Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Avios seats now bookable on additional British Airways St Lucia flights next Summer

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Extra Avios seats are now bookable on St Lucia flights for next Summer.

Virgin Atlantic recently announced that it was pulling out of its St Lucia route from next June.

British Airways is picking up the slack.  It is adding two additional weekly flights to St Lucia in Summer 2020.  Extra flights are scheduled between 4th July and 29th August 2020 from London Gatwick to St Lucia.

Avios points to St Lucia

Since these flights have recently been added to the schedule there is still excellent Avios reward availability.  Remember that British Airways guarantees two Club World and four World Traveller seats available for Avios bookings on every flight it operates.

The easiest way to see reward availability is by using Reward Flight Finder. It is currently showing very good availability for flights in July and early August, which is as far out as you can currently book.

BA is cancelling one weekly Orlando service and one weekly Las Vegas service during this period to free up an aircraft.

To maximise your miles when paying the taxes, 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.  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.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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

Get 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

30,000 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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

50,000 points when you sign-up 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 (146)

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

  • Gtellez says:
    23 Aug23 August 09:20

    OT- I have realized that Marriott is not crediting points properly. Last week I stayed in Marriott Leicester for 3 nights, the total expense was 392 pounds (326 excluding VAT), but I only received 2685 base points (including the platinum bonus, 2k points less). I looked at my previous stays and all of them were wrong… I had to contact Marriott and after more than hour talking with them and sending the invoices, they fixed my last 5 stays, in total more than 10k points more.

  • Rda says:
    23 Aug23 August 09:47

    Chemical Brothers are available too for the o2, only two packages left.

    • ankomonkey says:
      23 Aug23 August 10:27

      Finally something worth considering. I’m fed up of all the Barry Manilow-type offers.

  • Crafty says:
    23 Aug23 August 10:04

    OT: Has Hilton Bankside really gone from 45,000 to 70,000 points per night?!

    Hilton points seem to have devalued quite severely this year.

    • Kai says:
      23 Aug23 August 10:10

      It’s just variable pricing. I couldn’t believe it was only 45000 points per night before the structural change.

  • Stu_N says:
    23 Aug23 August 10:07

    When does bidding close on Moments? It just lists a date – is there a precise time when bidding ends and what timezone would it be in?

    • Stu_N says:
      23 Aug23 August 10:18

      Answered my own question, if you click through to bid there is a precise “time remaining” and they are all different.

    • Rob says:
      23 Aug23 August 11:26

      The exact time is usually in the small print somewhere. Late bids extend it – if someone bids in the final 2 (?) minutes the auction is extended by 2 (?) minutes. This can carry on for some time so if you are carving out diary time to make a late bid you need to give yourself 30 minutes at least!

  • Mikeact says:
    23 Aug23 August 10:15

    OT, but may be of interest to those highlighting expensive flights.
    The top two airlines posting last fiscal year route revenues ;

    1 BA with US$ 1.159 London – New York
    2 Qantas with US$ •861 Sydney – Melbourne

    Obviously, costs have to be taken out of the above, but interesting all the same. And of course there is far less competition on the Sydney/Melbourne run.

  • SG says:
    23 Aug23 August 10:16

    Morning all
    I thought the Virgin Atlantic CC Plus fee counts towards the expenditure for the sign up bonus just as the BA Premium
    Can anyone confirm please?
    Had the 15000 miles posted fine with the first statement and expected the remainder of 15000 miles with my statement yesterday but not there
    I can only think of this reason but readers reported here issues regarding the promised bonus

    • AndyW says:
      23 Aug23 August 10:34

      ‘I thought the Virgin Atlantic CC Plus fee counts towards the expenditure for the sign up bonus just as the BA Premium’
      Have to say I didn’t think that was the case for the BA card, though I have probably never been in a position where I would notice.

    • Spaghetti Town says:
      23 Aug23 August 10:55

      I always thought annual fees didn’t count

      • SG says:
        23 Aug23 August 11:10

        It was from one of Rob’s articles that I’ve learned that BA Premium annual fee counts
        Need to contact Virgin Money CC,although a few days ago they asked me about 10 questions to pass security!!!

    • Harry T says:
      23 Aug23 August 11:17

      I’m 90% sure the fee doesn’t count towards the sign up bonus on the BAPP or the Virgin card.

    • Rooster says:
      23 Aug23 August 12:23

      No and never known a annual fee to count towards any spend on any card

  • Pablo says:
    23 Aug23 August 10:38

    OT: if booked through Iberia, can you upgrade a WTP flight on BA metal with avios (award space available in CW), or does the flight need to be booked directly through BA? Also, I understand that you need to pay the incremental taxes and surcharges – are these the charges labeled as YQ on ITA? Many thanks in advance for the help.

  • David says:
    23 Aug23 August 11:08

    When cancelling BAPP for pro rata refund do the Avios collected for that period still transfer over?

    • Dave says:
      23 Aug23 August 11:50

      No they won’t transfer over if you cancel the card before them leaving your account.

    • Genghis says:
      23 Aug23 August 12:52

      The correct answer is they might, but they might not. If a significant amount of points (ie greater in value than any prorata refund until you can cancel safely), wait.

      • David says:
        23 Aug23 August 13:28

        Thanks

        • EwanG says:
          23 Aug23 August 13:59

          They did not in my recent experience. Refund was much preferable to the 500 points!

          A possible solution would be to downgrade to the free BA card and cancel later, if the refund and number of points are both significant. It’s not like you will be signing up again in 6 months for another bonus!

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

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