Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Send your children on the British Airways work experience scheme

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If you have a child at school or sixth form college (not university), British Airways is currently accepting applications for its Spring 2020 work experience scheme.

Positions are available at Heathrow (customer facing, operations, engineering, Waterside HQ), Gatwick (customer facing and engineering), Glasgow (engineering) and Cardiff (engineering).  There is also a gliding scholarship in High Wycombe available.

British Airways work experience programme

Each placement lasts for five days and will require a week off school.  Historically each of the three annual intakes has taken over 200 children.

You can find out more on the British Airways careers website here.  The deadline to apply is Wednesday.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (October 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

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.

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

50,000 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, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

10,000 points bonus – plus an extra 500 points for our readers 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

Up to 80,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

Get up to 40,000 points as a sign-up offer 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 (166)

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

  • Chrisasaurus says:

    Bitty bit:

    This is AA specifically but I’m interested in general so BA also relevant:

    Assuming all else is equal, that I have all the time in the world to make the journey (and by extension can live with a missed connection) and that the aim is elite qualification is it advantageous to book connecting flights rather than non-stop in order to increase the number of segments, and is the mileage calculated as the distance flown, or the distance between origin and destination?

    • Rob says:

      It COULD be, with BA, but not always. Due to the oneworld position of 140 BA TP for 2000+ miles and 40 TP below that, it DOES – for example – make sense to split LON-SFO into LON-NYC-SFO. Within the rules you could other sectors too, perhaps start in Amsterdam and go via London to Boston, down to New York and then across to SFO.

      You could screw up though. Splitting a 2200 mile trip into 2 x 1100 mile legs would get you 80 TP vs 140 TP.

      • Chrisasaurus says:

        Yes good point on the TP front I hadnt considered that- thanks. So at the least, starting in MAN makes sense too for the same reasons…

    • Doug M says:

      The FT thread mentioned is the source for this. Broadly speaking good fares usually allow two hops either side of the Atlantic. Assuming you’re willing to ex-EU you look at somewhere that makes getting to Helsinki easy, Stockholm is often the place. You then do Stockholm to Helsinki to London, and assuming a west coast destination, JFK to LAX, and your final hop being LAX to you destination. This gives you 40+80+140+140+40 each way, so 880TP quite easy from one return if you have time. JFK-LAX is always the best cross country in USA as it’s a better seat and experience than most other choices. There are some wide bodies from Philadelphia and Miami to LAX at certain times, but hard to find. You want to avoid changes in DFW and ORD for example as that results in 2 40TP rather than a 140 and a 40.

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      I’ll check it out – oddly despite extensive googling I didn’t consider that thread as my mindset was extracting value from a work trip rather than working backwards from the TP. It’s likely going to be a case of crediting to AA anyway but I assume that the basic premise remains the same

      • Lyn says:

        Are you thinking about BA or AA elite qualification? They work rather differently, as AA doesn’t use tier points.

        • Chrisasaurus says:

          Both- but yes, understand AA is based on EQMs and looking to maximise those

  • Benylin says:

    OT: For long haul (say 11-12hr flights), how have people who always fly economy found PE on BA/Virgin? I am booking South Africa, but just wondering do I go cash economy (£500-600 LON to CPT 1 stop, Kenyan/Ethiopian airlines possibly), or use my Virgin upgrade voucher to go PE, £400 or so in taxes and points.
    Alternate use of points is to save it for later business class redemptions in KLM or Air France

    • stevenhp1987 says:

      Virgin Atlantic don’t fly to CPT. You’d have to fly to JNB on the redemption ticket then get a separate cash ticket to CPT.

      Given the extra costs involved, I would just get the cash economy ticket. Premium isn’t that much of an upgrade over economy unless you’re really tall!

  • BJ says:

    O/T: According to the M Lewis site the new nectar scheme is launching nationwide very soon. Sounds like Boots Advantage card approach, a lot more hassle and nothing very exciting. No changes to fixed value rewards either it seems..

    • Sloth says:

      I’m using it already. Targeted offers on things I do actually buy, you just have to save them in the app, as you used to do with Waitrose. I think it’s quite good tbh

      • BJ says:

        I think lone of the suggestions though is that this is changing to try to encourage people to buy things they don’t usually do. Probably experience to date is to generate positive feedback or perhaps I’m being to cynical.

  • BJ says:

    Think we’re in if we book and cancel for free within 24h?

  • Sam says:

    OT: Thinking of getting the IHG Premium Mastercard but already have the free one. Am I still eligible for the 20000 bonus?

    Ta

  • The Urbanite says:

    RIP to Pay.Com, who continued to be useful long after the demise of the £25 cards!

  • Lady London says:

    As predicted there are some antics in Germany – the state of Hessen (IMV as a proxy for the central government) has given a bridging loan. Comments so far about jobs in that state (head of Thomas Cook operations) this subsidy by Germany/German state to seems definitely against EU rules.

    Condor is so big in Germany I can’t see anyone other than Lufthansa, or friends of Lufthansa, will end up taking their pick of what Thomas Cook has – for defensive reasons to keep others out of the German market, if nothing else.

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

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