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British Airways On Business website still down ‘for maintenance’ after a month

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Yesterday the British Airways On Business scheme celebrated its 1st birthday.

This was not the first anniversary of the programme being launched. It was the one month anniversary of the On Business website crashing.

Even by the standards on British Airways IT, this is quite an achievement.

British Airways On Business down for maintenance

If you’re not familiar with it, 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.

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 22nd February.

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

HFP-Barclaycard-Avios-Card

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (June 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:

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 £12,000 Read our full review

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

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 13th June, the sign-up bonus on The Platinum Card is doubled to 60,000 Membership Rewards points – and you get £200 to spend at Amex Travel too! Apply here.

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

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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

Get a 10,000 points bonus plus an extra 500 points for our readers 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.

EDIT: Applications for this card are temporarily suspended due to IT issues with the British Airways On Business SME loyalty scheme.

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 bonus and a £200 Amex Travel credit every year 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.

Category

British Airways On Business

Comments (10)

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

  • IanG says:
    23 Mar23 March 05:06

    I think Etihad bailed out of Edinburgh 5 years ago now (unless you know something I don’t).

  • AndyGWP says:
    23 Mar23 March 08:03

    Ah, so it wasn’t the birthday – it was the 1 month anniversary… that was a really confusing headline / first paragraph (apols – I don’t think I’ve ever been critical, but I had to read it a few times)

    Maybe as a compromise it could be called the 1 month deathday? 🤔🤷🏻‍♂️😂

  • AlanC says:
    23 Mar23 March 08:22

    Were Etihad the first Middle East carrier to serve Edinburgh? Then Qatar and Emirates before route cancellations means Qatar are the sole – soon to be double daily carrier?

  • Alan says:
    23 Mar23 March 08:47

    Shocking even by BA IT standards, especially when they have their business card that awards OB points! I take it you’ve not heard anything from your contacts at BA about what’s going on, Rob? Does make me suspect data has been compromised, perhaps via a cyber attack…

    • memesweeper says:
      23 Mar23 March 12:46

      Cyber attack is definitely a possibility. However, a month is a very long time to recover even from that. Given it’s been a month I’d expect BA to have paid up if it was ransomware and they had no quick recovery option. If PII was involved in any breach they should have declared that by now. This smells like something else.

      I’m wondering if they suffered a catastrophic failure (eg hardware, admin error) and then discovered they had no appropriate backups. It seems the call centre has access to the points balances, so it’s not all lost. But the web and/or app and/or auth tier seems irrecoverably broken. I wonder if they are re-writing from scratch at the back end, or trying to piece things together from log files?

      For those not working in the IT sector, I can assure you this is all completely avoidable. Cyber attacks and hardware failures are predictable, and recovery should be understood ahead of time and periodically rehearsed. BA employs/outsources to people who are demonstrably completely incompetent.

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

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