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Bits: new BA Holidays booking system, Best Western exclusive discounts

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News in brief:

BA Holidays unveils impressive new booking system

British Airways has given its BA Holidays booking site an overhaul.  And, to be honest, it seems impressive.

The company has realised that the standard ‘fly down, one hotel, fly back’ model doesn’t work for a lot of its customers.  In August, for example, we are flying down to Spain for a week, flying up to the Dolomites for a week, taking the train to Venice for a couple of days and then returning from there.

The new BA Holidays website lets you add together:

  • open jaw flights to and from different airports
  • multiple hotel bookings at different properties
  • car hire for just a part of your trip

It will then churn out a price which, because BA Holidays can access cheaper flights than you can buy yourself on ba.com, should work out cheaper than buying each component separately.

You can find out more on the BA Holidays website here and going to ‘Customise My Trip’.

Best Western Rewards adds special rates for members

Best Western has joined the list of hotel chains which offers exclusive discounts to members of its loyalty scheme, in this case Best Western Rewards.

The reason for this is that hotels offer agree ‘price parity’ deals on Expedia and the like which stops them undercutting.  By restricting these discounts to members – even though membership is free and you can sign up whilst booking – Best Western gets around this restriction because it is theoretically not an ‘open to all’ discount.

For now, these discounts are restricted to the Summer period – 13th June and 4th September – and you will receive 20% off the standard B&B price if you join Best Western Rewards.  Full details of the offer can be found here.


Hotel offers update – April 2024:

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

Want to buy hotel points?

  • Hilton Honors is offering a 100% bonus when you buy points by 14th May 2024. Click here.

Comments (24)

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

  • Kathryn says:

    Can you book a holiday for one person yet?

    • Alan says:

      +1 forgot that was the other major flaw with the old site

    • Kevin says:

      I’ve previously booked s BA Holiday when being the only one travelling.

    • Fenny says:

      You always could, but it just whacks up the pp price from the nice headline grabber to something less enticing.

    • Kathy says:

      I was just coming to say that – does it allow you to search cheap holidays for one?

      • Lady London says:

        You’re right Kathy this was what stopped me booking BA Holidays every time I tried to before. If they’ve fixed this problem it’s great… despite the issues with hotel rooms occupied by one person etc. having to be charged more if there are not 2 people to pay for the room component, I would like access to the fares (equivalent to the old “IT” [inclusive tour] fares BA Holidays has access to.

        I’m sick and tired of being discriminated again when I am travelling singly on leisure, to any extent greater than necessary!

        If BA have fixed this then I will book through BA Holidays several times a year.
        If they are still making it worthless for a single traveller to use BA Holidays even if taking just a car and not even a hotel, where the impact of a single traveller is a bit less, then I’ll walk away from BA even more than I am currently being forced by their various initiatives such as
        – killing On Business for those that are operating a business, but don’t have to be VAT registered and not even having the courtesy to tell us – and btw not imposing that same rule in other countries
        – artificially ramping up the lowest cost fares by a huge amount at any hint of seasonality even early shoulder season and not just peak season etc….

        I’ve just about had enough of it. If BA Holidays really has improved for single travellers as well, then this will go a long way towards recovering my business back to BA.

  • Alan says:

    Sounds half decent – by any chance does it also now work properly when searching across a range of dates for anywhere apart from ex-LON departures? That was a major issue previously where half the functionality only seemed to work from there.

  • Benjamin Kaye says:

    What about the deposit option, this used to be that you had to have a car or hotel for the full time between the outbound and inbound flights to utilise the deposit option…

    • Benjamin Kaye says:

      I just tested, seems you can! Tried a 14 night trip to US open jaw with hotel for five nights and can use the deposit system!

  • Metatone says:

    Anyone having trouble with the BA site this morning? (O/T)

  • Andrew H says:

    O/T. I had a reply from Heinemann concerning the 1000 points promo. Here’s what they said:

    “Thank you for your message. Kindly be informed that the Happy Moments theme ends on April, 30th.
    Approximately 6 weeks later your miles will be credited.

    With kind regards,
    Jan”

  • James Alexander says:

    Really? £30 off a long haul flight to NZ in friggin economy? Who is this aimed at? Who will incentivise?
    What’s going on when airlines think this is an “offer”

    Do they seriously think that 30 quid is the decisive factor on whether a passenger joins with them or not?

    Ludicrous and frankly as an “offer” it’s insulting!

  • Lady London says:

    I thought so and generally ignore Air NZ offers as not competitive.

    But you’ve got to feel for them – they’re route sharing with SQ now however AA, VA, QR, EK, and I don’t know the code for Etihad, are all piling into Auckland now.

    • James67 says:

      i would still choose ANZ over all of those. I had the pleasure of flying their F/J class (nowadays really just J) on their 744s between LHR and LAX eight times. All round, remains my favourite business class flight experience.

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