British Airways launches a new service to Lima

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If your holiday plans for 2016 are not yet firm, British Airways has thrown you a curve ball with the potential to use your Avios points to head down to ….. Lima. A trip to the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu might be on the cards.

From May 4th, you will be able to fly from Gatwick to Peru. This will be the only direct service available between the two countries.

Operated by a three class Boeing 777 (so no First Class option), the service will operate three times a week – Wednesday, Friday and Sunday – in Summer and twice a week in Winter.

Cash tickets are already available on ba.com although they had not loaded Avios availability when I checked yesterday.

As is usual with new routes, you can expect very good redemption availability whilst the route beds down.

Iberia also flies to Lima and, of course, Iberia Avios redemptions in Business – when booked on iberia.com – usually save you around £300-£400 per person in tax. If you are not using an American Express 2-4-1 voucher, you may still prefer to book from Madrid. To avoid UK long haul Air Passenger Duty, you would need to buy or redeem a separate ticket to Spain.

Remember that British Airways is also launching Costa Rica as a new route next May – details in this article.

How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a 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, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios 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.

(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Category

British Airways and Avios

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

ee says:

19 Aug19 August 07:50

OT but another avios suitcase badge is available. All you have to do is like a certain FB post. 30 avios!
- Graeme says:
  
  19 Aug19 August 08:23
  
  Have they caught onto the sharing to ‘only me’ thing yet?
  - TimS says:
    
    19 Aug19 August 11:06
    
    Yes they have, but there’s nothing to stop you sharing/liking the post, collecting the sticker and then deleting the share/like immediately afterwards.
  - Fenny says:
    
    19 Aug19 August 18:39
    
    Set up another FB account and share with that.
Bob says:

19 Aug19 August 09:00

Another service from Gatwick! Never mind a new service to Lima, I live in West Yorkshire and BA really ticks (can’t use a stronger word) me off anybody living North of Watford or were ever is not considered, I’m having to fly from Manchester to Heathrow which is fine but my next 2for1 to Mauritius is from Gatwick, there used to be a service to Gatwick so now it’s bus or Taxi from Heathrow to Gatwick with golfing stuff and other luggage what a pain. There seem to be more flights going from Gatwick than ever before, don’t suppose Raffles has any influence on getting Manchester Gatwick back on track. Maybe I should dump BA Amex and get an Emirates Amex at least they fly from Manchester
- IanT says:
  
  19 Aug19 August 10:08
  
  From West Yorkshire to Gatwick surely you are better off getting the train? It’d be much simpler than travelling to Manchester, flying to Heathrow and then travelling to Gatwick. Book well in advance and it’ll only cost you £35 from Leeds to Gatwick.
  - Bob says:
    
    19 Aug19 August 12:17
    
    Yes I know train sounds good but golf clubs and luggage you haven’t seem my wife’s luggage!
- Callum says:
  
  19 Aug19 August 14:10
  
  I’m sure you’re right. They have tonnes of space available at Heathrow but thought, “no, let’s start the service from Gatwick instead just to annoy people in Yorkshire”…
  - Troll Basher says:
    
    19 Aug19 August 15:36
    
    …and Lancashire and Cheshire and Cumbria and North Wales; oh need we go on..?
    
    Few will contest that Gatwick is not the most accessible point of departure for many people in the UK.
    
    For me, it’s a 3 1/2 drive, on a good day and with a following wind, or a 3+ hour train journey which would entail 2 changes, a station change and a tube ride.
    
    There must be a part of IAG which could operate a LGW-MAN moderately successfully with the overhauled cost base structures and the agreeably low cost of oil currently.
    - Fenny says:
      
      19 Aug19 August 18:43
      
      In the dim and distant, when I lived in Hudds and had to fly with the boss out of London, I used to get a LGW-MAN shuttle. For LHR, I just went by train and tube.
      
      But then, in those days, there were also regular flights between MAN and the US, so unless the boss insisted we all travelled together, I’d go from MAN and get the train to/from Hudds.
- cheekychappie says:
  
  19 Aug19 August 17:26
  
  Far too much whining on HFP these days – get over it, you chose to live a certain distance away from the main airports, so that means you need to find a convenient way to travel to said airports to use the facilities/ routes offered.
  
  Nobody is going to magic you into the airport from wherever you live, that seems to be what most of you want.
  
  Can’t stand all these whiners, they’re worse than 2 year olds..
  - mikeact says:
    
    19 Aug19 August 17:58
    
    10/10
  - Worzel says:
    
    19 Aug19 August 18:49
    
    cheekychappie 5:26 pm:
    
    Good luck in your magical world!
    
    ‘they & we all want the same thing, ie motivated loyal custom for great rewards’ -your post at 4:47 pm on the Avios Redemption University Thread!
    - cheekychappie says:
      
      19 Aug19 August 18:56
      
      Wanting is not the same as getting 🙂
      
      Put it this way: if BA upped its game on in-flight service, perhaps threw in a lounge pass for Avios redemptions (which would cost them a meagre tenner), retired a few ‘old wimmin’ trolley dollies who would never be employed @ Virgin, & improved Avios opps: we’d all be overjoyed.
      
      Wouldn’t actually cost them much & would generate a huge amount of extra business over time.
Joe says:

19 Aug19 August 10:38

This, along with the new Costa Rica route, is a really positive step by BA – it’s about time they opened up direct flights from the UK to destinations like this. But I’m not sure why they have allocated it to Gatwick instead of LHR? Does this mean BA sees Peru as more of a leisure destination?
- Frenske says:
  
  19 Aug19 August 11:05
  
  Yes
- Rob says:
  
  19 Aug19 August 11:27
  
  I think so. It also looks like it dovetails with Costa Rica – between them, it will take the full weekly availability of 1 x 777, albeit they won’t necessarily use the same plane all the time.
  - Graeme says:
    
    19 Aug19 August 12:28
    
    It’s a real shame there’s no First when I’ve got a 2-4-1 burning a hole in my pocket….
    - Danksy says:
      
      19 Aug19 August 12:38
      
      I have had to let a 2f1 expire …gutted!
      - Worzel says:
        
        19 Aug19 August 15:21
        
        Me too Danksy (May)-almost over it now (?) !
Ian says:

19 Aug19 August 15:52

Any idea when they will open Avios bookings for these routes?
- Rob says:
  
  19 Aug19 August 17:04
  
  No. You need to keep checking. It is 90% certain you will see the ‘4 economy, 2 Club World’ there from day 1 of booking being available as a minimum. The new Glasgow to Salzburg route announced today already has Avios redemption seats loaded so I am not sure why it doesn’t happen immediately on all new routes.
Jamsey says:

19 Aug19 August 15:58

Probably late in the day to ask this question so I will ask again tomorrow, does anybody know any cheap Marriott / renniansce properties like with ihg everybody knows the properties you can always snap up for £30/40 a night but what about Marriott rewards anything in there prortfolio always low in price?
- mikeact says:
  
  19 Aug19 August 18:02
  
  O/T…ask on FT.