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Reminder: British Airways Executive Club accounts unavailable from 13th to 17th November

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Just a quick reminder, although you should have been emailed by British Airways about this, that access to your Avios account will be blocked from around 3pm on Saturday 13th November to some point on Wednesday 17th November.

This to allow for the migration of all loyalty databases to IAG Loyalty and its new Global Loyalty Platform, which is the first stage in a broader reshaping of how Avios works across the various IAG airlines.

During this period, you will NOT be able to:

  • Access your Executive Club account on ba.com or through any of the British Airways apps
  • Makes changes to any booking paid for with Avios
  • Spend Avios on flights, cabin upgrades, hotels, car hire, baggage and seats
  • Buy food and drink onboard using Avios

You WILL still be able to:

  • Make new flight bookings for cash
  • Check in online
  • Make changes to any cash booking
  • Collect Avios, although there may be a delay in them showing on your account

If you need to book or change an Avios flight you should do so before 3pm on Saturday.

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

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.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (38)

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

  • Will says:
    12 Nov12 November 11:35

    4/5 day outage is hard to fathom for an IT “upgrade”

    • Sunguy says:
      12 Nov12 November 12:07

      Actually….I was recently presented a plan for an upgrade that literally took 24hrs per 24hrs worth of data to backup…..developer was told to go away and think about a better way of doing it….but someone less savvy or with a team who could only produce this because it was outsourced…..(ala BA….)

      • Sunguy says:
        12 Nov12 November 15:34

        By the way – I should say that Im a technical manager and not some paper pusher that doesnt know much 😉 Its also for a trading system that can only be done weekends – and for regulatory purposes, must be backed up!

        For something that is an “added extra” like a loyalty system, as long as nobody loses anything other than time and minor inconvenience, taking it down for a few days shouldnt harm anyone and will keep costs lower – though, I have to say, Im not sure thats the way I would have done it if it could be avoided….. and seeing as we dont really know what exactly they are doing, we cant determine if its reasonable or not….

    • Andrew says:
      12 Nov12 November 12:16

      Not really.

      I’ve gone through this many times when implementing changes to banking or financial servicies systems. Down every Saturday night between 1am and 5am for months on end.

      It’s a loyalty system, it’s not business critical. Nobody is going to be screaming that they can’t access their wages and will have to go a food bank. If they shut it down for 96 hours, they can do the same work that we did in half a year in one single outage.

      • Rui N. says:
        12 Nov12 November 13:50

        Yeah, when my company moved from Skype to Teams, which included the entirety of our phone system (was all Skype-based, now all on Teams), it took a better part of a year, with multiple weekends of systems being down and inaccesible.

  • Paul Pogba says:
    12 Nov12 November 12:25

    Is this new system going to be a victim of Gall’s law?

  • Victairinternational says:
    12 Nov12 November 12:33

    OT tomorrow’s (13/11) MAD A380 sector has switched to an A320, so people ought to get their cancellations sorted quickly if it was just for a trip on the big bird

    • David says:
      13 Nov13 November 02:43

      Nasty ! I’m booked on Wednesdays so I hope I don’t end up a 320 – horrid piece of equipment !!

  • Rob says:
    12 Nov12 November 14:17

    You can still do them – Avios won’t trigger for a while anyway.

    • Tazzy says:
      15 Nov15 November 21:36

      How? I can’t get into my account to access e store?

      • Rob says:
        15 Nov15 November 22:42

        Can’t you? Odd. No logical reason why it would be down as part of the work, except I suppose for verifying your login details ….

  • Gavin says:
    12 Nov12 November 14:53

    Is the Hi-Vis jacket ready to be donned by Sean Doyle should it all go Pete Tong?

  • AndrewM says:
    12 Nov12 November 15:00

    When looking at Jobs at Avios, now get redirected to IAG Loyalty . Will that be the new name of the program after the 17th?

  • Simon says:
    12 Nov12 November 15:10

    Will I be able to pay the balance of a BA holiday ??

  • Andrew says:
    12 Nov12 November 16:06

    What about if you’re due to travel over those dates and need to change/refund an Avios booking?

    • CM66 says:
      16 Nov16 November 14:46

      You spend hours on the phone trying to speak to someone like i did yesterday! I needed to cancel an Avios hotel booking – has to be done yesterday or i’d be charged full cancellation. Ended up getting through on online chat after about 3 hours waiting!

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