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Amex suspends applications for the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card (again)

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In February 2023, the British Airways On Business website went down. Over a year later, it is still down.

Even by the standards of 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.

Amex suspends applications for the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card

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Unfortunately the problems with the British Airways On Business website mean that American Express has – yet again – withdrawn the Accelerating Business credit card to new applicants.

It was originally withdrawn in April 2023. However, with BA promising that On Business would be back up and running, Amex opened it up for new applications last November. Big mistake.

It’s not clear what is happening with On Business. A BA staffer swore in February 2024 that it would be back within a month. It’s also not clear why members have not been told what went on because it is their data that has been impacted.

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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

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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 On Business

Comments (27)

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

  • Return2sender says:
    27 May27 May 05:21

    I signed up for this card recently and the process around the application was dire. It seemed like an outsourced team was doing the application admin and I was not confident that my data were securely managed. In the end I got the card but the card often failed at POS. The credit limit was so low that meeting the 3 month spend limit was a challenge. I complained to Amex about the poor customer onboarding but they did not understand the issue. And I didn’t even bother with using On Business!

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
    27 May27 May 05:45

    If there has been a data breach or loss involving personal data wouldn’t BA have had to report it to the Information Commissioner?

    • Geoff says:
      27 May27 May 07:32

      Yes

    • Rob says:
      27 May27 May 08:49

      OB is outsourced to Comarch which is not a UK business.

      • meta says:
        27 May27 May 09:07

        The rules also apply to non-UK businesses that’s the whole point of these rules.

    • Blair Waldorf Salad says:
      27 May27 May 12:29

      Not all breaches are reportable, and of those that are not all are reportable to individuals impacted.

    • Jonathan says:
      27 May27 May 19:30

      Something that left me half laughing was when Alex Cruz was left surprised that the company got fined over £180million for security data breach, apparently the amount they were actually forced to pay wasn’t quite that figure quoted above, but that’s what the then CEO gets when he dismisses a UK based workforce and gives it to a company based in India, not the sole route of the problem, but definitely didn’t help

  • Return2sender says:
    27 May27 May 06:10

    The issue I had was that the comms looked fake. Some of their personal correspondence emails were cut and pasted from other emails and contained wrong information. Their email addresses didn’t look like genuine Amex ones. It was just very unprofessional.

    • Bagoly says:
      27 May27 May 13:22

      Same true for ICC – they sent me new bank details to pay to on email which did not match the ones on the website.
      (I think it was genuine, but I didn’t use those details. Apparently they had some problem collecting direct debits due to their bank in Germany)

  • Simon says:
    27 May27 May 07:00

    I just received my card on Friday. Looks like I just made it in time.

  • Geoff says:
    27 May27 May 07:32

    Is a staffer the same as an employee ?

    • cin4 says:
      27 May27 May 07:49

      Yes.

    • Richard says:
      27 May27 May 09:20

      An employee is someone with a contract of employment, and all of the rights and obligations that implies. A staffer could be an employee, could be a contractor, or in some organisations could be a volunteer.

      The distinction obviously doesn’t matter for this article, but if you’ve ever written policies for an organisation it quickly becomes crucial 🙂

  • davidn says:
    27 May27 May 09:14

    Interesting to read about the card failing at POS, unprofessional comms, suspect email addresses, etc.

    Is this card not ‘run’ by the normal Amex teams, in Brighton and elsewhere?

    If so, is the situation unique to this card, or are others (Marriott, Nectar, BA personal…) the same? Just a co-brand? Never seen anything similar myself with some of those.

    • Return2sender says:
      27 May27 May 10:09

      I’ve had several Amex cards over the years and remain pretty loyal because their systems have seemed robust and they’ve proactively caught some attempted fraud before I’ve spotted it. However the Accelerating Business card just hasn’t been well run imho.

  • Ben says:
    27 May27 May 09:16

    The whole Amex side was out of control too. I got my sign up bonus four times and then my incremental 10000 three times. I never received OB points though, so shut it down in under a year and had two nice Avios redemptions thanks.

  • memesweeper says:
    27 May27 May 11:28

    This is (was) the best returns on any UK amex for a very heavy business spender by my maths. I don’t currently hold it but I do hope it returns in a similarly generous way again.

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

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