Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

British Airways airport lounge in Geneva is closing today for a full refurbishment

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The British Airways Geneva lounge is closing today.

Today, assuming everything remains on schedule, is the last day to use the British Airways lounge in Geneva.

It closes tonight and will reopen in ‘late 2019’ following a major refurbishment.

You will be sent to the dnata Skyview lounge in the interim, picture below, which has decent feedback.  This is also a Priority Pass lounge.

PS.  The British Airways lounge in Glasgow is also due to close for two weeks, currently planned for 2nd to 15th June, for a lick of paint.  £5 restaurant vouchers will be provided to affected passengers.

HFP-Barclaycard-Avios-Card

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (October 2023)

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 £12,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points.

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

30,000 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

Get a 10,000 points bonus plus an extra 500 points for our readers 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.

EDIT: Applications for this card are temporarily suspended due to IT issues with the British Airways On Business SME loyalty scheme.

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 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 (90)

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

  • Roger says:
    27 May27 May 16:49

    Anyone yet to use a 7 night Marriott stay certificate from last year following category change?
    Have people been successful in Marriott honoring the original CAT 5 for new bookings using the old certificate?

    I have two certificates to use.
    Failing that what are the refund points expected?

    • Gin and Tonic Please says:
      27 May27 May 17:49

      Yes – I’m fact I’m at Domes Noruz Chania right now, which was (I think) old Cat 5 and new Cat 7. I got it through all fine on the old certificate – though it was a pain and I spent about an hour on the phone to CS.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      27 May27 May 19:19

      There is a very good and detailed thread on this on FlyerTalk which states all of the refund and upgrade points costs.

      I changed my old Cat 8 for a new Cat 6 for 30k MR I think and had a great stay.

    • s879 says:
      27 May27 May 19:27

      I tried over 10 times but couldn’t change my old CAT 5 to new CAT 5 even with extra points. I think they are a lot stricter now.

      • guesswho2000 says:
        27 May27 May 22:53

        Yep, old cat 5 is new cat 4, and I have one of those too. Don’t seem to be able to change it, so the choice seems to be either find a Cat 1-4 you’re happy with (Asia is easy enough for me, so not impossible, but YMMV) or take the 45,000 point refund.

        The certificate is net zero cost to me, so I value it accordingly – the travel package value for me came from the AAdvantage miles.

      • TGLoyalty says:
        27 May27 May 23:36

        Strange I did mine maybe 2 months ago by phoning the uk call centre and was processed within about 20 mins and the hotel I wanted booked.

        Possibly it’s because I had a hotel in mind at the time? But the FlyerTalk thread at the time had the exact language to use and seemed to be bang on.

  • Justin says:
    27 May27 May 17:14

    Anyone else having issue with flyertalk today? Seems they’ve been hacked. I just keep being referred to adverts.

  • Allez allez allez says:
    27 May27 May 20:28

    Managed to book the Hilton Madrid Airport on Saturday night for 40,000 points instead of €1467

    • Anna says:
      27 May27 May 21:04

      Is that over 3p per point? Is that a record?!

    • marcw says:
      27 May27 May 21:20

      What a waste of points… there are plenty of cheap and nice hotels around MAD airport.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      27 May27 May 23:39

      If you have Marriott points there’s a few going in the centre.

    • rams1981 says:
      28 May28 May 00:07

      Good work. I got a holiday inn for 25k points which is going for 550 euros.

  • Gavin says:
    27 May27 May 22:35

    Happening continuously on the guardian website for me too

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

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