bar at the Waldorf, the Scotch bar at the Balmoral and the SMWS on Queens St, all nice classly watering holes that even seem to let types like me in. Have a good one! 🙂

  • Isa says:

    11 Dec11 December 09:28

    2000 avios are worth at least £35 to me – still far from life-changing but better than nothing so I’ll take it if I can. I’d like BA to confirm the details though as my next flight is a RFS from LCY on January 9th so that might push the definition of “Christmas period” a tad but we’ll see…

    • Lumma says:

      11 Dec11 December 09:44

      Well as they’re announcing it next week it looks like my flight to Berlin this Saturday won’t count, which is a can sight more Christmas related than the 9th of Jan

• Polly says:

  11 Dec11 December 08:35

  Just bagged the last CE J DUB to LCY avios flight today, couldn’t believe there was even one left. First few Y ones failed, all gone now. Guess they will be offering offloads at DUB this afternoon, as desperate businessfoks need to get back to LCY. Wonder how much BA will offer….Can’t risk not being back by tomorrow pm tho! At least the lounge is ok these days in Dub.

  • TripRep says:

    11 Dec11 December 08:41

    Nce one! Did you check the £££ price, you know for smug value 😀

    • Anna says:

      11 Dec11 December 15:22

      Love smug value. From time to time I check the cash price of my redemptions – Nice on Grand Prix weekend x 4 is causing much smugness!

      • the real harry1 says:

        11 Dec11 December 18:30

        our Xmas flights are now £950 there & back in Economy 🙂

        = 6.1p/ Avios

      • Genghis says:

        12 Dec12 December 06:18

        And of course price up in £££ as singles as that’s how you booked the redemptions? Lol ????

• Andrew says:

  11 Dec11 December 08:56

  2000 Avios would be very good. It wouldn’t surprise me if my domestic Avios redemption flight over the Christmas Period didn’t qualify though.

  Heathrow chaos is normal for this time of year though. Last Hogmanay, the cancellation of my mid-morning booked domestic flight and delay of the rebooked-to-teatime flight resulted in me wishing the car-park bus driver a “Happy New Year” at Heathrow on the stroke of midnight.

• EvilDoctorK says:

  11 Dec11 December 09:18

  O/T and less important than BA’s woes yesterday ( feeling smug as my LCY flight left 5 mins early and arrived 20 mins early) if anyone is chasing the Amex Shop Small stuff the chat agent today told me that what’s happening is that 5 business days after the transaction posts to your account then it goes into a queue for the bonus to be issued which then takes a further 24-48 hours

  Seems a bit weird to me ( 1 of my transactions posted more or less straight away ) and even if true it’s well different and slower to how it worked last year.

  Anyway .. little point in wasting time chatting with them until > 1 week has elapsed from the transaction posting to your account

  • TripRep says:

    11 Dec11 December 09:23

    Thanks for this good reminder for me yo check on my shopping blitz last weekend.. 😀

    • James says:

      11 Dec11 December 09:41

      @TripRep
      you have been doing so well lately, what changed overnight?

  • mark2 says:

    11 Dec11 December 09:47

    All of mine (on 17 cards including Lloyds and MBNA) have posted in 2-3 days

  • Toby says:

    11 Dec11 December 09:55

    Having a bit of a (relatively speaking!) nightmare with this. All transactions 9 days ago)
    On one card, 5 out of 8 not credited so really had to force the issue to get 5 x manual credits.
    On my Platinum card, 3 out of 4 not credited and they’re refusing manual credits – saying I have to wait 8 weeks to claim. These are for transactions at exactly the same places as the first card where they did give manual credits! Currently chatting with a manager and he isn’t budging.

    • Clive says:

      11 Dec11 December 12:17

      Is it urgent, though? I don’t mind waiting a couple of weeks to see if the credits appear rather than give the staff a hard time immediately. Presumably they don’t want to give manual credits when automatic ones might yet also appear.

  • Lumma says:

    11 Dec11 December 10:19

    Related to small but has anyone used a main card and a supplimentrary in the same place and only gotten one £5 credit? Got two rounds in a bar last Tuesday on my main BA amex and my dad’s supplementary. The credit is showing to have been on his card and not the main one so it can’t be a registration error and I’ve used my main one in other places with no issues.

    Will ask Amex about it if it doesn’t appear in the next couple of days

    • mark2 says:

      11 Dec11 December 11:37

      I have used main and two supplementaries on account in the same merchant (sometimes split same purchase) and received three credits.

• Clive says:

  11 Dec11 December 09:45

  Heathrow still a mess this morning. More counters open for re ticketing than check in so queues are crazy. Flights now being cancelled and delayed again.

• Anna says:

  11 Dec11 December 09:58

  OT – my BAPP anniversary date is December 13th. I’ve got a few big purchases to make this week – if the transactions are made on the 13th, will they count towards the re-set £10k target for the 2 4 1?

  • Genghis says:

    11 Dec11 December 10:03

    They count whenever the avios hit the reward account so should count towards next year’s target.

    • Anna says:

      11 Dec11 December 10:04

      Thanks!

    • Andrew says:

      11 Dec11 December 10:56

      Not always. In 2025, I made a purchase of £1,600 on the date mentioned on the Amex site as “keep spending before [date] to earn more Avios]” (or similar) -I.e. The transaction was on the anniversary date and Avios credited 3 days later. Amex did something odd and they credited the spend to the previous year, not to my new spend target.

      Had to call Amex a few times to get an agent who understood and wait 2 weeks for them to get a specific permission from BA to manually trigger the voucher when I was showing on the system as being £1,600 short of the target on the condition I monitored it myself and rang up.

      A bit convoluted, but there was a solution. Easier though to wait a day if you can.

      • WhiteManVan says:

        11 Dec11 December 12:07

        We’re living in 2017/18 and our dear friend Andrew here is living in 2025!! (nice to know BAPP still exists then)

      • Andrew says:

        11 Dec11 December 13:25

        Oops! Fat thumbs. Meant 2015. Sorry!

      • Anna says:

        11 Dec11 December 15:16

        I’ll wait a day. Got various bills to pay, 2 lots of car hire to book for next year and a household appliance to source and need them all to count towards next BAPP! (Pity about the mistake with the date, I was going to ask you for the lottery numbers!)

      • ankomonkey says:

        11 Dec11 December 17:57

        Can’t reply to @WhiteManVan’s comment, but maybe by 2025 time travel exists and @Andrew flew to 2017 on BA using a 241? He flew to 2017 as it is easier to earn points now than it will be in 2025 and/or he’s on a TP run.

      • Stu N says:

        11 Dec11 December 18:02

        My year ended 11 Nov; I played it safe and put a big transaction through on 12 Nov which has counted. A small one – £2.40 for a coffee, which is 4 Avios (!) I made on 11 Nov but processed on 12 Nov didn’t seem to count towards the required spend.

      • Genghis says:

        12 Dec12 December 06:13

        Thanks Andrew and Stu N. Know for future. I didn’t think it would work that way.

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