Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

British Airways expands the VeriFLY covid app to ALL inbound flights

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Last month we wrote about British Airways and its trial of mobile “health passport” app VeriFLY on flights to the US.

You can download the VeriFLY app here on the Apple app store or here in the Google Play store.

British Airways VeriFLY digital health passport

The app lets you upload your required negative covid test result before you travel, letting you skip an in-person check-in if you have no checked baggage and head straight to security.

VeriFLY is now expanding to ALL international BA flights

From Monday, ALL British Airways passengers flying to the UK will be able to use VeriFLY. Passengers can check that they meet the entry requirements of their destination by providing digital health document verification and confirming their eligibility. The app remains optional but will speed up check-in times. 

BA continues to work with IATA on the development of the competing IATA Travel Pass app. Irrespective of how well VeriFLY – which is a privately developed ‘for profit’ project – works, the airline industry may choose to unify around the IATA app to allow the seamless transfer of data.


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 (41)

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

  • lumma says:

    It’s starting to look like I’ve joined the ever growing list of people who aren’t getting AMEX offers. Nothing new for a few months now.

    • Anon says:

      There was a new £200 spend and get 1,000 bonus MR point offer. Did you get that?

    • E says:

      I’ve spoken to Amex twice about this and still not got it resolved. The (UK) agents seem perplexed about why this has happened. I haven’t raised a complaint yet as wanted to see if I could get it resolved in a ‘friendlier’ way first.

      • lumma says:

        It’s happened to me once before. No offers for months. I raised a complaint and they just said not everyone is guaranteed to get offers. However shortly afterwards they started appearing again

        • Alex Sm says:

          Same here – I guess they just fluctuate naturally. A couple of months ago I had 20-25 offers available and now it is 3-4 slightly odd ones

    • Chan says:

      Same.

    • the_real_a says:

      Has there been spend on the card? A person familiar with placing offers with Amex told me they get to choose from a vast criteria – one of which is “used the card in the past x days”

      • Charlieface says:

        Yeah, but that logic shouldn’t block ALL offers, as some offers are open to all. To wit, these people didn’t even get Shop Small.

      • lumma says:

        I’ve got two cards I use regularly, one hardly ever (usually just Shop Small or any random good offers)

  • Rich says:

    Presumably you could also buy e-Vouchers from LNER? I had a quick look on the website, and the purchase page didn’t mention how long they last. I vaguely recall it being a year?

    • Jonathan says:

      The LNER offer has been available almost continuously for the past 12-18 months so I wouldn’t be buying vouchers in the current climate for only a 5% rebate.

    • Andrew says:

      I certainly wouldn’t be bothering to do that for 5%. This offer is on and off all the time, on Amex and others – on Natwest Rewards now too.

    • Rich says:

      Yes, good points both.

      Not worth a speculative purchase (especially since I haven’t been on a train since New Year’s Day 2020!).

    • John says:

      There aren’t any cheap fares out anyway so most tickets you book now are likely to be the same price on the day (ignoring the annual fares increase postponed to 1 March this year), and timetables have been cut by 60% until the government feels like encouraging leisure travel by public transport again

  • John says:

    I don’t understand why anyone would fly from Stansted much less pay this fee unless they live in Bishops Stortford

    • Gavin says:

      Cheap and/or convenient flights perhaps? I’ve flown from there a couple of times despite living much closer to Heathrow and Gatwick.

    • John says:

      Sometimes it’s the only option for direct flights to your destination. Although admittedly our last trip from there was in 2018, Ryanair to Biarritz. Flying with a toddler, direct flight trumps most other considerations.

      Stansted Express was ok to be fair, and convenient to connect at Tottenham
      Hale for us. My experiences of Gatwick have generally been more shambolic, actually!

    • abc says:

      It’s the closest large airport for almost all of the East of England, it’s quite a pain to travel from Heathrow from somewhere there.

    • Chris says:

      Ryanair fly to Trieste from Stansted. No other airline does direct flights. The best is probably Heathrow, Munich, Trieste with Lufthansa, and it is often expensive.

    • Tarmohamed says:

      Bishops Stortford all you see is ryan air crew walking around town at 2am. I live in between LHR and STN. If traveling with EK I prefer STN as the queues on the way back for immigration are shorter than LHR

  • Matthew says:

    It’s been £7 since November Rob. I mentioned it in the article back then and yesterday! It’s worth noting that there are free drop off options though like mid stay car park and bus. Which is actually pretty easy and no bother to avoid the charge. Mid stay is only about 1min from the terminal.

  • John says:

    Question for ya all regarding VeriFLY: Does Iberia offer something along those lines?

  • Phil G says:

    Waiting for airports to introduce a step off the train fee next

    • Doug M says:

      Aren’t they already there? I’m sure Arlanda Stockholm has a fee of around £5 for train access. It has some seriously expensive express trains. From memory £30 ish one way to city centre. Also from memory San Fran car hire has a service fee for riding the airport train to the car hire centre. No matter how inventive you are at a fee for something, someone will already be there.

      • BA-Flyer says:

        Sydney have charged a station access fee for years, on top of the train fare. Currently, it is $14.87 (£8.33) for a single journey. You also have to pay to use a luggage trolley at Sydney airport.

      • Paul says:

        Edinburgh tram fares to and from the airport carry a large surcharge also.

    • NFH says:

      Madrid airport has a surcharge on the metro fare of around €5 for travelling the additional stop to the airport. The same doesn’t apply to mainline trains though. It’s the opposite of Heathrow.

      • Tony says:

        Same as Toulouse for the Tram. However the pickup / drop off is free for 30 mins – or longer if you wait outside like everyone else does …

      • Doug M says:

        Of course it does, I’d forgotten about the Madrid one. Now I think, it’s actually quite common. JFK has I think a $5 fee accessing the subway/LIRR from the airtrain airport shuttle. The OrlyVal from Antony to Orly is effectively the same thing.

    • Andrew says:

      Edinburgh practically do that with the tram.

      Extra £4.70 to go a few hundred metres.

      • Alex Sm says:

        Can you just walk them? Get off at the penultimate stop and walk? Or not possible?

        • abc says:

          It’s actually a bit further, I think should be about a mile walk, but yes, it’s possible.

        • Nick says:

          You can in Edinburgh, not in some of the others though. In Stockholm everyone gets a different train and local bus connection free – the authorities regretted signing a long PFI deal (that the fee goes to) but can’t get out of it now. Madrid is too far from the previous stop (but as mentioned, the Cercanias avoids it).

  • NFH says:

    Looking at Google Street View, there are plenty of drop-off (and non-waiting pick-up points) around the Radisson hotel, which are very close to the terminal building. Without going into the Radisson car park (which incurs invoices in the post that cannot be enforced if you don’t actually park), there are plenty of places on the roads outside the Radisson with double-yellow lines (dropping-off permitted) rather than double-red lines (no stopping).

  • ChrisC says:

    Email today from Eurostar.

    Vouchers can now be redeemed by 30th December 21

    That’s the use the voucher by date not the travel by date which (depending on destination) could be up to 30th June 2022

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

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