Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

British Airways suspends flights to Oakland and Fuerteventura

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

British Airways has announced a couple of additional route suspensions.

The underperforming Gatwick to Oakland route – which was only set up in the first place to annoy Norwegian – is now suspended for Summer 2019, ie from late March.

It was already suspended for the October to March Winter season so it is fair to say that this one can now be treated as permanently cancelled.

You can either rebook on a BA San Francisco service or fly British Airways to Seattle and connect to an Alaska Airways flight to Oakland.

The Gatwick to Fuerteventura route is also cancelled from 25th November.

You can choose to be rebooked on Aer Lingus, routing Heathrow to Dublin (BA only) to Fuerteventura.  Plan B is to use Brussels Airways, routing Heathrow to Brussels on BA.  Note that Aer Lingus and Brussels Airways do not have a business class cabin.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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

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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits 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 (75)

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

  • Simon says:

    I had similar IT issues as Nick’s when redeeming some Groupon codes for Iberia Plus a couple of months ago. Best to contact Groupon if the codes don’t go through as they were able to sort out, in one case by refunding the cash. Clearly I’ll be using up the IB Avios points for redemptions this week before next week’s bunfight begins…

  • Nick M says:

    Completely OT – potentially looking at flights SEN-MAN rather than driving with the children… how long do you think we’d need to allow at the airport? Need to allow more than “normal” for contingencies and checking in carseats, but presumably considerably less than 2 hours? (Admittedly we did get a final call at T5 last weekend!)

    • Rob says:

      It’s is a small and not very busy airport – at least 18 months ago when I was there – so 90 minutes should do it, as long as you are sure the traffic to the airport won’t whack you.

    • the real harry1 says:

      Depends if you have a connecting flight onwards from MAN…and which airport you mean by ‘how long to allow at the airport’…I have to assume you mean you are connecting onwards ie SEN-MAN, MAN-XXX (otherwise not sure why you would ask the question). In this case the usual caveats apply, ie on 1 PNR, you’re not risking anything much so 90 mins, on 2 PNRs considerably longer for peace of mind + travel insurance

    • Nick M says:

      Thanks Rob.. will allow a little extra time for the drive to the airport as will be going over the Dartford crossing, but good to know I shouldn’t have to double-count the “in case of delays” time!

      Harry – no additional flights, just SEN-MAN… didn’t want to hang around at SEN for longer than necessary but travelling with 2 children means you can’t rush quite as much, so need to allow for a bit of slippage time!

    • Lady London says:

      There is a train that stops at the airport, it goes from Liverpool St station I think.

  • Sacha says:

    Thanks for the reminder!!

  • Aisak says:

    About the axe on LGW-FUE it’s quite weird to make passengers use LHR for rebookings and even put them on SN BRU-FUE…. IB Express LGW-MAD and MAD-FUE could have kept passengers within IAG.

    If the LGW-FUE comes with a connection from EDI GLA, NQY, JER…. Then the EI option via DUB might make more sense

    • Tom says:

      Maybe all the MAD flights were booked up after the recent Avios promo 🙂

  • Omair says:

    O/T: BA exec reward bookings have been a pain recently, I tried to book a reward flight on Srilankan (oneworld), it shows availability but online booking fails, on calling them they reserved it but can’t take payment for taxes over the phone, gave me 3 days to go to the airport in person and pay at ticket desk, that’s a 3 hour time waste trip to heathrow or gatwick for me, annoying in this day and age they can’t sort technology! Even taxes were £50 more than ITA matrix…. anyone else here asked to go pay in person?

  • dicksbits says:

    Was FUE underperforming too? Answers on a postcard…

  • davem says:

    My Groupon.ie avios have posted and just transferred to my BAEC

    • Clarence says:

      How did you transfer the miles fro aerclub to baec

      • Matthew says:

        Mine have posted as well. I used avios.com ‘combine my avios’ to move them from AerClub to BAEC.

      • Matthew says:

        I should add that AerClub avios should automatically show up in your avios.com account.

      • davem says:

        same as Matthew, used avios.com

  • Clarence says:

    That’s good news except I can’t get into my avios.com account. Don’t know what’s up

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.