British Airways launches extra flights to Cape Town, St Lucia and Cancun

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By an amazing coincidence, one day after Virgin Atlantic announced its new route to Cape Town, British Airways has announced an extra Cape Town service.

There will be an additional two flights per week from London Gatwick to Cape Town, starting on 10th January.

This takes the number of weekly British Airways flights from London to Cape Town to 19, on top of the 14 BA flights to Johannesburg and the three weekly services to Durban.

British Airways launches additional Cape Town flight from Gatwick

This is not necessarily overkill, because Cape Town was a route also served by Thomas Cook before its demise. It is possible that both BA and Virgin can make a success of their flights, although the lack of full fare Business Class traffic – as opposed to leisure travellers in flat beds on £1,750 sale deals – may prove to be an issue.

British Airways also announced two other frequency increases yesterday:

St Lucia gains an additional flight on Wednesday and Saturday. No dates were given, but the implication is that the service will simply continue to operate nine times per week when the Summer timetable ends in October, rather than dropping down to seven as it does usually.

Cancun gains an additional weekly service, on Sundays, from 6th December. This will take the number of weekly flights up to six.

Both of these routes operate from London Gatwick.

It isn’t clear where the aircraft are coming from to operate these new services. BA has some flexibility due to the arrival of additional A350 and Boeing 777 aircraft and the ability to flex the retirement of the Boeing 747 and older Boeing 777 fleet.

PS. If you missed it, take a look at our recent article on the top 10 reasons why I think you should get a British Airways Premium Plus American Express credit card.

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

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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.

Rui N. says:

14 Feb14 February 08:38

1500MR for £5100. Ah ah ah. Maybe they made a mistake, and it was supposed to be the other way around?!
- Lady London says:
  
  14 Feb14 February 12:00
  
  🙂 Good one.
  
  On these pathetic offers I think the last thing I’d do is spend on them. A dog will only make the minimum effort to get the biscuit. Why teach them that you’ll participate for such low rewards? I think I’d defo not increase my spend.
- Martin says:
  
  14 Feb14 February 13:17
  
  Exactly the same for me – no thank you.
Kenny says:

14 Feb14 February 08:45

OT.. found Oslo to Bangkok business class with Etihad for less than £1k. 2 stopovers though, Brussels and AbuDhabi
Matthew says:

14 Feb14 February 09:04

I got spend £400 get 400MR on my plat card…
PJ says:

14 Feb14 February 09:08

I was offered 3000 MR points on £1,500 spend on my Plat. Seems significantly better than most of the others on here, scrolling through the comments. Wonder how they are calculating the offers?
ian_h says:

14 Feb14 February 09:16

Fineco gives you 3 accounts in 1 (GBP, USD & EUR plus optional free accounts in most other currencies you might need) plus you get a debit card, IBAN etc and theres no spread on currency conversions.

This link gives us both £50 if you use it so Rob feel free to remove the cp code if its breaches your rules. https://finecobank.com/uk/apriconto/scelta-online-uk?cp=UK3461578
- Boi says:
  
  14 Feb14 February 11:00
  
  @Ian are their exchange rates similar to Revolut? I will avail of your referral with thanks
  - ian_h says:
    
    15 Feb15 February 22:27
    
    Hi
    
    I find I get a slightly better rate on Fineco than either Revolut or Transferwise
- Lady London says:
  
  14 Feb14 February 11:56
  
  Are they covered by guarantee?
  - ian_h says:
    
    15 Feb15 February 22:28
    
    Yes full £85k guarantee
Tobeman says:

14 Feb14 February 09:22

Just to complete the impromptu study of offer terms received, I have spend £2,900 receive 1,500 MR.
BarclaysGlobalAgg says:

14 Feb14 February 09:24

I was offer 0 MR points for £0 spend hahahaha
- Peter K says:
  
  14 Feb14 February 11:04
  
  At least it’s an easy spend target.
GRIMZ says:

14 Feb14 February 09:25

OT, Morrison’s gift cards – can they be used to buy petrol?
- Andy says:
  
  14 Feb14 February 09:29
  
  Yes, but some staff don’t know how to process them in the till. If they have problems there is a button on the till screen marked gift card ans they need to push that before scanning AFAIK.
  - TonyG says:
    
    14 Feb14 February 09:54
    
    Do you mean the plastic gift cards?
    Can they be used for petrol?
    - GRIMZ says:
      
      14 Feb14 February 09:56
      
      yes
      - Andy says:
        
        14 Feb14 February 13:59
        
        Yes. Used my plastic gift card today. They need to select the “morrisons gift card” button before scanning it.
- Secret Squirrel says:
  
  14 Feb14 February 10:49
  
  Seems a bit of talk on Morries GC at the moment, what’s the offer?
  - Andrew says:
    
    14 Feb14 February 11:06
    
    If you bank with Lloyds, BoS, Halifax, HSBC or First Direct there have been a number of funds return offers.
    
    If you have a loyalty relationship with Virgin Atlantic, Airtime, NextJump and others there have been further funds return offers that stack with the banking offers and sometimes multi-stack.
    
    If everything stacks you could earn up to £35 funds return and 800 Virgin miles for every £100 you spend. Reality is usually just one loyalty and one banking reward per transaction.
    - GRIMZ says:
      
      14 Feb14 February 11:37
      
      Yes but I am meaning a £50 gift card that you buy off the rack for Morrison’s – can you use these to buy fuel?
      - BJ says:
        
        14 Feb14 February 12:10
        
        See below; something has or is about to change.
- BJ says:
  
  14 Feb14 February 10:53
  
  The paper ones can. However, I’vd been told within the last hour by Morrisons cafe staff that vouchers cannot or will soon no longer be accepted in cafe or petrol station. She said she did not kniw exactly yet but it might only apply to the new plastic ones as she went off to the store manager who appparentlyn gave the ok on my paper one. Gave me a free breakfast for my (nonexistent) trouble 🙂
  - Andy says:
    
    14 Feb14 February 14:02
    
    The tills in the petrol stations were recently updated to process plastic gift card payments though so it would be strange if they were to backtrack.
    - BJ says:
      
      14 Feb14 February 14:59
      
      Is there anything else you can think of that is the problem, another giftcard Morrisons took? The lady in the cafe was certain their is one that they are not supposed to accept anymore but she didn’t know which one which is why she asked the manager. The word that came back was that my paper ones were still fine hence the conclusion on new ones. It would have been odd if they didn’t take the paper ones as I just bought them during the same visit to the store this morning. I’m a bit surprised they are still around to be honest.
      - Shoestring says:
        
        14 Feb14 February 15:09
        
        I’ve got the T&Cs in front of me (in my wallet) and no mention is made of ‘invalid in cafe’ or PFS
        
        haven’t had to fill up the car yet but should be fine, same as lottery tickets etc
        
        not usable online
      - Shoestring says:
        
        14 Feb14 February 15:14
        
        you can’t believe what the staff tell you, some of the time
        
        I was in Tesco the other week and the cashier said only one (Amazon) giftcard allowed, I said hope not as I’ve got a £12 off £70 coupon, can you pls just give it a try?, but she called over the duty mgr (with me thinking I’d really messed up) and he just said fine, we gave that instruction before Xmas to speed up the tills but no problem now and he proceeded to stand there making sure the cashier processed my 2 Amazon giftcards & MOC correctly 🙂
      - BJ says:
        
        14 Feb14 February 15:23
        
        Must have been sonething like love2shop or on4all then as I doubt there is anything else at Morrisons other than the old paper or new plastic cards. I haven’t seen the new ones yet. Possibly it could be the More vouchers although I’d be surprised if they would not take those in the cafe.
      - EwanG says:
        
        14 Feb14 February 16:55
        
        @BJ likewise I got told the same re not taking plastic GCs for fuel when I filled up last Friday. I’m down to my last few paper vouchers and feel confident enough with the info above to let PFS staff check if system allows it / is feasible despite what they have been (mis) informed by management! 😉
        Also @BJ did you see I had success at Scotmids x2!
      - Andy says:
        
        14 Feb14 February 16:59
        
        Most Morrisons PS staff haven’t been trained in how to process a plastic morrisons gift card but the till can do it. They don’t see many of them at all.
      - Grant says:
        
        14 Feb14 February 17:04
        
        @Ewan – how long did you need to wait for a response from Accor Shareholder Club after filling in the form, etc?
      - EwanG says:
        
        14 Feb14 February 17:13
        
        @Grant I think it was on the 2nd working day after filling in the form that my status changed, it was very prompt! I then received an app notification and an email a few days later (but not both on the same day). I can double check if you want exact dates!
      - BJ says:
        
        14 Feb14 February 18:30
        
        @EwanG, thanks, one of these Scotmids was at the shops over at Drumbrae? If you want more paper vouchers from Morrisons, I got mine at Ferry Road Store this morning. Never had any problem using them to date at their PFS.