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British Airways adds extra March and April flights to Cape Town, Miami and Seattle

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British Airways has launched some additional long-haul flights for April and May.

This should provide additional Avios availability if you jump in quickly.  Miami for Easter may now be possible if you’re keen.

I am guessing that these flights use the aircraft which are no longer flying to China and Hong Kong due to coronavirus.  The Miami flight, for example, lands at 04.50 whilst the cancelled Hong Kong flight landed at 04.45.

The new services are:

Cape Town – three extra flights per week from 30th March to 19th April

Seattle – an extra DAILY service from 1st May to 31st May

Miami – an extra DAILY flight from 1st April to 31st May

Miami Unsplash

Note that the extra Cape Town and Miami flights are from Terminal 5 and NOT Terminal 3, which is bound to cause some confusion.

You can look for availability at ba.com.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

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:

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 £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

40,000 bonus 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

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 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.

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 sign-up 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.

Comments (49)

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

  • LetBAgonesbe says:

    Interestingly I can not book Flight + Hotel to Shanghai on BA.com.
    Was this always the case?

  • Jonny Price says:

    Extra Cape Town and Miami flights are Terminal 5 not Terminal 3 – sure to cause some confusion

  • Chris says:

    Is HfP making an annoucement like this sufficient for BA.com to fall over? I didn’t notice this at first but the site has been unusable for last 30 minutes or so

    • Lady London says:

      A sign that BA is loading more/better stuff.

      They must have a lot to load or they wouldn’t be doing it at this time of the day/week.

      Or could it be another IT fail.

  • Stuart Evans says:

    Interesting to see some of these diverted aircraft are scheduled until 31 May. This is longer than currently announced cancellations to Asia, isn’t it?

    • Lumma says:

      It probably will still take a little while to get the bookings up to where they were, even if the travel advice is changed before then

  • Darren says:

    I have a flight out in first to Miami in April from T3. If I have a choice to rebook via T5 I would get to use the Concorde room vs previously (probably) using the Cathay lounge in T3. Anyone have a preference of one over the other? Have used concorde once and liked it, have never flied from T3.

    • Sunil says:

      I would say Concorde room is better. Cathay First T3 is good, but not as exclusive and food offerings have been on the decline. Concorde Room has premium drinks and in my experience, food has been better. T5 also better as can use the First Checkin / Security etc.

      • DB2020 says:

        For a contrarian view, I would say Cathay Pacific 1st lounge is better and the noodle bar in the Business lounge is also worth a visit.

        The Concorde Room is drab, service varies all the time . The a la carte dining has improved a lot as has the service in the restaurant, but the menu used in the seating area is boring BA stuff. I try to avoid the Concorde Room unless the Galleries First is packed or if I want to dine in the restaurant.

        Give me the Cathay Pacific first class lounge any day.

      • Ricatti says:

        Cathay First section of T3 lounge declined considerably — no “expensive” foods, no de Rothschild champagne. The decline has been clear.

    • Jill (Kinkell) says:

      Like other posters, I prefer Cathay Lounges. Concorde Room. Is getting shabby, uncomfortable seating and lack of charging points. I had to ask for the debris to be mopped up and cleared. Not exactly prompt anticipatory service. But, no doubt, I’ll try it again next time I bag an F seat from T5

    • Darren says:

      Thanks for the replies! The majority for Cathay it appears. I’ll look forward to giving it a go!

  • Shoestring says:

    15% off codes – REUNION1 to make a booking in World Traveller and World Traveller Plus. If you’d like to treat yourself to Club Word, you can use the code REUNION2. [code 2 not confirmed]

    ends Feb 29th

    • Cal says:

      Any additional context to this?

      • Shoestring says:

        the code featured on an online forum for Koreans living in the UK

        • Genghis says:

          That’s pretty specialist, even for you @Harry 🙂

          • Shoestring says:

            heh heh! I’m not claiming credit for finding it but saw that it was working yesterday so thought somebody might be able to use it

          • Gavin says:

            I posted this a while ago. Works till end of Feb

          • Shoestring says:

            yep it was Gavin – good job I didn’t make out I found it 🙂 (gave you credit yesterday, Gavin)

    • Richmond_Surrey says:

      Thanks, worked no problem. LHR to SEA in May is £353 for cheapest economy, after discount 299 and Premium Eco is £689 and goes down to £585 with the code. That pretty good price from Heathrow.

      Now need to book avios tickets on Alaska 🙂

    • LewisB says:

      Looks like travel needs to be completed in 2020. Can’t book January 2021.

  • Richmond says:

    Thanks for the tip, cash prices to Seatlle went down thanks to extra flight.

  • yorkieflyer says:

    Quick avios related data point after the worries the other day. Transferred from aerclub account to BA household account no problem just now

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

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