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British Airways adds new weekend flights from Birmingham and Bristol

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No sooner has British Airways confirmed their new weekend services to Europe from Manchester (see here) than BA has announced routes from Birmingham and Bristol this summer.

It is a long time – 10 years for Birmingham – since the BA logo was last seen at a check-in counter at either of these airports.

As with the Manchester service, these flights will use one of the Embraer 190 aircraft which are usually based at London City Airport but which sit idle over the weekend whilst City is closed.

Both airports are gaining the same routes – Ibiza, Malaga, Palma and, a surprise fourth choice, Florence.

All flights operate once a week.  The operating dates are 20th May – 30th September 2017 for Ibiza / Palma and 20th May – 28th October for Florence / Malaga.

Here’s the timetable:

Birmingham – Florence

  • Outbound 19.20 – 22.40 Saturday
  • Inbound 17.10 – 18.35 Saturday

Birmingham – Ibiza

  • Outbound 22.10 – 01.45 + 1 Saturday
  • Inbound 19.50 – 21.25 Saturday

Birmingham – Malaga

  • Outbound 23.05 – 02.55 + 1 Saturday
  • Inbound 20.25 – 22.20 Saturday

Birmingham – Palma

  • Outbound 23.00 – 02.30 + 1 Saturday
  • Inbound 20.40 – 22.15 Saturday

Bristol – Florence

  • Outbound 13.10 – 16.25 Saturday
  • Inbound 11.05 – 12.25 Saturday

Bristol – Ibiza

  • Outbound 15.25 – 18.50 Saturday
  • Inbound 13.10 – 14.40 Saturday

Bristol – Malaga

  • Outbound 16.00 – 19.40 Saturday
  • Inbound 13.30 – 15.15 Saturday

Bristol – Palma

  • Outbound 16.30 – 19.55 Saturday
  • Inbound 14.15 – 15.45 Saturday

These times don’t match up between inbound and outbound flights because the aircraft are switching between Birmingham and Bristol rotations.  The flight which lands in Palma from Bristol at 19.55, for example, returns at 20.40 but heads to Birmingham.

These will be two class flights so Club Europe is an option.  That said, the Embraer aircraft used are 2 x 2 seating throughout so the only difference will be lounge access and a free meal.

The flights are available for booking at ba.com.  As a minimum, you will have 2 x Club Europe and 4 x Eurotraveller seats available for Avios redemption.

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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.

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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.

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

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (59)

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

  • rams1981 says:
    10 Feb10 February 14:25

    OT to continue on Hilton I’m looking at booking a room to take advantage of the 5 nights for the price of 4 using points but the summary suggests it’s charging for 5 nights still. Has this benefit gone?

    • rams1981 says:
      10 Feb10 February 14:39

      KING GUEST ROOM
      Points (5 nights x 40,000) : 200,000
      DIA STANDARD RM RWD
      Change
      Total for stay: 200,000 points

    • Liz says:
      10 Feb10 February 14:43

      No it just reduces the cost of the points – say a room is 40k per night you will pay 160k instead of 200k – check the individual night cost first and it should recalculate – I did that for Washington later this year – bought 160k pts before the Brexit vote and then redeemed 5 for 4 – bargain!

    • ankomonkey says:
      10 Feb10 February 14:44

      Are you booking a standard redemption? The 5for4 doesn’t work for premium redemptions. It also doesn’t work for all their properties. I got nowhere arguing with CS that I couldn’t find anywhere on the site saying that certain properties are excluded, and when I invited them they also couldn’t find a place where it says this…

      • rams1981 says:
        10 Feb10 February 15:30

        thanks both. It was for a standard redemption. didn’t realise they factor in the reduction based on dates searched. As Liz says it was a 50k per night room.

        £985 on hotels.com for same dates which works out to nearly 0.5p value which I’d be happy with. Direct Hilton booking works out to £880 using today’s FX rate so worst case I’d be getting 0.44p which seems ok?

        • James67 says:
          10 Feb10 February 16:38

          Continuing with Hilton, just learned from LL that Hilton Copenhagen switching from Hilton to Choice hotels. No news as to existing HHonors redemption being honoured although I doubt they will be going by my own previous experience.

  • Nate1309 says:
    10 Feb10 February 17:16

    I have tried to book these flights (BRS-FLR) and I keep getting an error that the flights aren’t in amadeus. Has anyone managed to book these flights online?

  • Anna says:
    10 Feb10 February 19:53

    OT – I don’t know what BA are playing at but I’ve had texts and emails today saying the 3 Man-Bremen flights I had booked for November have been cancelled (this is the 2nd time in 3 months they have cancelled flights I have booked). When I’ve gone on line to rebook I just get the message that they don’t fly this route! This is a long-standing route for BA/Sun-Air and there doesn’t seem to be anything in the news about it being cancelled. Has anyone else had similar problems? I’m starting to think there’s no point actually booking with BA any more as they seem so cavalier about wrecking people’s travel plans! I presume they won’t be compensating people for hotel bookings etc either.

    • Rob says:
      10 Feb10 February 20:23

      It’s cancelled, it was announced today. See HFP tomorrow.

      • Anna says:
        10 Feb10 February 20:43

        They seem to have a real downer on me at the moment. Three trips with them booked so far for this year, all either changed or cancelled. Do they have any obligation to find me alternative flights/destination? I really wanted a short break which didn’t involve going via Heathrow!

      • James67 says:
        10 Feb10 February 21:08

        Any news on what they will be doing about AB bookings? I’ve got two and so far so good but it’ll be challenging and/or expensive if they don’t honour them.

  • jimmy says:
    10 Feb10 February 22:42

    OT

    Using Mac…and that bloody fifty shades advert is still f%cking up!!!!

    Thought it was being removed for Mac users?!!!

    Arghhhhh!!! PLEASE DITCH THESE ADS ROB

    • Rob says:
      10 Feb10 February 22:43

      Yes, they told me they would try to delete it today – the guy told me he thought he knew how to do it. Clearly not. Sorry.

      Ironically he hasn’t got a Mac and I don’t have a Mac so it is difficult for anyone involved in this to actually see the problem.

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