BA Holidays doubles down – now with free lounge access and Fast Track plus double tier points

There was a lot of interest amongst Head for Points readers on Wednesday about the new BA Holidays offer of double Executive Club tier points.

You can read the full article here and find the details on ba.com here, but to summarise you will earn double tier points on BA Holidays bookings completed by 30th September. You could earn Executive Club Silver status with just one trip to Europe if you book it correctly.

The only snags are:

• at least two people must travel
• you must stay at least five nights
• you must book a hotel or car hire for every night of your stay

If you can work around these restrictions, it is well worth a look if you are seeking British Airways elite status.

BA Holidays has now doubled down

A new element has now been added to the offer.

If you spend £1,500 per person or more, and are travelling for 5+ nights from Heathrow, you will receive priority check-in, Fast Track security, priority boarding (from 21st June) and access to the Galleries Club lounges at Heathrow.

If you are already booked into Business Class, either Club Europe or Club World, BA has thought about you too. As long as you spend £2,500 per person or more, you will be upgraded to the Galleries First lounge and can use The First Wing to check in.

Existing bookings qualify so don’t rush out and claim free cancellation on your existing booking in order to rebook. It isn’t necessary.

Your outbound flight must be on or before 30th September.

Conclusion

Taken together, the offers of double tier points, lounge access, fast track security and priority boarding do make BA Holidays an attractive proposition this Summer.

If I had to criticise anything about this new offer, it is the £2,500 minimum spend required to get into Galleries First and use The First Wing. We’re not talking about Luthansa’s First Class Terminal here – it isn’t such an improvement over the standard Galleries Club lounge that you need to impose a £2,500 threshold.

In any event, at certain times of day BA is sending everyone to Galleries First anyway, since the passenger numbers don’t justify opening two lounges.

You can find out more on BA Holidays here. The dedicated home page for the ‘double tier points’ offer, which includes all the small print you need to study, is here.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (June 2023)

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 13th June, the sign-up bonus on The Platinum Card is doubled to 60,000 Membership Rewards points – and you get £200 to spend at Amex Travel too! Apply here.

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.

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.

EDIT: Applications for this card are temporarily suspended due to IT issues with the British Airways On Business SME loyalty scheme.

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.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.