Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

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.

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 (38)

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

  • BJ says:

    Trying my luck at the moment, 10 minutes or so to kick out time.

  • Luca says:

    I have both the BA app and the BA rewards app, and in the last 20 days the app has not been updating most of my Avios Shop spending that instead happily show on my BA Rewards app, did anyone have the same issue (total balance match mind you) ?

    • BJ says:

      Not that but I noticed tonight my cancelled flights are no longer showing as cancelled.

  • andrea says:

    hi
    I want to book a ticket from Buenos Aires to Miami, with my avios, in AA .*( as it is one world british airways ) how can i do it ?

    • neuromancer says:

      Just go to “book with avios”, type in BUE to MIA and date and choose what is available… AA flights (as all one world flights) show up in the booking engine. But you have to do it after Wednesday when BAEC is up again.

  • Asim says:

    Called yesterday to rebook a cancelled cash booking. They said they can’t rebook until 17th, unless the flights within 72hrs!

  • Anna says:

    How can you check in online or make changes to cash bookings if you can’t log in to BAEC?

  • numpty says:

    Sounds like the (long term) plan will be to merge avios accounts into one IAG Loyalty account? i.e. that Iberia account with -90k avios, merged with BA account?
    btw you can still log in to IB+

  • Stu says:

    Anyone who works in IT will be killing themselves laughing at a scheduled outage of nearly 4 days! For any modern business it’s just unthinkable being offline for that long.

    Speaks volumes as to the God awful mess their backend systems and processes must be in.

    Fingers crossed they come out of this the other side with a platform fit for the 21st century.

  • Ian M says:

    Just tried to login on the off chance it was back up and running again now. Nope. I like BA’s lack of confidence “Everything should be back up and running for Wednesday 17 November.”

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

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