Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Last call for flight bargains in the British Airways Winter sale

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31st January is your last chance to book in the British Airways Winter sale. You can take a look at what is available via this special page of ba.com.

(It may or may not be a coincidence that the BA promotion above starts one day later on 1st February.)

Nashville, pictured below, is the star deal, with Club World return seats available for £1,376 in March.  New Orleans is also looking attractive with Club World fares as low as £1,541.

The Caribbean looks interesting – Kingston £1,214, Punta Cana £1,493, San Jose £1,494 and so on.

As usual, don’t book a Club World flight before pricing it up via BA Holidays – see here.  Adding a hotel or car can often cost little more, and sometimes less, than the flight itself.  BA Holidays also lets you lock in your trip now by only paying a small deposit, with the balance only due five weeks before travel.

Don’t forget ‘part pay with Avios’

Sale flights are still valid for ‘part pay with Avios’.  How much you save now varies by route and by class, and the value per point tends to get worse the more you try to discount, but it is always worth taking a look at what is on offer for your particular ticket.

A Nashville Club World booking offered me:

  • £50 off for 6,250 Avios (0.80p per Avios)
  • £110 off for 16,000 Avios (0.69p)
  • £150 off for 24,750 Avios (0.61p)
  • £190 off for 34,000 Avios (0.56p)
  • £280 off for 55,000 Avios (0.51p)

There are also deals in Economy and short-haul Club Europe, including short break deals via BA Holidays.

As usual, travel dates are all over the place depending on whether you are travelling short haul or long haul, whether you are flying from Gatwick, City or Heathrow, and what travel class you are flying in.  In general you’ll find you can book up to either May / June 2019 or mid December 2019.

To maximise your miles when paying, your best bet is the British Airways American Express Premium Plus card which earns double Avios (3 per £1) when you book at ba.com or via BA Holidays.  You do not get double Avios if you book with the free British Airways American Express card.  Another option is American Express Preferred Rewards Gold which offers double points – 2 per £1 – when you book flight tickets directly with an airline.

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

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.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (177)

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

  • Alex W says:
    29 Jan29 January 08:03

    New enhancement breaking news! From 1 Feb, BA to print boarding passes in colour

    • Shoestring says:
      29 Jan29 January 08:15

      Not on my printer, they won’t be 🙂

      All right if you print at work, I suppose

      • TGLoyalty says:
        29 Jan29 January 08:22

        Already full colour on my phone 😉

        • Shoestring says:
          29 Jan29 January 08:27

          Don’t you phone app BP guys worry that something might go wrong at last minute, no power/ phone plays up etc? If so, can BA print it themselves? I guess Ryanair would charge you £40

        • Mr Dee says:
          29 Jan29 January 09:15

          It’s actually a good point as recently if the app can’t connect it completely logs me out

        • Doug M says:
          29 Jan29 January 09:44

          Yes BA will always print boarding passes without a fuss, or a fee.

        • Shoestring says:
          29 Jan29 January 09:57

          “We’ve got iPhones 🙂”

          I’ve got potential free Exit row so I actually never print my BA BP ahead of arriving @LHR

        • TGLoyalty says:
          29 Jan29 January 11:50

          BA will happily print a boarding pass for free with no fuss

        • Ant says:
          29 Jan29 January 16:09

          Once you’ve retrieved your boarding pass on the app you can click on “add” to save it to your IPhone wallet. Then you don’t need an internet connection to see it again.

        • KevMc says:
          29 Jan29 January 17:27

          I always add it to your Apple Wallet and also take a screenshot just to be on the safe side

    • Andrew says:
      29 Jan29 January 08:58

      BA seem to be the only airline to be too tight to get their blank boarding passes specially printed with company logos – instead just buy plain white ones and print poor quality logos on them.

      • Pierre says:
        29 Jan29 January 09:30

        from my days managing the boarding pass print templates, this is a tricky one: Some of the DCS and printers still use old image format which only supports black and white.
        Having pre-printed logos also has some challenges:
        ->Alignment needs to be properly tried and tested on each format. Sometimes, due to printer constraints, there might be the need for one template per printer type, so more time spent testing and validating, along with an extra cost to the DCS provider
        ->Stock needs to be distributed, even in airports where BA is ground handled by someone else. In which case, when the ground handler is handling multiple airlines at the same time, they need to change stock in the printer, and resupply a different paper format per airline, whereas with a blank boarding pass, the template is directly tied to the airline, and thus it dynamically changes.

  • Dave says:
    29 Jan29 January 08:06

    It’s my Birthday on 1st Feb !!

  • N says:
    29 Jan29 January 08:16

    Just going to get in early with today’s daily comment asking about the QR sale…

    • marcw says:
      29 Jan29 January 10:08

      The sale is over. Well… if we could call it a sale. If you are expecting a 2015-2016 kind of sale, forget about it.

  • SimonW says:
    29 Jan29 January 08:20

    O/T – Nectar and SPG Amex points transfers. Itching to close these cards now – the points have left the Amex online accounts, any idea how long they take to arrive in the Nectar and SPG accounts?

  • Graham says:
    29 Jan29 January 08:32

    O/T – I’m finding that the monthly calendar view when trying to book Avios remptions on the BA website isn’t working. That’s When you select “Find availability with British Airways on other dates”.

    It’s been like this for a few days. Is anyone else having this problem?

  • Andrew says:
    29 Jan29 January 09:04

    OT.

    At the weekend, I declined to take up the £69 online check-in offer to upgrade the back portion of my £62 return LHR-EDI ticket to Club Europe. I wasn’t expecting to to be at the airport for long enough to enjoy the lounge and the 40 tier points wouldn’t be enough to take make a difference to my tier level.

    But…

    I got a surprise lift to the airport and ended up arriving there well before the previous flight departed. Had I upgraded to “Club Europe” , would that have entitled me to switching to the earlier flight at zero cost? (Assumming there had been seats available).

    • Alan says:
      29 Jan29 January 09:22

      For straightforward EDI-LHR returns you can change free of charge to same day alternatives even in economy – not sure how it’d be with a connecting flight though, suspect it wouldn’t be eligible and don’t think doing an upgrade to CE would have changed this.

      • BJ says:
        29 Jan29 January 11:06

        No problem, and never been a problem in my experience provided you had hand bags only and asked nicely. Same with LH.

        • Bagoly says:
          29 Jan29 January 17:17

          LH once forced me to wait 8 hours at FRA even though there was an earlier flight to my destination that was far from full.

        • Bagoly says:
          29 Jan29 January 17:18

          While BA have several times been flexible, even to a different LON airport.

  • AmandaB says:
    29 Jan29 January 09:35

    O/T has anyone experienced message saying ‘unable to do this due to technical issue, you will still be able to choose on board’ when trying to pre-order meal from on board menu? I had the email on Friday, still not able to do it. I called BA but, after long explanation of what I wanted to do, could help. Advised our seats still showing as F.
    Should I be concerned that this might be an warning that we are earmarked for a downgrade from first to CW? Flight is LHR – JNB we are travelling 2-4-1 tickets.

    • Alan says:
      29 Jan29 January 09:39

      Yes I’ve had that. Took a LOT of explaining to You First for them to finally sort my meal booking – they didn’t even seem to know it was possible!!

      • AmandaB says:
        29 Jan29 January 11:17

        But was your booking safe, or were you downgraded? That is my concern, like not being able to check in on line and then being bumped

  • Iain says:
    29 Jan29 January 09:39

    Any hint of an incoming Americas sale for Hilton?

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