Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

British Airways Gatwick news: Amsterdam dropped, Cityflyer launches Chambery flights

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

British Airways Gatwick news in brief:

BA Cityflyer launches flights from London Gatwick

Here’s a weird one – BA Cityflyer, the subsidiary which operates Embraer 190 services from London City Airport, is trialling a flight from London Gatwick.

Back in the old days this would have led to an immediate strike by Gatwick pilots who would see their terms being threatened by lower paid pilots from Cityflyer. Those days are gone given the new low cost T&C for pilots and crew at Gatwick, although I doubt BA would try this move at Heathrow.

The new route is to Chambery, for the ski season.

There will be one flight per week on a Saturday, starting on 14th December. The last flight will be on 19th April.

Flights will leave Gatwick at 12.50, arriving in Chambery at 15.30. The return leaves Chambery at 11.25, arriving into Gatwick at 12.05.

(I know these times sound wrong, but they are not. It is a ‘W’ formation, flying from London City to Chambery, back to Gatwick, back to Chambery and then back to London Stansted.)

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

If this route succeeds, we may see – subject to slot availability – more Gatwick flights with Cityflyer over the weekend, with Edinburgh and Southampton being cut back. As a reminder, BA needs to find a use for its Embraer 190 fleet at City Airport over the weekend when the airport is closed for 24 hours.

Hat-tip to @SeanM1997 on X.

BA Cityflyer launches flights from London Gatwick to Chambery

British Airways to drop Amsterdam flights from Gatwick

British Airways appears to be dropping its two daily flights from London Gatwick to Amsterdam.

Flights have disappeared from ba.com from the start of the winter flying season on 27th October. They do not reappear in late March for the summer 2025 flying season either.

There are still 15 daily flights on BA from Heathrow and London City Airport.

This seems a slightly odd move given that there are no direct Eurostar services from Amsterdam to London St Pancras until early 2025 due to station building work, which will undoubtedly push more people onto flights.

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 (24)

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

  • Olly says:
    24 Jun24 June 07:01

    Feb half term already gone…

  • Olly says:
    24 Jun24 June 07:01

    (On Avios that is)

  • simon says:
    24 Jun24 June 07:13

    The approach to Chambery is tight with a normal approach. With the wind coming from the least usual direction, the approach is properly hair raising and quite the experience – late turn, flying low over the town.

  • Tony says:
    24 Jun24 June 07:47

    BA stuff LGW-AMS passengers…who cares? They don’t.

    • Richie says:
      24 Jun24 June 07:56

      BTW There’s a BACF STN-AMS weekly service on Sundays from 15th Dec.

      • SamG says:
        24 Jun24 June 10:06

        That is how the aircraft gets back to LCY! So there is no STN-Chambery or Amsterdam-STN flying.

        I guess they think that LCY & STN passengers are quite interchangeable, certainly when I lived in E1 they were my two preferred airports and used public transport so no issue using a mix

        • Richie says:
          24 Jun24 June 10:16

          @SamG Yes. My guess is there may be more flights to/ from STN at the weekend. FLR-STN-FLR is already bookable on ba.com for winter 24/25.

          • SamG says:
            24 Jun24 June 11:11

            Makes more sense than Southampton really as people will see the flights when they search London on ba.com or skyscanner etc rather than trying to get known to a whole different market

            I’m hoping they do Stansted-Split again as I would like to use it next year

  • Tony says:
    24 Jun24 June 07:51

    Thank goodness for EasyJet! BA admitting they are beaten….

  • PeterK says:
    24 Jun24 June 08:10

    A shame to see LGWAMS going. It’s been a useful TP option and flights were always rammed. But over the last few seasons BA Euroflyer has been gradually whittling down the schedule, e.g. no flights on a Sun and only one flight on Sat, Tue and Wed this season.

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      24 Jun24 June 08:44

      Indeed, I travel to AMS 4-5 times a year and it was always a good flight option especially when it was 3 (and sometimes 4 flights a day when it was mainline rather than Euro flyer)

      I had a very nice 10.30 flight on the Wednesday in the last full week of October which the canned months ago. I’ve switched to LHR as the two LGW alternatives just don’t suit time wise.

      Shame as every time I used it it was indeed rammed (though that’s no indication of profitability). At times the flights were double the costs of the LHR/LCY alternatives.

  • Indy500 says:
    24 Jun24 June 08:42

    Hmmm, SOU losing flights again. The anticipated expansion of routes and airlines after the runway extension seems to be slow in coming. Can SOU survive with this level of business?

    • Rob says:
      24 Jun24 June 08:48

      To be fair I expected Cityflyer to leave after the runway extension because it allows easyJet etc to come in and run 7-day services.

      • Indy500 says:
        24 Jun24 June 09:05

        It’s the ‘long weekend’ Fri->Sun/Mon type of flights that will be popular. There are 1.4m people within 30mins travel of the airport. Here’s hoping and I guess their plans are long term.

  • Pedro says:
    24 Jun24 June 09:17

    I fear Nice has also gone and I note there is no BA codeshare option on the Iberia Express Madrid route post 26 October. More ABBA.

    • Nick says:
      24 Jun24 June 11:16

      Codeshares are entirely manual to set up and have to be manually tweaked every time there’s even a minor timetable change. For this reason they’re often set up late when the corresponding airline hasn’t baked their schedules completely yet. The vast majority of passengers book close-ish to departure so the numbers affected will be low.

      There will absolutely be a BA code on I2 routes from London when they fly.

    • Richie says:
      24 Jun24 June 14:31

      @Pedro BTW LGW-NCE is bookable for Summer 25 on ba.com

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!