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Coming soon: redeem Avios points for flights on Fiji Airways

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The oneworld airline alliance, of which British Airways is a core and founder member, has announced the launch of oneworld connect.  This means new airlines on which you can earn and redeem Avios.

oneworld connect has the potential to be very interesting indeed.  It allows smaller airlines around the world to partner with oneworld but without having to go through the complex process of becoming a full member.  I imagine it is possible that Aer Lingus may go down this route.

Fiji Airways will be the first oneworld connect member.

Fiji Airways joins oneworld connect

Unfortunately, oneworld has made oneworld connect more complex than it really had to be.

Let me explain how it works.  Each airline joining oneworld connect has to be sponsored by at least three existing oneworld members.  As it happens, Fiji Airways has four sponsors:

  • British Airways
  • American Airlines
  • Cathay Pacific
  • Qantas

The reason I stress the names of the sponsors is that different benefits apply depending on whether you are a member of a sponsors frequent flyer programme or not.

Fiji Airways joins oneworld connect

This is how it works:

For holders of frequent flyer accounts with sponsoring airlines:

  • Through check-in of bags and passengers
  • Earn miles
  • Redeem miles
  • Earn tier / status points
  • Lounge access when flying the oneworld connect member

For holders of frequent flyer accounts with other oneworld airlines:

  • Access to priority check-in desks when flying the oneworld connect member for Emerald, Sapphire and Ruby members
  • Priority boarding for oneworld Emerald and Sapphire members

Here it is as a graphic:

oneworld connect rules

What this means is that, as a British Airways Executive Club member, you will be able to earn and redeem Avios of Fiji Airways, as well as accessing their lounges if you have British Airways Gold or Silver status and are flying Fiji Airways.

However, if you are – say – a Qatar Airways or  Royal Jordanian frequent flyer member – you will not get these benefits.  Qatar Airways and Royal Jordanian are not sponsoring Fiji Airways into oneworld connect and so their members do not get any mileage benefits.  All they get is priority boarding and priority check-in.

In future, you may find other airlines joining oneworld connect with are not sponsored by British Airways, which means you won’t get much in the way of the benefits.

Where does Fiji Airways fly?

Quite a few places, surprisingly.  Here is their route network.

It appears that they fly to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Singapore, Honolulu and a number of destinations in Australia and New Zealand.  Tokyo is being added next month.  This may make them an option if you are trying to find a round-the-house routing to Australasia.

The airline has a fleet of 18 aircraft including five long-haul Airbus A330.

When does this partnership launch?

We don’t know.  “A date will be announced in due course” said the release yesterday.  We’ll let you know.

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

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Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

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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

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The Platinum Card from American Express

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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.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

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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

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American Express Business Gold

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

Category

British Airways and Avios, oneworld alliance partners

Comments (42)

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

  • jameslon says:
    4 Jun4 June 06:21

    This will interesting for getting to Fiji (e.g. from SYD TO NAD) where cash prices even for economy can be high (I suspect because of the monopoly on this route?)

    Any ideas on the Avios redemption rates for the Fiji Airways routes?

    • Prins Polo says:
      4 Jun4 June 08:49

      Definitely no monopoly on the routes to Fiji. From Sydney, for example, you also have Virgin Australia and Jetstar.

  • filipino_chino says:
    4 Jun4 June 06:27

    Amazing news!

    Been wanting to get to NAD for some time…..

    • callum says:
      4 Jun4 June 07:20

      No big deal, but just so you both know, the airport code for Nadi is NAN not NAD (which is a tiny airport in Colombia).

  • TripRep says:
    4 Jun4 June 06:51

    Nice to see the article on GuestReady states it’s sponsored, surprised it’s comments appear to be disabled.

    • Nick says:
      4 Jun4 June 11:25

      Given what happened last time, it’s hardly surprising Rob wants his paid content to be comment-free! On balance I think this is probably the best alternative – as one of the complainants last time, for fairness and balance I’d like to thank Rob/Anika for listening and inserting the lines about sponsorship, it does bring clarity about the subject and (in my view) that’s a good thing.

      • Rob says:
        4 Jun4 June 12:43

        To be honest, we’re not listening to you 🙂

        GuestReady is a sponsored article. Flat fee, no cut on any business, they see and approve the content. The article you were moaning about before was a standard HFP article with a few affiliate links in it and no different to any other HFP article in that regard. All sponsored articles we’ve ever run have had the same disclaimers.

        • Schooling says:
          4 Jun4 June 21:59

          Can you confirm we have seen the last of the masturbating man from Mayfair?

          • Rob says:
            5 Jun5 June 07:48

            Unless they rebook, I think so – although Anika deals with the ads and I honestly don’t know off the top of my head what it booked.

      • Sam says:
        5 Jun5 June 19:25

        OK, my interest is raised. I’ve stuck “masturbating man from Mayfair” in the search box with no results. What on earth!?

    • xcalx says:
      4 Jun4 June 19:34

      Yeah I wanted to comment on the ” earn airmiles ” This is well out of date Only Qantas gives miles now. Delta stopped miles in November 2017 and virgin Elevate miles ended when Alaskan took over.
      We have an airbnb in Leeds run by ourselves 5 Star for everything, superhost etc. We have noticed that the properties in our area run by management companies get the worst reviews and least bookings.

  • James A says:
    4 Jun4 June 06:56

    Always have been a great option for AA miles redemptions.

    How very strange that if they are not a ‘sponsored’ airline from your program then you can’t redeem miles with them.

    • callum says:
      4 Jun4 June 07:14

      Well I assume that’s the whole point of being a connect member. If all the airlines wanted to allow this then they could just become full alliance members.

    • Nick says:
      4 Jun4 June 11:19

      This will be because the members can’t agree among themselves which carriers to include and not to include, so there’s a halfway house where some hold them as ‘friends’ and some merely ‘acquaintances’. It’s really clever actually, makes a way of expanding the alliance without necessarily having to satisfy everyone. It might get confusing, but is a clever way around a problem and good that they’re trying to find one.

      • James says:
        4 Jun4 June 20:08

        And also without holding the new airlines to the same standards and practices as full members do? Call me cynical.

  • Charlie T. says:
    4 Jun4 June 07:36

    Re: Through check in of baggage – I was under the impression that BA weren’t doing this for full OW members? Or have I misunderstood?

    • Doug M says:
      4 Jun4 June 08:47

      I thought that was on multiple tickets, through checking fine on a single ticket, no?

    • Rob says:
      4 Jun4 June 08:50

      You would need to be on one ticket, so I assume BA will set up an agreement so its tickets can be combined with Fiji ones.

  • David S says:
    4 Jun4 June 07:49

    Flew to NAN from SYD last year in economy since J class prices were going for silly prices. The rules at the time were if you booked it through Qantas, you got oneworld recognition. So as BA Gold, got access to Qantas lounge in SYD and got avios and tier points. However on return, no lounge access since there was no Qantas lounge in NAN but still got tier points and avios. I suppose with oneworld connect, you will get lounge access and benefits now just booking with FJ code alone.

  • Marcw says:
    4 Jun4 June 08:03

    This feels more like a mentoring scheme. I guess after a few years, they’ll be able to become full oneworld members. Oneworld has had bad experiences lately: Mexicana de aviacion, Malev, Air Berlin.

  • pauldb says:
    4 Jun4 June 08:58

    I’d expect the redemptions to price exactly like any other partner redemption: distance based.

    We were meant to fly FJ WLG-NAN-HKG on an AA award last year: creative routing required at the end of the Christmas holidays. Both their SH and LH J looked pretty good. Unfortunately their plane couldn’t land at WLG, but they were probably more flexible than a larger airline might have been rerouting us WLG-AKL-HKG on NZ.

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