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When will British Airways On Business return online?

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Whilst the Avios programme will be familiar to all Head for Points readers, you may not have come across On Business.

On Business is the other British Airways loyalty programme. Instead of rewarding flyers, it rewards your company when you travel.

It is fundamentally the same as Avios in structure. You earn On Business Points for every flight your company books. They can then be redeemed for flights or for upgrades.

British Airways On Business down for maintenance

You can collect both Avios and On Business Points on the same flight. You collect Avios as a flyer and On Business Points as a company.

We have a two-part overview of On Business here which includes a referral code for bonus points. However, there is no point joining up because the On Business website has been down since at least 22nd February.

Some businesses have received an email from British Airways about this. Others, including HfP, have not.

Looking at reports from our readers and on Flyertalk, the call centre appears to have little idea what is going on. There had been multiple reports of data errors in the months leading up to the site going down, and this does not appear to be planned maintenance.

Some functionality appears to be possible via the call centre but it seems hit and miss as to what they will do for you.

The upside is that the email received by some members states that British Airways has suspended any points expiry due on 30th June until 31st December.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 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

30,000 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 – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 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 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 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

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

50,000 points when you sign-up 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 (18)

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

  • Luca says:

    For OnBusiness I am getting a little twitchy as I have some retro claims to make that I have been unable to check on. I hope they honour awarding of points as they were in business and first class!

  • Ian M says:

    I don’t see the Marriott on my Bonvoy Amex sadly!

    • TGLoyalty says:

      It’s only on the main card not supps just incase that might be it

  • Will says:

    Re charging to your room or not…. Bonvoy policy is that you won’t get points unless F&B is charged to the room and they have been very strict and refuse to award points after our trip to Marriott Mena House when we were unable to charge dinner to the room due to a technicality.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      This is sort of true.

      The legacy SPG brands do allow you to earn points on F&B regardless of you staying or not

      • Tariq says:

        But then it depends whether the server has a clue or not. At Aloft Excel, they had no idea what I was talking about. As it was a relatively small amount, I didn’t pursue.

        • TGLoyalty says:

          Yes but you can keep the receipt and claim it like any missing stay

  • Polly says:

    Used it twice last year, and hope to again soon x 2. Charged to restaurant directly in County Hall. Nice views of Westminster. Last time was when queues were formed to view the Queen.

  • John H says:

    I don’t see the offer on my Bonvoy card.. is it targeted ?

    • southlondonphil says:

      To an extent all AMEX offers are targeted, so the answer is Yes, Probably.

      Not on my account either (yet! It might show up in a day or two I suppose)

  • SharonC says:

    Needless to say this OnBusiness issue is the final nail in the BA coffin for me. Having just had to wait 2.5 months for a refund on an eVoucher, which I still had to use by end of September, and customer services stating categorically that I was not allowed any refund at all, I have now planned no more revenue flights with this excuse of an airline.

  • Bernard says:

    And the regular BA app loses every booking.
    How does BA have an app that can’t show what’s booked?
    The technology incompetence is mind boggling.

    • Nick says:

      The issue with syncing bookings is with Amadeus, not BA. Bookings are held in Amadeus and there’s latency with booking retrieve through the app (also exec club page on the website) so it sometimes times out and shows nothing.

      I appreciate you just want to rant and am sorry for interrupting that… but not everything is actually caused by BA.

      • Bernard says:

        Please don’t confuse facts or try and gaslight others by claiming they’re ranting..
        If it’s Amadeus then please explain why there’s no problem with bookings appearing on the Air France app.

    • Bagoly says:

      It’s not just BA.
      Last week I booked and paid for three M&M redemptions for my wife, and neither of us have received any email confirmation (but I have saved the bookings from the online system with ticket numbers)
      When booking, one can choose seat before paying, but the system says “you can do it later”.
      In practice one can do it in advance (for free) but trying afterwards gives “not possible”.

  • Alan says:

    Frustrating that OB has been down so long, have a backlog of retroclaims to submit where they previously erroneously awarded 0 points. With it happening so suddenly and without comment for weeks by BA (until they finally sent that email to some members), I do wonder if they suffered a cyber attack…

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

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