BA version of the ‘125,000 bonus Avios’ promotion found – but only for non-UK EU residents

I wrote an article yesterday about the American Airlines offer which gives you a bonus  of 2,000 to 25,000 AA miles for up to five transatlantic return flights you credit to AA by 31st January.  This is open to UK residents.

I mentioned that Iberia has a version of this offer which is valid for UK residents but it is targetted.

I have now found details of the British Airways version.  This is ONLY for residents of Continental Europe, however.

To be precise:

Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine

The British Airways offer differs from the American Airlines version in two respects – you earn nothing on cheap economy tickets and less than half the miles on Premium Economy / World Traveller Plus.

You only receive:

25,000 bonus Avios for every Club World or First return tickets (same the AA offer)

7,000 bonus Avios for every full-fare Economy or World Traveller Plus return tickets (the AA offer earns 15,000 bonus miles)

no bonus on discounted Economy return tickets (the AA offer earns 2,000 bonus miles)

Note that – unlike the American Airlines version of this offer – existing bookings do not count.  You will only receive the bonus for new bookings made on or after 1st October.

Qualifying flights are anything on BA, Iberia, Finnair, AA, US Airways or OpenSkies to the US, Canada, Mexico or Puerto Rico, flown before 31st January 2016 and booked after 1st October 2015.

The offer can be found on ba.com here (this is the French version).

If you live in the UK and will be flying to North America before the end of January, you have three options:

credit your flights to American Airlines in order to earn the bonus miles, whilst remembering that you won’t earn any British Airways tier points and will also miss out on any status bonus if Bronze, Silver or Gold.  If you are flying Economy long-haul on discounted tickets, you should be crediting flights to AA instead of BA anyway as AA still gives 100% of miles flown.  BA only gives you 25%.

credit your flights to British Airways as usual, missing out on the bonus but earning the usual Avios and, perhaps more importantly for many people, tier points.  Status members would receive their status bonus as usual.

open a 2nd British Airways account at a European address – keeping all of your personal details out of your profile so that BA does not notice the duplication – and credit your flights to that.  You will be losing out on the tier points – at least to the extent that you can’t add them to your main UK balance – and you have no way of adding the Avios to your main balance either.  If crediting Club World flights, however, you would soon have enough miles in the European account to do a full redemption anyway.  (Obviously BA does not look kindly on this sort of behaviour and you do it at your own risk.)

The registration page for the offer on the French version of ba.com can be found here.

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 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 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.)