Bits: Sao Paulo in Business for £1300, free Luxury Travel Fair tickets

Some news in brief:

Good business class fares to Sao Paulo from Amsterdam

British Airways and SWISS are matching a KLM sale fare out of Amsterdam of roughly £1,300 (€1,800) to Sao Paulo in Business.

On Swiss, the earliest date I could find is 28th November and you can fly throughout Spring 2016.  It is NOT available on all days but swiss.com allows you to toggle between dates easily.  SWISS is a Star Alliance member so you will earn miles in Miles & More or any of the other Star schemes.

BA has this fare from Amsterdam from late September.  Some of the BA options are on BA flights whilst, on other days, you are routed onto the TAM service from London or the Iberia service from Madrid.  These also earns Avios and BA tier points.  The Iberia business class service is worth a go if you’ve never done it, especially if travelling solo due to the seat configuration.  You can pull up all of these routings on ba.com.

If you are not bothered about the miles, the SWISS route is tempting unless you are planning to hop off in London on the way back.

Free Luxury Travel Fair tickets

The Luxury Travel Fair is back at Olympia in London from 5th-8th November.

To be honest, this is not a hugely exciting event although they do seem to have improved the quality of the guest speakers this year (Michael Portillo, Bill Bryson).  It is essentially just a lot of high-end hotels and travel agents in booths – you don’t, for example, get airlines bringing along their latest business class seats to try out.

The last time I went was especially poor, with torrential rain and a fire at South Kensington tube station making for a particularly wet and depressing journey!

Until 11th September, you can order free tickets via their website using code LT4E in return for a £2.50 handling fee.  If you live nearby then it is worth popping in on the basis.  I don’t recommend it at the standard price of £14.50 in advance or £19.50 on the door.