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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 (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.

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.

Comments (166)

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

  • Russ says:

    OT, BA have cancelled and rebooked us on a next available flight. The time’s not suitable so prefer to cancel but BA’s website asking for £50 to do so. I thought I could just cancel and get a full refund if they’d cancelled a flight regardless if they had booked us elsewhere?

    • Shoestring says:

      if it’s 2hrs’ difference in timing, yes free

      • Russ says:

        Thank you Shoestring.

      • pauldb says:

        If it’s a schedule change they can apply their 2hr criteria. But if it’s a cancellation you have straightforward EU261 right to a refund with no strings attached.

    • Lady London says:

      It’s your choice whether to take a refund or a reroute – not British Airways’s. You may have perfectly sound reasons why any particular other flight BA’s systems might have automatically booked you onto, is not going to work for you / make the trip no longer worth doing etc.

      Call them and tell them what you want. If it’s a refund, stick to your guns. There’s no way BA is allowed to charge you £50 to cancel a flight you didn’t book if they cancelled the flight you did book. No way at all. Just tell them you don’t accept a rereoute and you wish to exercise your right to cancel under EU261 and you want a full refund immediately (it takes 7 days – chase them if you don’t get it in that time). You don;t have to give them any reason if all you want is a refund – they cancelled your flight. If you want to dicker about which flight you might accept as an alternative, then you’d better have a good reason if what they are offering you is reasonably close to the original flight and gets you there close enough to the original landing time (there are specifics for these timelines in the EU261 regulation actual text, which is highly readable).

      IMV BA are being cheeky b****rs trying for £50 so HUACA and tell them you’re not having it and you want a refund as above.

      Shoestring can tell me if I’m wrong.

      • Russ says:

        Thanks everyone. Oddly enough the refund line was busy and just cut off. Emailed them with a 7 day deadline.

        • Lady London says:

          Suggest you call them as well. The times people have posted about their emails to British Airways having been completely ignored…

    • Lady London says:

      PS if they’ve told you thé flight is cancelled les than 2 weeks then you can also claim compo.

  • Spaghetti Town says:

    The BA Airbnb offer – where you get 3 avios/£ spent. Does anyone know if this includes the experiences as well as stays? Nothing really in the T+C’s about it.

  • LewisB says:

    OT: I cancelled a BA booking on August 24th and I’ve still yet to receive my taxes and surcharges back. I’ve managed to get through twice and I’m consistently told “we’ll escalate it”. I’ve officially filled a complaint on the BA website. I nag on social media. Any other ideas to get this through? I have no idea why it’s taking so long. It’s pretty much a month!

    • Lady London says:

      If they were supposed to pay you back within a certain time such as i believe payments on EU261 claims are meant to be paid to you within 7 or 14 days under thé rules, you are entitled to demand interest at the rate of 8% per annum.

  • Lee says:

    OT – anyone had problem using Curve today? Card declined and can’t log in app

    • Gringo says:

      Yes – their system is down. Great product to encourage you to leave all your other cards at home…

    • tartan says:

      Yes – just recieved a notification in the app telling me that they are having intermittent issues processing transactions

    • Rooster says:

      spent a few thousand no probs, then stopped working for small amounts (within limits)

  • Rui N. says:

    OT: comments/advice on the Amex strategy for the Mrs.? (I’m currently on the 2 year sabbatical with them; cancelled all my cards earlier in the summer to reset the clock)
    She has the Amex Gold since early January. The plan is in December to self-referal to the Nectar card (don’t want to reset the clock on BA cards) and after we get the 10k points after the new card year (on track to get the £15k spending done by then; if not we’ll buy a few gift cards to get there) close the gold card. Then come late March (when new council tax bill is due) self-referal back to the Gold to start a new year without paying the annual fee.
    (I realise that self refs might not give the points, but we’ll try nonetheless and if they work great)
    Anything wrong with the plan?

    • Shoestring says:

      nothing to stop you applying for cards and getting referral bonus – but no sign-up bonus on the Nectar.

      some people are getting referred for Green card (ie no sign-up bonus but get referral points) – with the plan of upgrading that to Plat for 20,000 points bonus, spend £4000 (on Plat) in first 3 months though

      • Rui N. says:

        Thanks. 🙂 I know she won’t get any bonus – that is why I’m on sabbatical for the 2 years, I’ll get the bonus when I can. Just wanted to see if people had any specific comments on my idea to “keep” the gold card by getting the nectar for a couple of months and then geting a new Gold, thus avoiding paying the annual fee (and without losing the history with Amex as well – which probably is worth around zero).

      • Jason says:

        Does the green to plat work even if you have had plat in the last 24 months

    • Lady London says:

      *sabbatical* 🙂 , love it.

  • Ant says:

    OT: one for Shoestring re Glassesdirect. When i use the referral link i then get a code RAFE…
    If I use that code it will only take the two glasses down to £22.95 & i assume i get the amazon voucher.
    If i use the MSE code it comes to £16 but I assume this then won’t trigger the £15 amazon voucher.
    Am i missing something?

    • Shoestring says:

      just use the MSE code to pay @£16 and you get the £15 Amazon code immediately

      • Trickydic says:

        Hi, could you post the referral link please? I must have missed it.
        Thanks

        • Shoestring says:

          it’s your own referral link! (top of the page once you buy) – you first buy 2 x £49 pairs for £16 delivered on Glasses Direct using MSE16SEPT. Subsequently, you can refer friends (who can use the same deal) and you get a £15 Amazon voucher instantly when they/ you buy the next 2 pairs. £16 – £15 = £1. So 4 pairs for £17, 6 pairs for £18 etc

  • Shoestring says:

    American Express to launch ‘Pay with bank transfer’ service for online shopping in UK
    AMERICAN Express plans to challenge rivals such as PayPal by launching a new service enabling UK consumers to pay for goods online directly from their bank account.
    The New-York based payments giant is partnering with a number of online retailers to launch its “Pay with bank transfer” service via their UK e-commerce sites later this year. Partners include online fundraising platform JustGiving, furniture retailer Oak Furnitureland and Thai Airways.
    The services are expected to launch before the end of the year and will roll out across a host of other retail sites next year.

  • n_g says:

    Tried to change my payment details for now.tv to take advantage of the 50% off offer and they don’t take AMEX. How are people paying for their passes? Is their an other area of the site where you buy passes that does accept the card?

    • Shoestring says:

      for some reason you can’t use Amex for payment on the 50% 6 month entertainment pass deal

      all the other offers should take Amex

      • n_g says:

        Bizarre that there’s a standard e-commerce portal where you can buy your passes and all except the 6 month pass can be purchased with AMEX but there is also a section for managing your continuous Phone and Broadband subscriptions that doesn’t take AMEX either.

        I wonder if the option will appear all of a sudden in November and they’ve just temporarily taken the ability to do so down to prevent people like me changing payment card for a single month.

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