BA Holidays extends its ‘double tier points’ offer but tightens Covid cancellation rules

If you are looking to earn some British Airways Executive Club tier points to take advantage of the reduced tier point thresholds for 2022 – see our article here – BA Holidays can help.

BA Holidays has extended its double tier points offer.

If you book a ‘flight and hotel’ or ‘flight and car’ package for at least five nights, and travel by 31st October 2022 (was 31st March 2022), you will receive double BA tier points on your flights. Existing bookings count.

You can find out more on the BA Holidays website here.

There are problems with the posting of these bonus tier points and BA Holidays is now saying that you need to wait 60 days. The latest reader feedback is that a new email address – executiveclub@my.ba.com – is apparently your best bet for submitting a retroclaim. However, you shouldn’t let that put you off what is a very generous deal.

With the tier point threshold for British Airways Executive Club Silver status cut to 450 tier points for membership years ending in 2022, you could hit this in just one trip.

A BA Holidays package in Business Class to, say, Athens would earn you 320 tier points with this promotion. You would be just 130 tier points short of Silver.

A Business Class package to, say, New York or Dubai would get you 560 tier points under this offer. This is well over the threshold for Silver and half of the way to Gold, currently 1,125 tier points.

Remember that you need FOUR BA or Iberia cash flights in your membership year to get promoted, so one return flight to New York wouldn’t be enough unless you were connecting. You’d need a quick hop somewhere else before your status was upgraded.

A small downside …. BA Holidays has changed its cancellation rules

British Airways Holidays has made a small change to its Covid cancellation policy, although it would be churlish to say that it makes a huge difference.

As of last Thursday, you can only cancel your holiday in return for a British Airways voucher up to 28 days before departure.

The previous rule stated that you had to cancel up to three weeks before departure.

The refund policy only applies to travel which would be completed by 31st August 2022. Holidays booked for travel beyond this date will be subject to the standard cancellation policy.

You can see details of the revised BA Holidays Covid cancellation policy on its home page here.

The other BA Holidays benefits are still in place

As well as the double tier points offer, BA Holidays is running various other offers which will all stack together:

Free lounge access

If you book a 5+ night package for travel up to 31st March 2022, you will also receive lounge benefits at Heathrow.

• Spend £1,500 per person on an Economy package and receive Galleries Club access in Terminal 5 plus fast track security and priority boarding

• Spend £2,500 per person on a Business Class package and receive use of the First Wing and Galleries First access in Terminal 5

Other benefits

• booking a ‘Flight and Hotel’ or ‘Flight and Car’ package can be cheaper than booking a flight on its own, since British Airways will often use BA Holidays as a way of quietly selling seats without cutting its headline flight prices

• you earn an additional 1 Avios per £1 for every £1 you spend at BA Holidays

• if you have the British Airways Premium Plus American Express card, you get double Avios via American Express if you use it to pay for your holiday

• you only need to pay a deposit now – which can be as low as £60 per person – with the balance not due until seven weeks before departure (this is now back to the old rules – it had been reduced to three weeks)

We take a look at the new BA and BA Holidays sale in another article today, although the deals are pretty underwhelming to be honest.

You can learn more about the double tier points offer on the BA Holidays website here.

---

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (January 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:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 21st February 2023, the sign-up bonus on the British Airways Premium Plus American Express card is increased to 35,000 Avios from 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points.

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: Capital On Tap has increased its sign-up bonus to points worth 30,000 Avios if you apply by 4th February. This is exclusive to Head for Points readers. 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.