Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

British Airways trialling ‘personalised boarding times’ at Heathrow Terminal 5

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

British Airways is trialling a new ‘personalised boarding system’ at Terminal 5 on selected routes.

If you are travelling to Bridgetown, Dallas Fort Worth or Mumbai before 28th November you will be invited to take part.

How does personalised boarding work?

The idea is that you will be given an exact time, to the minute, when you can board the aircraft. There is no need to turn up at the boarding gate before your allocated time.

The main beneficiaries here will, of course, be passengers with lounge access who can remain in the lounge until 2-3 minutes before their allocated slot (unless it’s a B or C gate ….).

You will receive a text message from British Airways when online check-in opens for your flight, encouraging you to register for the trial. You will also be able to register at the check-in desk by scanning a QR code.

At the appointed boarding time, the green tick appears in your device. Any delays to boarding times are notified by SMS message.

Will this trial work?

Let’s just say that you can see the flaws.

It won’t work well for anyone on a B or C gate unless they are aware of how long it takes to reach the satellite terminal.

Anyone with lounge access already has, in theory, ‘board when you want’. You would be in Group 1 in most cases and, if you turn up when Group 1 had already been called, you can walk straight to the front via the (by then) empty priority boarding line.

More importantly, for passengers without lounge access, the only quiet place to sit in Terminal 5 is down by their gate. As more and more shops have been created, the seating areas in Terminal 5 have shunk – or been turned into dedicated seating for those buying something from Pret etc. If this plan is to keep people from congregating in the gate areas, the solution lies elsewhere.

That said, there is clearly some benefit here if it works well. The bottom line is that you need to be happy that BA will keep you informed about boarding delays and that it will send out notifications at the right time. Once the confidence is there, people will start to use and trust the system more.

If the trial goes well, British Airways will extend it to more routes later in 2021.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 70,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (July 2025)

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

Get 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 Card

30,000 Avios and the famous annual Companion Voucher voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express Credit Card

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 Credit Card

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

50,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn points worth 0.8 Avios per £1 on the FREE standard card and 1 Avios per £1 on the Pro card. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 0.8 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business Card

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.

The American Express Business Platinum Card

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

The American Express Business Gold Card

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 (92)

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

  • Scott says:
    18 Nov18 November 04:20

    For a company that cannot consistently figure out following an orderly system of group 1, group 2 etc., they seem to be trying to make something simple as complicated as possible.

    • Alex Sm says:
      18 Nov18 November 05:10

      I still remember a comment by a member of staff sceptical about the introduction of self check-in / bag drop desks: “You will still need a human next to the machine to mend it”…

      • Track says:
        18 Nov18 November 16:01

        Which they do follow, and sometime you have an annoying human asking you unnecessary questions (nothing to do with docs check), before they let you near machines.

        Why do they need to ascertain simply that you have a flight on the day..

  • MKB says:
    18 Nov18 November 04:50

    On all my recent flights where I have missed Group 1 boarding, there has been no separate priority lane. There has just been a single queue that I joined the back of.

    With this new approach, human instinct in most cases will still be to arrive before your time and crowd the lane entrance. I hope it works, but I fear it won’t. Worth a try though.

    • Huw perry says:
      18 Nov18 November 10:42

      I agree especially when returning to the UK. Group 1 boarding means nothing

  • riku says:
    18 Nov18 November 05:08

    I was amazed the first time I took a domestic flight in Japan. Boarding time for a full 777 was about 15 minutes before departure time which I thought meant the flight was late but I came to learn that they’re just amazingly efficient in Japan with boarding (as with lots of other things). Everyone was onboard and doors shut and we departed on time.

    • Ian says:
      18 Nov18 November 08:03

      Have you seen how they manage to pack people onto the Shinkansen in less than 5 minutes? I like an on-time departure as much as the next person, but not sure its worth a couple of broken ribs.

      • Qrfan says:
        18 Nov18 November 09:27

        It’s not a problem because their hospitals are also very efficient 😉

      • numpty says:
        18 Nov18 November 15:48

        i remember being on a train platform in Tokyo, where they have marking on where to queue up. But this platform had mutliple markings on it, so 2 different queues were being formed as the trains come in and out so close together.

    • John says:
      18 Nov18 November 09:45

      Well, for domestic flights in Japan you only need a BP, but at Heathrow you need to do the biometrics thing which takes longer.

      And with 2 aisles on a 777 there’s less waiting for oblivious people in row 2 to take their coat off etc

      • Andrew says:
        18 Nov18 November 10:18

        I’ve never needed to show ID for a BA domestic from Heathrow.

        Has that changed now?

  • Rich says:
    18 Nov18 November 05:24

    B gate lounge is open and so you can sit in there? It’s only an issue with C gates. That aside, precision boarding has so many potential pitfalls it’ll end up being a ‘nice try but it’s just impractical’ I reckon.

  • Prins Polo says:
    18 Nov18 November 05:36

    OT, but what’s going on with Exec Club? Already 18th and everything is still down – was supposed to be up and running in the morning of the 17th…?

  • Nick says:
    18 Nov18 November 06:10

    IMHO, yet another senseless ‘system’, probably devised by ivory-towered IT department ‘gamers’, who haven’t even taken a real flight in their life!

  • Mouse says:
    18 Nov18 November 06:12

    Good on BA for experimenting with this

  • Paul says:
    18 Nov18 November 06:22

    Some got paid to come up with that?

    So board at a specific time and wait on the jetty for 15 minutes for the crew to finish their checks!!

    • Richie says:
      18 Nov18 November 09:41

      Air Bridges/Jetties aren’t for holding queues of passengers.

      • John says:
        18 Nov18 November 09:46

        Tell BA that

      • Andrew says:
        18 Nov18 November 10:28

        Isn’t that a Heathrow thing? At EDI half the passengers are usually sent outside in the rain to to go in the back door.

        Has anyone done an efficiency review of dual disembarkation? It feels like by having passengers exit by the back door as well, the plane empties in less than half the time.

        • Rhys says:
          18 Nov18 November 10:31

          Funny that – using twice the number of doors results in half the time required!

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 50,000 bonus points (worth 50,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Special offer: Get 30,000 bonus Hilton Honors points until 14th August 2025

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? Get the only free credit card with points which convert to Avios

Get points worth 20,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!