Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Sign up for the British Airways ‘16,000 Avios for four short-haul return flights’ promo

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

As of now (2nd March), you can register for the British Airways potentially very lucrative new bonus Avios promotion.

Until 30th June you can earn up to 16,000 bonus Avios on certain short-haul routes to and from the UK.

In short the offer is:

  • Earn 4,000 bonus Avios if you fly four to seven single flights
  • Earn 16,000 bonus Avios if you fly eight or more single flights

British Airways A320

There is no restriction on booking classes.  You can even book the cheapest hand baggage only economy fares.

If you manage four return flights over the next four months, you are getting 2,000 bonus Avios per flight (4,000 per return flight).  With hand baggage only fares as low as £28 one way to Bordeaux, this offer represents an excellent return.

Remember that you can use the BA Low Fare Finder tool here to quickly see the routes with the cheapest fares.  The full list of countries which are included in this offer is below.

How does it work?

In order to earn bonus Avios you must register here prior to booking your flight and include your Executive Club number when booking.

Flights must be booked and completed between 2nd March and 30th June 2018.  Existing bookings do not count.

One way and return flights are both eligible.  One way flights count as one sector and return flights as two.

For clarity – existing bookings made before Friday 2nd March do NOT count.  You should register here to ensure that you do not miss out.

Remember that, if you made a booking yesterday, you can cancel it within 24 hours for a full refund – with no cancellation fees – under BA’s cancellation policy.  Make sure the price has not gone up before you do this ….

Which routes are included?

Flights from and to London (Heathrow, Gatwick, City), Stansted, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh to the following destinations are included in this promotion:

Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine

UK domestic flights do not count.

How do you earn the bonus Avios?

You will only earn bonus Avios when flying on a British Airways flight and not on Iberia, Finnair or American Airlines.  Flights with BA franchises such as SUN-AIR, codeshare partners or oneworld alliance members are also excluded.  Avios redemptions do not count although cash bookings part-paid with Avios should be OK.

The promotion cannot be used with any other offer or discount.  Bonus Avios will be awarded by 15th July in a separate transaction at the end of the promotional period.

The website to register for this offer is here.  Remember that you MUST register before making your bookings and that you need to fly before 30th June.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

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:

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

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

25,000 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 – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a 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

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

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.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

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

40,000 points sign-up bonus 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 (62)

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

  • Jose Mattos says:

    BA have sneaky just added £10 on the Bordeaux flights as i was booking my 3rd same day return…

    Thanks again Rob for the tips

    • Josh says:

      mate, help me out on this one. How you planning on working out a 3rd same day return back 2 back all in one day. Interested to do the same :).

  • Jon says:

    Would the routing MAN->LHR->OTP->LHR->MAN on one booking count for two sectors in this promotion?

  • David says:

    Interesting to see whether the many Titan / Germania / etc operated services will count.

    • Josh says:

      Agree, will most likely give BA a call to find out as it Titan is a wet lease not codeshare or anything like that as stated in the T&C’s…

  • Ant says:

    Does HBO get you at least the Economy Lowest TPs?

    • haasha says:

      It may get you even the highest, it depends on the booking class. HBO is possible on the highest economy classes too.

      • Ant says:

        How can you tell before booking? Clicking the flight number just shows me Economy and Business class codes, is the Economy code for both HBO and standard Economy?

  • Neil says:

    Having looked into this, but unless you live in/near London or fly Business to Europe via London, you’re very unlikely to find any value in this deal? With domestic flights not included, the price of getting return trips 4x to Heathrow + the flights themselves will surely make this deal pretty worthless, or have I missed something?

    FYI I live in Leeds…..

    • Barry cutters says:

      I know loads of people that travel via heathrow once a week. there are loads of people that live outside London that will benefit from this deal. Up north has nowhere near the same route options and availability . Likelyhoodbis for a lot of flights living in the north you need to change somewhere – might as well make it heathrow

      • Neil says:

        So to clarify, you’re agreeing with the first line of my post?!

        • Barry cutters says:

          no I’m disagreeing. I think it’s a good deal. Even for those who live outside London . The value is there , granted it’s a little more tricky – but it’s not ba’s fault that you don’t live near where they are based. You would have to make exactly the same amount of trips as someone in London to get maximum return on this deal. I confess I don’t know the cost of the flight s from regional airports, but assuming you aren’t making these trips specifically for the deal then they are trips you need to make anyway.

  • Peter Taysum says:

    Will this work if booked as holiday?

  • Barry cutters says:

    All the comments about Ba yesterday annoy me – useless it etc . The offer hadn’t even been advertised . I just got an email about it 20mins ago.
    If you get the email or if it’s in big letters on the home page and doesn’t work. Then fine to complain about it in my book, but when an offer hasn’t even gone live – calm down and have some patients

    • John says:

      They shouldn’t have got Rob to hype it up if they weren’t sure it was going to work

      • Rob says:

        Indeed. Does me no favours sending out 11,000 emails with a broken link …..

        • Barry cutters says:

          Agree on that front . Forgot it was given to you early with a launch time

    • Julian says:

      I expect you meant to say patience and not patients……………..

  • Gooner says:

    Do returns from london count? so I can nest some flights. It may help reduce the cost.

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

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.