Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

BA Holidays tightens its payment terms

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

We ran two articles yesterday on BA Holidays – this one looks at some of their sale deals and this one looks at the extension of the ‘double tier points’ offer to October 2022.

What we missed – thanks to ChrisC for pointing this out – is that BA Holidays has tightened up on its payment terms.

Until 15th December, you could pay your balance up to three weeks before departure.

BA Holidays tightens its payment terms

For all new bookings, you must pay the remaining balance:

  • four weeks before departure for European holidays
  • seven weeks before departure for all other holidays

This ties in with the new cancellation policy, which requires you to cancel more than four weeks before departure if you want to receive a ‘no questions asked’ voucher refund.

You now have the following options when booking with BA:

  • book ‘flight only’ and pay 100% upfront BUT remain eligible to cancel for a voucher up to one hour before departure
  • book ‘flight and hotel’ or ‘flight and car’, potentially save money on booking each element separately and pay just a small deposit now BUT be required to cancel at least four weeks before departure to receive a voucher for the money paid to date

You can find details of BA Holidays policies on its website here.


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 (53)

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

  • gary says:

    Slightly off topic, but does anyone have an email address at BA Holidays that is functioning. I need to get them to credit a forthcoming trip with an evoucher and car rental credit so that i can then pay the correct balance online. Cant get through on the phone despite lots of trying.

    thanks

    • megoi says:

      The last time I had to have a voucher applied to a BA holiday, I responded to their e-mail that they had send to me with the FTV details and my new booking reference.
      E-mail address was baholidays@ba.com

      I got through to BA holidays yesterday – about a 40. min wait. But they sorted a cancellation and refund out for me overy quickly.

  • FrontSeatPhil says:

    Congratulations Rob, that’s a great result. Top work.

    I see four peaks in the traffic – I’m assuming they’re mostly COVID related, but can you see what’s caused the spikes?

    • Rob says:

      The spikes are days when an article goes viral or it’s a big piece of news – two are about easyJet baggage policies, one is the day BA increased Avios seats to 14 per flight and the other is the day when the Nectar partnership was announced.

      • FatherOfFour says:

        Nothing about the First class crockery sale?

        • Rob says:

          That remains our biggest day ever, due to the coverage we got on BBC News, but it was 2020.

          • FatherOfFour says:

            Time flies eh!? Well done for a fantastic year and a great resource and community. Have a great Christmas and New Year

  • Tim Peachey says:

    Well done Rob and team! I always enjoy reading your daily posts.

  • yorkieflyer says:

    Interesting that some of the most traffic came for the EasyJet article despite the British Airways and self declared west London bias in terms of coverage due to the claimed London professional audience which is obviously handy to attract advertisers

    • Rob says:

      Those articles went crazy on social media. If I showed you the chart of unique visitor numbers, you’d see that it was flat for the days of the Nectar and extra Avios seats news (because it was all regulars that commented) but had huge spikes on those days. It wasn’t the regulars.

      If you look at my LinkedIn posts you’ll see I did an article about the last easyJet article – about what it’s like to be on the end of an article that goes viral and about how little benefit it actually brought to the site.

      • yorkieflyer says:

        Agreed, but it does suggest that narrative appealing to advertisers is a subset of London professionals.
        The most grotesque example of this is the ritzy magazine that Amex plats get?

  • Anne says:

    Well done. That’s a lot of readers. Please don’t change the format. It is great how it is 🙂

    You guys do a great job. Your articles are always informative and useful. Thank you.

    Have a great Xmas. (If you are allowed… :-))

  • DeB20 says:

    Congratulations on achieving this milestone Rob and team.

    Greetings for the festive season.

    • ADS says:

      Yes, congratulations on the 20m milestone – and nice that it arrived in time for Christmas!

      Enjoy the break, assuming you get one

  • Clive says:

    Christmas greetings from Thailand and congratulations HfP

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

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.