Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Qantas starts selling A380 London to Dubai …. for £380

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

Qantas has started selling seats on its new A380 service from London to Dubai.

I got an email yesterday saying that it was offering 380 seats at £380 each:

We’re offering 380 seats from £380 return economy to Dubai!

From 31 March 2013, you can fly the award-winning Qantas A380 to Australia via Dubai and start your trip in style and comfort. Choose from double daily flights departing London Heathrow and arrive refreshed and ready to start your adventures.

To take advantage of this introductory sale fare to Dubai, depart from London Heathrow between 1 April and 31 May 2013. Offr is valid until seats are sold out.

Flights to and from Dubai are subject to Government and regulatory approval.

As a reminder of the background to this story:

Qantas is dissolving its partnership with British Airways to ‘move in’ with Emirates.  Qantas will now route all of its flights to Europe via Dubai, instead of Hong Kong / Singapore / Bangkok, with passengers changing to/from Emirates services where necessary.

The other upshot of this is that BA will have reduced capacity to Sydney from 31st March, since it also used to sell tickets with BA flight numbers on the Qantas services.

If you want to try to grab a £380 ticket to Dubai, the link is here.

Another upshot of this move, of course, is that you will also be able to redeem Avios to Dubai on the Qantas services – although you won’t be able to use an Amex 2-4-1 voucher.  As of yesterday, though, redemption flights were not loaded into the Qantas system – indeed, Dubai is not even showing as a destination!


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

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

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

25,000 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.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

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

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable 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

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 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

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

40,000 points sign-up bonus 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.

Comments (8)

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

  • Phillip says:

    I have found plenty of availability on SYD-DXB and MEL-DXB in all premium classes, but not the other way round! And as you say, nothing yet on LHR-DXB.

  • Phillip says:

    I stand corrected – I have now seen reward flights on BAEC on QF on the LHR-DXB route in October 2013.

  • PanGalactic says:

    Excellent news! Gives us another option for when there is no availability on BA award inventory!!

  • PanGalactic says:

    It will be interesting to see how much the taxes are. I just tried to do a dummy booking and it’s coming up with this:

    Error
    Sorry, we cannot currently book the journey you have chosen. You may wish to reselect a different cabin, try again later, or call your service center.

    Also, they only seem to be a maximum of 2 seats per flight offered which is annoying as I always need 3!

  • Boddingtons says:

    Taxes are pricey….. the same as revenue rates. I priced up a DXB-LHR and it was in the region of £180 in business class for the one way. This would be avoided using AA miles.

    • Will says:

      I’m not familiar with AA miles, can you book tax free with them?

      • Raffles says:

        I don’t know, to be honest. You can certainly use AA miles on Qantas but no idea about tax. Try a dummy booking on the AA website.

        Plan B to Dubai is airberlin. Berlin to Abu Dhabi (a one hour bus ride to Dubai) is just 50,000 Avios plus £48 for Business, half that for Economy.

        • will says:

          AA website made my head explode. I’m only just getting to grips with using exec club to book with Iberia/lingus and now airberlin. Airberlin could make a very nice stop over and onward business class journey to some far flung regions!

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

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.