Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

BA doubles San Diego, wide open for Avios, & boosts Kingston, Las Vegas, Orlando, Vancouver

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British Airways has released a number of schedule improvements for the summer 2024 flying season.

The reason this is interesting is that these seats were only made available for booking in the last few hours and therefore Avios availability is wide open.

If you’d failed to get seats for peak 2024 dates, it is worth looking again.

British Airways doubles flights to San Diego

The biggest increase is to San Diego.

From 24th April 2024, British Airways is adding a second daily flight from London Heathrow. It will be operated with a Boeing 787-8 and departs around 3pm (varies by day).

Here is a SeatSpy screenshot from noon on Wednesday showing dates with 2 x Club World seats available. As you can see, from 24th April you can take your pick, and it is a good gateway into California.

The other schedule increases are less dramatic, but there will still be fresh Avios seats out there for booking:

Kingston, from Gatwick

  • Increased from three weekly flights to four weekly flights between 6th July and 31st August

Las Vegas, from Gatwick

  • Increased from three weekly flights to five weekly flights from 31st March

Orlando, from Gatwick

  • Increased from 12 weekly flights to 14 weekly flights from 31st March

Vancouver, from Gatwick

  • Flights will start three weeks earlier than planned, on 29th April, with six flights per week

You can check Avios availability over at ba.com.

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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 (69)

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

  • VerdantBacon says:
    20 Sep20 September 05:50

    Other than the to use a 241, I see no reason whatsoever to redeem Avios on BA instead of QR. Currently in Australia for 3 months from a QR redemption and later this year will fly BKK on QR.

    The product is so far ahead of BA that it’s laughable, and this is comparing to BA F which is what we used to fly to Australia and Singapore as the J product didn’t look inviting.

    • VerdantBacon says:
      20 Sep20 September 05:51

      *As a reference to the flying to Asia on BA comments above

    • babyg says:
      20 Sep20 September 07:28

      Agree, but if you need more than 2 seats BA wins, also all of QR redemptions are priced at X2 avios now, almost impossible to find standard price redemptions on QR these days

      • Matt says:
        20 Sep20 September 07:38

        I’m off to Vietnam for 3 week holiday next March on a QR J avios redemption. I echo your comments that it’s way ahead of BA F.

      • yorkieflyer says:
        20 Sep20 September 10:58

        Supposedly Qatar we’re guaranteeing 2? Business seats for Avios. So are they at the double Avios only?

        • Rob says:
          20 Sep20 September 11:24

          In theory they do show. However, Qatar is now using married segment logic. This means that if you book from a high yield country (UK) you might see ‘O2’ (because QPC needs to justify a higher reimbursement to the airline for the seat) whilst starting somewhere cheaper may bring up a standard priced seat.

          If you think that’s complex, wait until they launch peak / off-peak pricing which will vary depending on whether one or both of the origin and destination cities are on a peak day.

          PS. I had breakfast with the Doha-based QPC team in London in August. I said ‘Why don’t you mark double price seats as ‘x2’ instead of ‘O2′ because people would understand that?’. There was this look around the table like I’d suddenly revealed the secret of life itself, it had genuinely never crossed their minds.

        • Colin MacKinnon says:
          21 Sep21 September 06:01

          Just booked Qatar last week for a flight tomorrow Auckland-Edinburgh. Looked at the forecast for the week ahead here and decided to come home a week early, so cancelled next weeks Qatar flights.
          Both at normal rates in business.

    • JDB says:
      20 Sep20 September 08:34

      Having flown to Australia a few times on BA and QR, I wouldn’t fly BA on that route again. With QR, because every aspect of the product and service is incomparably better, and the total time is no greater, one arrives fully refreshed thus enhancing one’s whole visit. QR also offers the option to arrive in the late afternoon/early evening which is a big plus rather than the 6am arrival.

    • Sharon says:
      20 Sep20 September 10:38

      Hi, Avios novice here, how do you redeem Avios for QF? Didn’t think they were part of BA anymore 😫

      • Rob says:
        20 Sep20 September 11:28

        QF or QR? Irrespective, both are oneworld alliance members and are bookable as usual via ba.com. Qatar also makes additional availability if you link your BA account to a Qatar Privilege Club account and book via the Qatar site.

        • Sharon says:
          20 Sep20 September 12:10

          Oh yes, my mistake. I said I was a novice. I am learning so much reading these comments and your daily tips.

    • Ladyshopper says:
      20 Sep20 September 11:07

      That’s great if you can find availability. We’re looking for next year, and every single business class seat seems to be x2 avios on QR.

  • Alex Sm says:
    20 Sep20 September 07:59

    How could you get a screenshot from the future?

  • John says:
    20 Sep20 September 08:32

    All these extra flights from LGW to US etc are fine if you stay in the London area, only 1 daily BA flight from Glasgow 0 from Edinburgh to LGW

    • Happeemonkee says:
      20 Sep20 September 09:43

      London is all they care about

    • Mikeact says:
      20 Sep20 September 11:06

      EDI/GLA offer around 250 destinations….spoilt for choice.
      Or, of course, like all of us ,you have excellent connections to Dublin, Amsterdam, Paris,Madrid etc,etc for unlimited choice to anywhere you choose.

    • Andrew. says:
      20 Sep20 September 13:29

      There’s a connecting coach between Heathrow & Gatwick, it’s not exactly difficult to transfer. Or just take an LNER service to Kings Cross, then transfer to Thameslink to Gatwick.

      Besides, you can fly direct (some seasonally) to New York, Boston, Orlando, DC, Chicago, Toronto, Atlanta, and Calgary from EDI so there’s a definite alternative to trekking down to London.

  • CWools says:
    20 Sep20 September 09:41

    At the expense of other LGW routes. My DOH-LGW flight in Apr has just been cancelled 🙁

  • Howard says:
    20 Sep20 September 10:10

    I am off to Dubai in two week using BA 241 in Club. What are chances of First coming up in rewards in last two week? I know that there are 4 First for cash sale on my flight

    • Sharon says:
      20 Sep20 September 10:41

      Same for me going to Tokyo in November. There are still cheap First seats available on my dates so am hoping they will get released last minute. I have set up a seat spy for my specific dates in the hope they will come up.

    • NorthernLass says:
      20 Sep20 September 12:34

      Are you monitoring SeatSpy/ba.com to see if this is happening in the run-up to your travel dates?

  • Paul says:
    20 Sep20 September 21:58

    Flew CpH to AUH for 45,000 and change by booking via QR not BA who wanted 60,000 plus £600. Have nabbed 2 x one way in J also at standard rates for Jan.

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