British Airways settles with CBRE over May 2017 power outage

This is not, by any means, ‘new’ news.  It was reported in the IT press back in February but I never saw it picked up by the travel press.

You will remember the huge British Airways IT outage in May 2017 when the entire airline was crippled over a Bank Holiday weekend by a major power failure.

The exact cause has never been publicly stated, but it was traced to an outsourced data centre run by the managed services arm of property group CBRE – even though it was in a British Airways building – on behalf of British Airways.

It isn’t clear how much money CBRE agreed to pay to British Airways.  It was presumably nowhere near the £58m which BA stated it had lost in refunds and compensation.  As you’d expect, CBRE paid up without admitting liability, and apparently is still managing data centres on behalf of BA today.

You can read more over at Computer Weekly here and Data Center Knowledge here.

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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.

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.

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.