Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

British Airways launches four new Heathrow short-haul routes – Avios seats wide open

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

British Airways has announced four new short haul routes from London Heathrow for the winter season, which starts at the end of October.

To be more precise:

  • there are three new routes
  • there is one route new to Heathrow
  • there are two summer routes which are now being extended into the winter season
Cologne british airways

Three brand new short haul routes

The following three cities are not currently served by British Airways but will see services resume:

  • Belgrade
  • Cologne (image above)
  • Riga

You may be surprised that Cologne is not currently flown, but it isn’t. There was a London Gatwick route from 2018 until the start of the pandemic.

Riga is currently served from London Gatwick as a codeshare on the airBaltic service, but these flights are expensive and are not available for Avios redemption.

Here is the small print:

Belgrade

There will be three flights per week from Terminal 5, starting on 31st October. Services operate on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. The route is currently only bookable for the winter season to the end of March but the intention is that it will become permanent if it performs as expected.

Cologne

There will be 12 flights per week from Terminal 5, starting on 30th October. The route will operate year-round.

Riga

There will be three flights per week from Terminal 5, starting on 29th October. Services operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. The route is currently only bookable for the winter season to the end of March but the intention is that it will become permanent if it performs as expected.

Turin british airways

One new route to Heathrow

Flights to Turin will launch from Heathrow on 10th December. Image above.

There will be just one flight per week (Sunday) from Terminal 5. The service will only operate until the end of March.

The existing BA Euroflyer service from Gatwick, with seven flights per week, will continue.

Two routes are extended into the winter

The existing summer routes to Ljubljana and Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen (SAW) are extended into the winter season.

Ljubljana will see four flights per week from Terminal 3, on Monday / Wednesday / Friday / Sunday.

Istanbul will see four flights per week from Terminal 5, on Monday / Thursday / Friday / Sunday.

Booking

Flights are bookable at ba.com now for cash or Avios.

To maximise your miles when paying, your best bet is the British Airways American Express Premium Plus card which earns double Avios (3 per £1) when you book at ba.com or via BA Holidays. 

You do not get double Avios if you book with the free British Airways American Express card, the free Barclaycard Avios Mastercard or the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard.

Another option is American Express Preferred Rewards Gold which offers double points – 2 per £1 – when you book flight tickets directly with an airline.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

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.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (48)

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

  • Richie says:
    3 Aug3 August 08:16

    Are there skiing oportunities in Slovenia?

    • Londonsteve says:
      3 Aug3 August 12:36

      The Slovenian ski resorts are probably best approached from Klagenfurt airport although travellers restricted to using public transport might find it easier from Ljubljana as it cuts out the cross border aspect.

      • John says:
        4 Aug4 August 05:14

        What is the issue with crossing from Austria?

        • Londonsteve says:
          4 Aug4 August 14:29

          A relative lack of public transport services that actually cross the border. It means it might take you half a day to go a relatively short distance. Clearly it’s not a problem if you rent a car.

  • Roger W says:
    3 Aug3 August 08:40

    There is skiing in Slovenia.

  • Chris W says:
    3 Aug3 August 09:30

    Weird Belgrade is winter only.

    It’s pretty grim in winter!

  • ZF says:
    3 Aug3 August 09:31

    Riga will be hard for BA, but as a regular, I hope they stand and carve some ground in there. Wizz is dropping Luton from the winter schedule and basically pulling back from Riga altogether (apart from Kutaisi), which is a big change from having a base a few years back.

    airBaltic has a strong offering with 2x daily to Gatwick (disregarding their customer support or actual product). Their pricing has been absurd, but they’ve done price dumping before to push out other airlines and this might be another case where they’re willing to do that. Ryanair is obviously providing the cheaper end with 2x-3x daily flights to Stansted. BA is also coming in during the winter schedule which will be harder initself to produce stellar results.

    I’ve mostly been flyinf with a connection somewhere in Europe for the best price + performance, especially in business, but I do hope BA keeps this after the Winter (or actually starts flying as they announced it 2 years back and didn’t even start lol)

    • J says:
      3 Aug3 August 11:49

      I’ve never had any issue with airBaltic – the A220 is also spacious and comfortable.

      • illuminatus says:
        3 Aug3 August 12:37

        Their product is nice, but the pricing is borderline ridiculous, hopefully competition from BA will improve things.

      • ZF says:
        3 Aug3 August 13:07

        For occasional travel they’re quite good and if your travel goes smoothly, it can even be a pleasure. But once you start using/needing more – that’s where it falls apart. They are also quite often significantly delayed due to issues of their own making; the A220 is quite nice, but the PW issues have made it a gamble to get on one.

        In addition to generally ridiculous pricing of tickets any add-ons are also overtly overpriced. If you do encounter any issues they are difficult to resolve and there is no communication from them – you’re basically on your own. Any compensation that you are owed is almost impossible to get. Their technology is quite weak – most upgrades/changes that are not the very basics (luggage, food) require a phone call or an obscure online form that might or might not result in a returned email. Their FF scheme is worthless in earning, spending and benefits.

        They’re far from the worst carrier, but the above in combination with the ridiculous pricing makes a new competitor a welcome change.

        • J says:
          3 Aug3 August 13:33

          Interesting insight thanks. I mostly fly with them from Berlin where they are competitive (directly competing against Ryanair) and luckily smooth travels so far.

  • MM says:
    3 Aug3 August 10:22

    Sarajevo, rather then Belgrade, could’ve been a better pick. There are no direct UK-Bosnia flights at the moment and Sarajevo appears regularly as a new “hot” destination in travel mags

    • Krishan says:
      3 Aug3 August 10:36

      I agree. I think Tui have started a seasonal flight to Sarajevo from London.

    • can2 says:
      3 Aug3 August 11:09

      Agreed. Sarajevo has been on my list but to get there is tricky — that is tedious

    • Chris W says:
      3 Aug3 August 12:02

      Wizz resume flights from Luton next month.

    • Ian M says:
      3 Aug3 August 12:13

      I visited in 2019, it was tricky to get to then. I was in Poland at the time and had to flew from Warsaw via Vienna.

    • Londonsteve says:
      3 Aug3 August 12:31

      Belgrade is a far more significant destination for either leisure or business travellers and I suspect much of the motivation for opening up the route is seeking to discretely tap into the UK-Russia market whose current options to fly to Europe involve transiting in Istanbul or Belgrade.

      • Ian M says:
        3 Aug3 August 13:15

        Yeah good point. Belgrade is the Europen hub for Russians and people wanting to fly to Russia.

      • Keith says:
        3 Aug3 August 15:01

        Agreed. I was at Belgrade airport last week. There have been quite a few false bomb threats for the Air Serbia flights to/from Russia. In terms of lounge access, the Priority Pass lounge – which I presume BA will use – is pretty poor. The Air Serbia lounge is quite small but pleasant enough. Hot food and a bar. What struck me most about the Air Serbia lounge (which closes at 8pm) was that there were several families with young children. The parents kept their children in check better than I’ve seen at any U.K. lounge, where often the children are just left to run wild. Mr. Burgess take note. (Joke!!)

        • Londonsteve says:
          4 Aug4 August 14:34

          I can imagine the Belgrade-Moscow flights cost an arm and a leg, the demand must be enormous. Air Serbia would commercially wish to put on as many services as possible but there are political sensitivities. I believe the President stepped in when the airline sought to increase frequency to avoid the poor optics of Serbia appearing to profit from EU sanctions, so they’ve been flying their A330s as a workaround. I’m sure that’s still woefully inadequate to meet demand. BA will need to be fairly competitively priced to encourage passengers to self connect, otherwise the target market will just book a through ticket all the way to London on Air Serbia.

    • VSCXFAN says:
      3 Aug3 August 19:01

      Reasonably good value most days to fly one way non-stop with BA and one way one-stop connecting to/from BA at MUC, VIE or ZRH.

  • ADS says:
    3 Aug3 August 10:36

    any indication where these 27 slot pairs are coming from ?

  • AM says:
    3 Aug3 August 11:03

    The second picture is Turin (Italy)

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 80,000 bonus points (worth 80,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card (Offer ends 27th May)

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get up to 10,000 bonus Hilton Honors points

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? GET THE ONLY FREE SMALL BUSINESS CREDIT CARD WHICH CAN EARN AVIOS

Get points worth 30,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold (ends 27th May)

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.

Got it!