Amex suspends applications for the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card

In late February, the British Airways On Business website went down. Six weeks later, it is still down.

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

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.

There is a credit card linked to British Airways On Business – the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card, reviewed here.

It’s not a bad product:

• You receive an impressive bonus of 30,000 Avios when you spend £5,000 in your first three months

• You earn 1.5 Avios for every £1 you spend

• You earn 100% more On Business points for every £1 you spend with British Airways using the card.  For most small businesses, this means you will receive an extra 1 On Business points per £1, ie 2 per £1 spent vs the standard 1 point per £1 spent.

Unfortunately the problems with the British Airways On Business website mean that American Express has withdrawn the Accelerating Business credit card to new applicants.

This is meant to be a temporary measure. However, you have to assume that British Airways has told Amex that On Business will not be back in action for some time. It is also possible that BA decides to pull the plug entirely – perhaps it already has, since even in BA-land it is hard to see how a crashed website can take six weeks to fix.

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Want to earn more points from credit cards? – June 2023 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current 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:

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 13th June, the sign-up bonus on the Virgin Atlantic Reward+ card is doubled to 30,000 Virgin Points. Apply here.

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.