British Airways expands its flights from Inverness – which makes it easier to avoid APD

British Airways has announced plans to increase its services from Inverness from the start of the Summer timetable in late March 2019.

The number of weekday services will increase to two per day, and the number of weekend services will increase to three per day.  This will drop down to 14 per week (losing one weekend service per day) during Winter 2019.

More importantly, the flights will also be retimed to improve onward connections.  An aircraft will now be parked at Inverness overnight to allow a late evening arrival and early morning departure.

The reason this is interesting is that there is no Air Passenger Duty on flights departing from Inverness.  This applies to all airports in the Highlands and Islands region where many flights operate with Government subsidy.  This means that you can save £150+ per person in ‘taxes and charges’ if you book a long-haul Club World or First flight which is ticketed Inverness – London – XXXXXX.

Is this worth it?  I wouldn’t do it.  That said, perhaps the me of 20 years ago would have done it.  Inverness has no hotels connected to the airport and is pricey in summer so I doubt you’d want to stay overnight – and it would wipe out your saving – but you could certainly fly up on a one-way Reward Flight Saver redemption (£17.50 + 4,500 Avios) and then come back. 

If you live near Heathrow you could book your long haul flight for the following day as long as it departed within 24 hours of the Inverness service landing in London.

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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.

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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.