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NEW: Loganair adopts Avios

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We knew that Avios was in discussions with a ‘small’ airline to adopt the currency, and now we know who – Loganair.

The Scottish airline will adopt Avios as its loyalty currency in 2025, making it the seventh airline to issue points.

The airline is promising to make ‘1 million seats’ available for redemption each year.

Loganair adopts Avios

It isn’t clear if there will be a guaranteed number of seats per flight or not – I suspect it is unlikely given the VERY small aircraft that Loganair runs on some routes, especially those connecting the Scottish islands.

It is also possible, of course, that Loganair only makes redemptions via its own website available on a dynamic basis (0.6p discount per Avios or similar) whilst BA offers them based on a traditional award chart basis. This is what happens with Vueling in Spain where you can book via the Iberia or Vueling websites at different prices.

Loganair is the UK’s largest regional airline and carries over 1.5 million passengers per year.

It operates almost 70 routes from hubs in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Inverness and Newcastle, including a handful from London Heathrow. The airline has been a British Airways codeshare partner for some years with flights bookable on ba.com.

The key benefit, I think, will be the ability to book connecting British Airways / Loganair reward flights on a single ticket, giving reward customers the same flexibility as cash customers booking a BA codeshare.

Loganair will convert Clan Points balances into Avios at launch.

We do not yet know:

  • when Avios will launch with Loganair
  • what the Avios accrual rates will be
  • what the Avios redemption rates will be
  • what the conversion rate from Clan Points will be
  • whether there will be any guaranteed availability

My review of a Loganair flight from Glasgow to Barra – the only scheduled flight in the world that lands on a beach – is here. This will be a great way for any avgeek to burn Avios.

The most expensive Avios redemption in the world ….

You may not know that the Loganair route from Westray to Papa Westray is the shortest scheduled passenger flight in the world.

The scheduled flight time is 90 seconds but in reality it can take a minute. The record is apparently 53 seconds.

This means that Westray to Papa Westray will probably become the most expensive Avios flight in the system on a ‘points per mile flown’ basis.

The best value Avios flight on that basis, on a British Airways aircraft, is London to Sydney as this HfP article shows. A business class seat requires 13.6 Avios per mile.

Where does Loganair fly?

Here, courtesy of Cirium, is the current Loganair route list – this does not include routes annnounced but not yet launched:

Aberdeen — Belfast City
Aberdeen — Birmingham
Aberdeen — Bristol
Aberdeen — Dublin
Aberdeen — Esbjerg
Aberdeen — Kirkwall
Aberdeen — Sumburgh
Aberdeen — Manchester
Aberdeen — Teesside
Aberdeen — Newcastle
Aberdeen — Norwich
Benbecula — Glasgow
Benbecula — Stornoway
Bergen — Edinburgh
Bergen — Sumburgh
Bergen — Newcastle
Belfast City — Aberdeen
Belfast City — Inverness
Belfast City — Isle of Man
Birmingham — Aberdeen
Birmingham — Isle of Man
Barra — Glasgow
Bristol — Aberdeen
Campbeltown — Glasgow
Donegal — Glasgow
Cardiff — Edinburgh
Dundee — Kirkwall
Dundee — London Heathrow
Dundee — Sumburgh
Dublin — Aberdeen
Esbjerg — Aberdeen
Edinburgh — Bergen
Edinburgh — Cardiff
Edinburgh — Exeter
Edinburgh — Inverness
Edinburgh — Isle of Man
Edinburgh — Kirkwall
Edinburgh — Sumburgh
Edinburgh — Newquay
Edinburgh — Southampton
Edinburgh — Stornoway
Exeter — Edinburgh
Exeter — Glasgow
Exeter — Newcastle
Glasgow — Benbecula
Glasgow — Barra
Glasgow — Campbeltown
Glasgow — Donegal
Glasgow — Exeter
Glasgow — Islay
Glasgow — Kirkwall
Glasgow — Derry
Glasgow — Sumburgh
Glasgow — Southampton
Glasgow — Stornoway
Glasgow — Tiree
Islay — Glasgow
Inverness — Belfast City
Inverness — Edinburgh
Inverness — Kirkwall
Inverness — Manchester
Inverness — Stornoway
Isle of Man — Belfast City
Isle of Man — Birmingham
Isle of Man — Edinburgh
Isle of Man — London City
Isle of Man — London Heathrow
Isle of Man — Liverpool
Isle of Man — Manchester
Kirkwall — Aberdeen
Kirkwall — Dundee
Kirkwall — Edinburgh
Kirkwall — Glasgow
Kirkwall — Inverness
Kirkwall — Sumburgh
London City — Isle of Man
Derry — Glasgow
Derry — London Heathrow
London Heathrow — Dundee
London Heathrow — Isle of Man
London Heathrow — Derry
Liverpool — Isle of Man
Sumburgh — Aberdeen
Sumburgh — Bergen
Sumburgh — Dundee
Sumburgh — Edinburgh
Sumburgh — Glasgow
Sumburgh — Kirkwall
Manchester — Aberdeen
Manchester — Inverness
Manchester — Isle of Man
Manchester — Newquay
Teesside — Aberdeen
Newcastle — Aberdeen
Newcastle — Bergen
Newcastle — Exeter
Newcastle — Newquay
Newcastle — Southampton
Newcastle — Stavangar
Newquay — Edinburgh
Newquay — Manchester
Newquay — Newcastle
Norwich — Aberdeen
Southampton — Edinburgh
Southampton — Glasgow
Southampton — Newcastle
Stavangar — Newcastle
Stornoway — Benbecula
Stornoway — Edinburgh
Stornoway — Glasgow
Stornoway — Inverness
Tiree — Glasgow


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 (79)

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

  • chris1922 says:

    How many Avios for a trip from Westray to Papa Westray ?!

    • Rob says:

      Likely to be the most expensive Avios redemption on a points per mile basis!

      • BJ says:

        Might also become the first electric-powered and greenest avios redemption in the world. They’ve been working with Cranfield on this but I’ve no idea where it s got to.

        • Dubious says:

          One of the challenges is that the diversion airport is quite far, so the power capacity required is a lot higher than on the point to point journey as scheduled..

          • John says:

            If you’re able to take off shouldn’t you be able to land? So just go back if there’s a problem?

          • Dubious says:

            John, that’s a question for the regulator…

            [There’s no reply button next to John’s comment so replying via another one].

          • BJ says:

            Presumably their development goal must be to support longer range inter-istlarnd flighhts anyway?

      • marcolau says:

        It’d be very interesting if redeemable on Avios, but realistically they won’t.
        On existing scheme, Orkney inter-isle flights are excluded from earning points (as they are subsidized by the Council). No seats are released for redemption as well.

        Barra could be our next target…??

  • can2 says:

    Can I be the first one saying that this development made me dream about the BMI days?

  • Barrel for Scraping says:

    New partner, old logo or is the Avios brand identity so screwed up and this deal being under discussion for so long that this is an official promo image?

    • Rob says:

      We’re going to change all the images in one go – at some point!

      • Barrel for Scraping says:

        The picture of the new BAC cards has the Avios logo pointing the correct way. So for consistency you should have edited that to show the old logo 😁

  • Captain Haddock says:

    They carry 1.5m passengers per year and are going to make 1m Avios seats available per year? Seems a rather large percentage.

  • Mick says:

    Welcomed News. Flew with Logan Air a few times. Great staff and fantastic Routes to the Highlands and Islands.

  • Volker says:

    Very interesting news indeed, can’t wait for more details. Re. the Loganair route list, sadly, they stopped flying BEB-SYY / SYY-BEB last year, and flights on this route have since been operated by Hebridean Air Services.

  • Bill says:

    Isle of Man – Belfast City was just a temporary service for a couple of weeks at Christmas. Hopefully I’ll now be able to book connections from IOM onwards with BA using Avios

  • Paul says:

    The entire aviation industry in this country seems incapable of communicating. Here we have a relatively good news story but without any detail. Consequently its no longer a good news story it’s a jam tomorrow story.

    We don’t know what the accrual rates will be and more importantly what the costs will be both in terms in Avios and cash components. This leads to the line that it is likely to include the world’s most expensive redemption!

    It follows on the heals of BAs appalling communication over the changes to BAEC and Virgins desperate communication of their changes.

    Just once, can an airline communicate clearly and accurately with all the pertinent data included.

    • Rob says:

      The original plan was to announce this before Christmas, I was told, so it may be someone ticking it off their ‘things to announce so I get my annual bonus’ list even though the implementation won’t be for ages. I agree there is little benefit to announcing it today.

      • Helen Winter says:

        Trying to put a “good news” message out there given all the negativity. Is this the best the IAGL growth team can come up with?

    • Chris L says:

      Agreed – I’d be panicking if I were in possession of a large balance of Clan Points not knowing the conversion rate.

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

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