Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

British Airways will no longer refund your China or Hong Kong flights due to coronavirus

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

British Airways has made some surprising changes to its coronavirus policies.

Perhaps unfairly, I can’t help thinking that the airline is trying to avoid paying out refunds where it can help it.  (Lufthansa, apparently, is taking the same approach.)

As well as blocking refunds for passengers to Hong Kong and China on flights which are still operating, it is still holding out from refunding Seoul passengers.  Italian flights cannot be cancelled either.

Shanghai Unsplash

Here are the changes which came in on Tuesday afternoon:

Hong Kong flights

Until today, this was the policy: if you were booked to fly to Hong Kong before 1st June, British Airways would refund your flight or rebook you on a later flight, up to 1st August, at your request.

Here is the new policy:

If you are booked before 1st June on the remaining daily Hong Kong flight, you can no longer have a refund.

Your options are:

rebook on a later flight, up to 1st August, or

use the value of your ticket to buy a new British Airways flight to ANY destination at the current price (there is no guidance on what the date range is)

This is, of course, hugely unfair.  It was pretty much pot-luck whether you would have been booked on the cancelled flight or the one which remains.  One group is entitled to a refund, the other is not.

Shanghai and Beijing flights

At present, Shanghai and Beijing flights are cancelled.  However, a limited service will resume from 19th April.

Until today, this was the policy: if you were booked to fly to Shanghai or Beijing before 1st June, British Airways would refund your flight or rebook you on a later flight, up to 1st August, at your request.  You could also accept a diversion to Hong Kong.

Here is the new policy:

If you are booked on one of the few Shanghai and Beijing flights scheduled to operate between 19th April and 1st June, you can no longer have a refund.

Your options are:

rebook on a later flight, up to 1st August, or

accept a diversion to Hong Kong, or

use the value of your ticket to buy a new British Airways flight to ANY destination at the current price (there is no guidance on what the date range is)

Again, this seems unfair.  It is pot luck as to whether, from 19th April, your Shanghai or Beijing flight is one of the few that will operate.

Italy

British Airways has issued some – fairly half-hearted – guidelines for travellers to Italy.

This applies to anyone booked to Milan, Turin, Bologna, Venice, Bergamo and Verona.

If you are booked for travel to any of the above destinations before 2nd March, you can change your ticket for free to another date before 31st March.

Alternatively, you can switch to a Zurich or Geneva flight.  BA will not pay for any additional costs to get you into Italy, however.

No ticket refunds will be allowed.

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.

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 70,000 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 (July 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 Card

30,000 Avios and the famous annual Companion Voucher voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express Credit Card

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 Credit Card

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 points worth 0.8 Avios per £1 on the FREE standard card and 1 Avios per £1 on the Pro card. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 0.8 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 Card

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.

The American Express Business Platinum Card

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

The American Express Business Gold Card

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 (49)

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

  • Ben says:
    26 Feb26 February 08:53

    O/T but this reminds me of travelling during the Swine flu outbreak in 2009. Flying from Auckland to Sydney, I had a cold but nothing more (No fever etc.). Repeated announcements from the pilot that anyone with any cold symptoms should make themselves known to the cabin crew. In the naivety of youth (I was 18), I informed the air hostess about my light cold, expecting nothing more to come of it. Apparently I was the only person on the plane to do so. Queue the pilot announcing that they have a suspected Swine Flu case onboard, and that when we land, everyone must stay in their seats. Once we land, everyone stays in their seats panicking, whilst a nurse marches towards my seat with a mask, and parades me out of the plane in front of everyone. Fortunately, after a 1 minute meeting with a doctor, I was not placed into quarantine, but was one of the more embarrassing moments of my life.

  • Tom says:
    26 Feb26 February 09:35

    Share a similar experience to Phillip and agree with much of the positive BA-sentiment in the comments.

    BA have been excellent with our flight to Milan this weekend (to start a week’s holiday), and allowed us to book onto a more expensive Munich flight (+£58.66pp at time of booking, much more now), free of charge. It was all handled nicely by the call center, and I am extremely impressed.

    All very well bashing BA, but you should point to airlines offering any better a service. They are a business not a charity after all, and operate in a market filled with liabilities and professional obligations.

    The real fault here is national governments imposing ridiculous health rules without updating the travel advisory to allow people to make insurance claims. Governments shouldn’t be rolling out a policy that has “lose your holiday or lose your job” connotations.

    Our FCO is one of the worst with this ridiculous “stay at home for two weeks if you feel slightly unwell” policy. Only pipped by the Baltic Countries that again aren’t changing travel advisory (due to political / schengen issues), though instead (about to) insist any children who visit Italy (…anywhere in Italy) stay home from school for two weeks.

    • Lady London says:
      26 Feb26 February 10:16

      Not really sure why airlines should bear the cost of this?

      Prepare for cost hikes across the travel industry and possible worse fees for using your miles on the next year when travel providers will seek to claw back losses now.

      • Tom says:
        26 Feb26 February 12:40

        I’m with you. At the very least I was prepared to cover the price difference between LIN and MUC flights, but BA insisted the change would be free of charge.

      • Paul Pogba says:
        26 Feb26 February 20:43

        If the redemption fees go much higher they’ll be close to cash fares.

  • dve says:
    26 Feb26 February 11:14

    I cant see the italy part of your article??
    thanks

  • John says:
    26 Feb26 February 19:40

    Scaremongering I feel…our company has put a mandatory 2-weeks quarantine to people who are going to Italy.
    I’m due to a weekend in Sardinia, where there’s no reported cases and where there’s no restrictions from FCO (the institution not the airport). This means that either I go and spend two weeks home, or cancel and lose half a grand.

    • sloth says:
      26 Feb26 February 21:54

      out of interest is that 2 weeks at home fully paid or out of your holiday entitlement?

      • Fred says:
        27 Feb27 February 00:55

        Indeed, a crucial factor!

        If a fully paid two weeks at home is being offered, then all employees should be off to Italy! But if it’s not being paid (I’d like to see how they could contractually achieve this), why would you even tell your employer where you’re going on holiday? There is no obligation for you to do so.

        • Gregg says:
          28 Feb28 February 09:07

          I assume it might be “work from home”, lots of companies have put that in place already

  • Adrian says:
    27 Feb27 February 00:19

    Why is south Korea not added in to the top 2 country’s for infection? Also the flights out to Korea or out from Korea will bring way worse as it’s blown out in such short time.

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 50,000 bonus points (worth 50,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Special offer: Get 30,000 bonus Hilton Honors points until 14th August 2025

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? Get the only free credit card with points which convert to Avios

Get points worth 20,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!