When a British Airways ex-Europe trip goes to plan

Last August, I ran a story about British Airways offering Club World tickets to Australia for just £2,050.  The snag was that you had to start and end your journey in Oslo.

Reader David booked one of these tickets.  As readers often tell me that they are nervous about booking such tickets because they are worried about what might happen if things go wrong, I asked David to give me a quick run-down of how it went for him and his wife.

His routing generated a total of 640 tier points each, giving them British Airways Executive Club Silver status, and 40,000 Avios points!

A couple of days after I asked David to write this, reader Mark also got in touch to tell me about an ex-EU flight which went wrong.  I am also running that story today in a separate article.

GETTING TO OSLO AND BACK

“We booked two single economy flights from Manchester to Oslo, outbound with SAS and inbound with Norwegian. Our luggage could not be booked through with either flight.

At Manchester we had our one and only disappointment of the holiday, we were declined entry to either of the lounges offered via Priority Pass as they were busy.

The SAS flight was mid morning, arriving in OSL early afternoon local time. Immigration was straight forward (Norway is not in the EU) as was luggage collection and customs, with most of the locals still in the duty free shop. It probably took us 40 minutes from leaving the plane to clearing customs.

We landed in OSL around 10.30am.  Again, we had a smooth journey through immigration and then joined the locals in the duty free shop, buying a bottle of wine to drink later in the hotel.  Our luggage was already on the carousel and then we were through customs and on the way to our hotel for the night.

Whilst same day flights were available back to Manchester, we decided to spend the night in Oslo anyway.

There are two hotels within the airport.  We stayed at the Park Inn which was about 300m away via a covered walk way. I had booked the hotel via HotelClub, we checked in prior to noon and I mentioned that I had Club Carlson Gold (via Amex Platinum).  The receptionist said I would not get points but did upgrade us to a corner room which was very comfortable and quiet. Again the price of alcohol was staggering – the cheapest house wine was £40 a bottle, a beer was nearly £10.

We did look at travelling into Oslo for the afternoon – the train runs directly from the airport and the journey is 20-30 minutes and about £17pp each way – but in the end just chilled at the hotel.

The next morning we flew back to Manchester with Norwegian.   Check in and security were smooth. Even though the ticket was under £40 we had an allowance of two checked bags. The flight was on time. Norwegian have free internet on board – there were some issues with it on our flight, but online browsing was possible. Inflight entertainment was available via the wifi on your own devices – it was quite strange watching the flight map on my iPad.

To sum up, we found that travelling ex Oslo was a smooth experience.  The extra flights and hotel cost less than £125 per person compared to a saving of £1400 per person over flying from Heathrow – and that ignores the cost of travelling to London from Manchester.  A little snow is expected in Oslo (we were there in March) and the airport operations are there to cope. We would not hesitate to book via Oslo again.”

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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:

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

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.

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

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.

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.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.