TUESDAY UPDATE: The great IAG Loyalty Avios migration ….

UPDATE TUESDAY: It is now possible to log in from the desktop home page. To be fair, quite a bit is now working, but not everything.

I cannot see a transaction list in the iOS app. You cannot move Avios to/from Iberia. American Airlines redemptions are missing. If you have a household account, ‘My Household Account’ claims that you do not. There is likely to be more out there ….

UPDATE MONDAY PM: The Executive Club website now says:

‘It’s taking us a little longer than expected to get access to all parts of the Executive Club back up and running. We’re sorry for the inconvenience and we’re working as hard as we can to make all the features of your account available soon.’

Of course, most people still cannot log-in via desktop and so cannot see this message …..

UPDATE MONDAY: No news, which probably isn’t good news. People who are managing to log in, mainly via the app or the trick below, are occasionally able to make redemption bookings although others report the site falling over at the payment stage. American Airlines redemption availability seems to have gone missing. Some people are reporting that recent flights taken are showing on their accounts, others are not.

UPDATE SUNDAY: We have no new news, either officially or unofficially. The BA Twitter feed was promising people on Saturday that normal service would resume on Monday morning, but there has been a change of tone in recent hours and Monday is no longer being mentioned.

UPDATE SATURDAY: You CAN log in to ba.com on a desktop device as long as you don’t do it from the home page where the ‘log in’ button is greyed out. If you do a dummy cash flight booking, you’ll find that the log in button DOES work on the ‘flight selection’ page.

Whilst BA recommends you use the app, the iOS version appears to be having severe issues. It cannot even pull up a list of transactions, even though the desktop site can do it.

According to Flyertalk reports, if you have an ampersand (‘&’ sign) in your password it will no longer work and must be reset.

Functionality remains limited although you can make Avios bookings. The call centre appears to have less ability to book and amend tickets.

There is no published timeline for when full functionality will be restored.

(If you work in IT, posts 509 and 515 of this Flyertalk thread give some examples how bloated and slow ba.com is, in terms of the number of requests and data which are sent in both directions for even the simplest requests.)

UPDATE FRIDAY PM: You might not be able to use the ‘log in’ button on ba.com, but BA assures us that:

“Members can access their Executive Club account using the BA app, and they can part pay with Avios when you make a booking on ba.com. We’re aware that access through ‘log in’ on ba.com is unavailable at the moment.  We’re sorry for the inconvenience this is causing, for now, we hope these options available will help members access their account.“

Despite this statement, many readers are telling us that it is not true. Your mileage may vary.

UPDATE FRIDAY AM: Executive Club and Avios functionality is now back! (or perhaps not)

British Airways confirms:

“Planned improvements to Executive Club took a little longer than expected, members can now access their Executive Club account through the BA app and ba.com.“

The link to ba.com is here.

Below is the article as it ran on Friday morning.

Just to save you sending us another email or tweet, we have no idea when Avios functionality will fully return to ba.com.

Having spent the day yesterday at Loyalty Summit with a lot of IAG and Comarch (the software company involved in the data transfer) staff, I can tell you that they don’t know either.

A quick reminder, access to your Avios account was due to be restored late evening on 16th November.

The work is 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.

In simple terms, all of your existing data is being shoe-horned into a totally new database, with all existing data items having to be slotted into different slots, and then IAG crossing its fingers to see if the output you see actually works.

Certain functionality seems to be restored this morning in the app albeit not on the website. Some people can log in and book redemptions by using a bizarre workaround (try to book a cash ticket and when you get to the page with the flight results, click log-in at the top right – suddenly you get full access to your account and can book).

For anyone looking to grab Avios seats for next November, I have some bad news. Whilst BAEC members have been unable to book for the last few days, Avios seats have still been bookable by members of other oneworld frequent flyer programmes. Even if you are the first person on the phone when booking restarts, the flights you wanted may not be there. The upside is that many schemes, eg American Airlines, only allow booking 330 days in advance vs 355 days for BA, so those members cannot access newly released BA seats.

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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:

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. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

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.

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.

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.