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British Airways Johannesburg airport lounge closing today

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The two British Airways lounges in Johannesburg, Club and First, close today for a five month refurbishment. Re-opening is currently planned for October.

During the closure, passengers will be split between Comair’s SLOW Lounge (First Class passengers only, NOT Gold card holders) and the Aspire Lounge (Club World and Gold and Silver card holders).

The SLOW lounges have a good reputation, but I don’t know anything about the Aspire facility.  This is the lounge used by Iberia, although it is dropping its Jo’burg service.  A photo is above.

There is little information about whether the two separate lounges will remain after the refurbishment or whether a ‘Concorde Bar’ will be introduced for First Class passengers – not Gold card holders – as is seen in Dubai.


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 (129)

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

  • Zana711 says:

    O/T but Accor related – seems like Accor is now strictly reinforcing their T&Cs about the need to stay once every 12 months. My account has just been wiped clean of about 17,000 points when in fact, I’ve had multiple emails (and logging into my account just a few days ago) confirmed that the points were valid up to Oct 2019. I haven’t stayed for over 12 months but had the validity of the points seem to have been extended through other activity on my account.

    Anyone know customer service email address to complain? Not easy to find on the Accor website…

    • Peter K says:

      Good luck with Accor CS 🙁

    • Brian says:

      Easier to call. I had points expire – only realised when I went online to use my points for a stay. They told me they could reinstate the points if I had a stay within 30 days, so I booked my stay using cash and the points appeared soon after the normal points posted.

    • Rob says:

      Thanks. Will update that recent article.

    • Pangolin says:

      I had the same. They zeroed out my points but OTOH I did get a soft landing from Gold to Silver, FWIW.

  • AP says:

    OT

    Quick question – do you get the 10,000 bonus MR as soon as you hit£15k spend on the Amex Gold, or only at the end of your statement year (i.e does it lock you into paying the Year 2 fee?)?

    • Shoestring says:

      end of year, you’ll need to wait a month or so, which means you’ll pay the annual fee – but this gets refunded pro rata once you cancel

    • Rob says:

      You get the 10k 30 days after renewal. If you then cancel you get 11/12th of the £140 fee refunded.

  • Yawn says:

    OT I have something weird and frankly annoying happen. I flew Alitalia to Rome. I took advantage of a last-minute offer to upgrade the return leg to Business (paying an extra 150 euro), crediting the whole lot to Flying Blue. The flight out posted just fine (5XP and 300 miles), but I am told that I do not earn miles or XP on the business class return leg, because the ticket was in Class Z and therefore not eligible. So I am in the paradoxical position that by paying more, I’ve ended up with fewer miles!

    Any thoughts? Comments? Advice? I had really hoped to get 15XP towards Gold Status with KLM. 🙁

    • Jill (Kinkell) says:

      Hard luck. Happened to me…upgraded a leg to CE, but no avios or TPs for the extra cash paid out. 2 calls to CS stated ticket did not warrant points etc, Turned out the ticket was a RFS and not the cash + avios booking that I thought I’d made. Mind you, it was my own fault as I didn’t check the type of booking when the MMB banner at the top of the page enticed me to upgrade for a bit extra as I was sure it was a cash/ avios booking I’d made. Lesson learned! I was pretty hacked off, but I did make the most of f&b !

  • Gringo says:

    Istanbul’s *new* airport (IST) doesn’t have any PP lounges. Has anyone managed to get in somewhere with Amex Plat?

  • Waddle says:

    OT: Curve
    Just tried to pay off some of my Amex balance with Curve and it failed. Don’t know what the issue was. Didn’t bother trying again. This was with my HSBC PWE underlying. Perhaps a clampdown?

    • Gringo says:

      Failed me this morning at ikea- so might just be a technical issue. Virgin+ card underlying.

      • Waddle says:

        Ah ok. Thanks. Will try again another time.

        • Gringo says:

          Just tried it somewhere else and it worked. System could have been down for a bit.

  • Shoestring says:

    200 free IB Avios for signing up to Showroomprive with your email address, I used a VPN (Tunnelbear free, Spain) and was using Spain, Spanish as my IB settings, all looked to go OK, no need to give more than your name & email address.

  • Crafty says:

    OT: Radisson offer, 3,000 bonus points per NIGHT starting with your second stay, up until 31 August. Check your emails – buried in a separate promotional message about Dream Deals coming soon.

  • Jake M says:

    Somehow BA got the queen to visit their HQ as part of their 100 anniversary celebrations…

    Is it just me that’s sad that mr Cruz wasn’t wearing his infamous high vis jacket 😂😂

    • Anna says:

      Did she get a free cup of tea though or did she bring her own teabag?!

    • Rob says:

      Whereas Shai Weiss of Virgin was stuck with me and Rhys tonight 🙂

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

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