British Airways coronavirus flight changes – an update as of Monday 24th February

I thought it was worth an update on the current changes to the British Airways flight schedules due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The good news is that there are now plans to put Beijing and Shanghai back on the schedule during April, although it is would foolish to see these flights as anything more than tentative at this stage.

Here the changes by route:

Shanghai:

All flights cancelled until 17th April

From 18th April to 31st May, British Airways will operate three flights per week on Monday, Thursday and Saturday

From 1st June, the standard 10 flights per week service will resume

If you are booked to fly to Shanghai before 1st June, British Airways will refund your flight or rebook you on a later flight, up to 1st August, at your request.  You may also change to a Hong Kong flight although BA will not pay to get you into China.  Rebooking on selected other airlines is also available.

Beijing:

All flights cancelled until 17th April

From 19th April to 31st May, British Airways will operate four flights per week on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday

From 1st June, the standard daily service will resume

If you are booked to fly to Beijing before 1st June, British Airways will refund your flight or rebook you on a later flight, up to 1st August, at your request.  You may also change to a Hong Kong flight although BA will not pay to get you into China.  Rebooking on selected other airlines is also available.

Hong Kong:

British Airways will continue to operate just one daily flight, instead of two, until 1st June.

If you are booked to fly to Hong Kong before 1st June, British Airways will refund your flight or rebook you on a later flight, up to 1st August, at your request.

Singapore:

Flights continue as usual but the A380 service has been withdrawn on some dates and replaced by a smaller Boeing 777

Seoul:

No changes have been announced yet despite the recent spike in coronavirus cases.  It is possible that the Foreign Office will advise against travel in the next few days in which case BA will have little choice but to suspend services.

And nearer to home ….

Italy:

No changes to services so far despite 11 towns being placed in lockdown over the weekend

Remember that many countries are refusing or restricting entry to anyone who has visited China, Hong Kong and/or Macau in the past 14 days.   Seek additional advice if this applies to you.  The list includes (taken from the BA Travel Trade page linked below):

• Antigua
• Australia
• Bahamas
• Hong Kong
• India
• Israel
• Japan
• Korea
• Kuwait
• Maldives
• Mauritius
• New Zealand
• Philippines
• Qatar
• Seychelles
• Singapore
• South Africa
• Trinidad and Tobago

The aircraft removed from these routes are being used to operate additional flights to Miami, Seattle and Cape Town, as we covered in this Head for Points article.

The special advisories page of ba.com is here and has the latest information.  However, changes are usually published first on the BA Travel Trade pages 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.

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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.

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