Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

What are the British Airways weekend flights from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester and Stansted?

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Although British Airways has pulled out of non-domestic flights from regional airports in the UK, you can still find a select number of holiday routes operated by British Airways subsidiary CityFlyer.

During the week, CityFlyer flies from London City airport to key business destinations in Europe. At weekends, however, it offers a range of leisure destinations to maximise the use of its aircraft.

As a reminder, CityFlyer has a fleet of Embraer aircraft with 2-2 seating in Club Europe and Euro Traveller. Unlike the mainline British Airways fleet, you get a free drink and snack service regardless of what class (or ticket!) you book.

BA E190

Some of these leisure routes are operated from non-London airports. As a subsidiary of British Airways, you can earn and burn Avios and tier points on CityFlyer flights just as you would on any other BA flight.

Below is the full list of CityFlyer leisure routes operated this summer from UK regional airports (and Stansted!)

Some days only see flights departing or arriving and are marked with an asterisk (*).

Some of these routes earn 160 British Airways Executive Club tier points if you fly Club Europe and are therefore worth a look if you are chasing British Airways status.

It is important to note that Palma and Malaga flights on some routes earn 160 tier points in Club Europe even though identical flights from London only earn 80 tier points.  You can verify this via the British Airways tier point calculator here.

If you want to know about other Avios redemption ideas, this HFP article looks at Avios flights from UK regional airports.

From Edinburgh:

Florence: Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Palma: Saturday (160 tier points)

From Glasgow:

Palma: Saturday (160 tier points)

From Manchester:

Alicante: Saturday
Florence: Saturday
Ibiza: Saturday*, Sunday*
Malaga: Saturday, Sunday* (160 tier points)
Mykonos: Saturday (160 tier points)
Nice: Saturday, Sunday
Palma: Saturday, Sunday*

From Stansted:

Faro: Saturday
Florence: Saturday, Sunday
Ibiza: Saturday*, Sunday*
Malaga: Saturday
Mykonos: Saturday*, Sunday*
Palma: Saturday

You can book on the BA website.  The start and end dates for the season vary by route.


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 (52)

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

  • Alex says:

    Isn’t Mykonos a 160TP route?

  • James says:

    What are the weekend destinations from LCY?

  • phatbear says:

    totally off-topic, oh how I wish we had a forum!

    Any ideas how I can go about cancelling two flights which were booked through Avios and using a Lloyds upgrade voucher.

    Been on hold to Avios for 2hours plus for the past 3 days and had no joy getting through to them out of desperation phone BA exec club who claimed they couldn’t help and said they would put me through to Avios and guess what im now 90mins into waiting for someone to answer the phone!

    • Anna says:

      People have recommended calling first thing in the morning. Be aware that if you cancel the flight (as opposed to change), you forfeit the Lloyd’s voucher.

      • Phatbear says:

        Yes i know about the voucher but due to my health issues and lots of the reasons we were going to japan for being cancelled i dont have much choice

        • Matthew says:

          Yes call at 0830 and waiting times are much lower. I even got through without waiting once!

  • james says:

    Tried PMI from EDI Saturday 21 March, it says no direct flights??

    • Anna says:

      Too early, they don’t start till around May.

      • Sandra B says:

        Was the first Saturday in June unless it’s been extended till last in September. I would quite like the end of May in 2021 but think I’m out of luck.

    • Rhys says:

      That’s because it’s not the summer yet!

  • IslandDweller says:

    @ChrisC comment at 1014
    To be pedantic beyond pedantic, the LCY curfew is 24 hours, 1230 Sat to same time on Sunday. They won’t allow any flight to be scheduled after 1230 on Saturday. However, and here is the wiggle room, if a flight that is scheduled within permitted hours on Saturday is operating late, they can operate with half an hour discretion. So flights do occasionally operate between 1230 and 1300, but they’re not supposed to make a habit of it.

    • ChrisC says:

      I posted the hours that are listed on the LCY airport but that says as you do there is that 30 min wriggle room

      Still the local area gets at least 23 1/2 hours respite.

  • Jimmy Mac says:

    I’ve booked a couple of MAN-AGP and a MAN-JMK over the summer period safe in the knowledge that i can cancel them up to 24 hours before and just lost the quid.

    I’ve a feeling Mykonos is not a place for a bargain hunter! Any islands easy enough to get to from there?

    • Anna says:

      I was looking at island hopping from there, if you do an internet search for ferries fromMykonos there are some decent articles re the various options.

    • Colin says:

      Mykonos has pretty good ferry connections for the other Cyclades (as well as up to Athens) – e.g. connections to Naxos, Paros, or down to Santorini and Ios, or nearer to Mykonos you have easy acesss to Syros, Tinos and Andros. We routinely fly in here with easyJet flights from Manchester (booked the moment they come out) and only ever stay one night each end in Mykonos.

    • Keith says:

      Naxos

  • Tim says:

    Is the free F&B in economy official yet? The last I heard was that M&S BoB was coming to Cityflyer “soon” but it never arrives. Given the slight difference between business and economy on the Embraer 190s, it is simply not worth paying the extra, either cash or points, for business. It would be good to know in advance though.

    I also wish that BA would broaden its horizons beyond these 1970’s destinations. I have done Malaga and Palma from Manchester in recent years as ‘nostalgia trips’ but really, there is only so much I can stand. Kalamata, Antalya, Almeria or even Chania would be welcome.

    • Anna says:

      We flew to Nice the year before last and there was free F & B in economy both ways.
      I assume BA have picked the routes according to demand and flight duration – planes are making multiple trips each day over these weekends and more routes might longer than 3 hours not be possible.

    • Philip says:

      In order to operate BoB on the CityFlyer flights, they would need to add a third member to the current Cabin Crew. The BA bean counters have run the numbers, and have found it’s cheaper to give Free F&B to all pax; sometimes this can take the form of a decent, tasty meal, but other times just a packet of posh popcorn.

  • Chris says:

    Does anyone know if any of the 160 routes are possible for a back to back tier point run?

    • Rob says:

      The BA board on Flyertalk has a thread listing out back to backs. Easier at small airports where passengers arriving are not segregated.

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

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