EXTENDED: BA stops selling tickets for ALL Heathrow short-haul flights until 15th August

British Airways has just circulated a note to the travel trade to state that the ban on OUTBOUND short haul ticket sales from London Heathrow has been extended.

There are now no tickets available for travel up to 15th August.

As we wrote in our article yesterday, this appears to have been done to both meet Heathrow’s capacity caps and to give BA flexibility to move passengers whose flights are cancelled at short notice.

To clarify what this means:

• you cannot buy any short haul flight, to any destination, on British Airways from London Heathrow for travel up to 15th August

• you CAN buy inbound flights, if you choose to travel out on another airline

• existing ticketed flights are not impacted

For a route such as Oslo that is only served by British Airways from Heathrow, here is what you see for 12th August:

If you thinking of booking a British Airways flight for travel from 15th August, you may want to lock it in now. If you don’t, you may find that you can’t book at all …..

(If you didn’t take my advice to do this when I wrote it in the article yesterday, you would have lost out if you needed to travel between the 9th and 15th.)

Here is the note sent to travel agents today:

“Last week we wrote to you advising of actions we were taking in response to capacity capping at Heathrow Airport.

We communicated that we would review our actions this week and would like to provide you with an update.

To help maximise rebooking options for existing customers, we’ve decided to take further responsible action and limit the available fares on some Heathrow services.

Short-haul flights departing from Heathrow will now be closed for sale until 15 August 2022 in all channels. These flights will not be available to book via ba.com or via our partners.

We apologise for the inconvenience this will cause and would like to thank you for your continued patience and understanding.”

British Airways issued a statement yesterday to say:

“As a result of Heathrow’s request to limit new bookings, we’ve decided to take responsible action and limit the available fares on some Heathrow services to help maximise rebooking options for existing customers, given the restrictions imposed on us and the ongoing challenges facing the entire aviation industry.”

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (September 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.

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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.

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

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 22nd October 2024, the bonus on American Express Business Platinum is increased to up to 80,000 Membership Rewards points, worth 80,000 Avios. You will receive 8 points per £1 spent for the first three months, on up to £10,000 of spending. Click here to read our full card review. Click here to apply.

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Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.