Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Good British Airways business fares – Sydney £2130, Orlando £1445, New York £1156

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British Airways is currently offering some genuinely excellent fares in Club World – with the snag that you need to start your flight outside the UK.

Given the huge discounts available, though, this is a sacrifice of your time that is worth making in my view.

Here are a few examples, which generally require a 28 day advance purchase.  They do not seem to be ‘sale’ fares – the recent European sale finished a few days ago – but simply very cheap standard Club World seats.

Amsterdam to Seattle – £1692 (€2056 to be precise)

Munich to Orlando – £1445 (€1890)

Oslo to Sydney – £2130 (NOK 21,411)

Rome to New York – £1498 (€1820) – as per the comments, this drops to an amazing €1405 (£1156) in July

All these prices are for 10-17 June as an example.  You should even be able to book segments on other oneworld airlines (eg Cathay if you route Sydney via Hong Kong) although this often requires a telephone booking if ba.com won’t throw it up.

There are likely to be other similar deals filed so it is worth having a play with ba.com to see what you can find.

For clarity, you absolutely MUST fly the original outward ticket or the rest of your itinerary will be cancelled.  You cannot just get on the plane in London.

On the way back, you can hop off in the UK but only if you can get your bags tagged to London.  The easiest way to guarantee this is to book your last leg from Gatwick or City, as BA cannot tag bags through when you connect to a different airport.  This is often not possible – Oslo is only flown from Heathrow, for example.  If you can’t manage that, booking the last leg for the following day (but within 24 hours of landing) usually means you can get your bags back in London.

Tomorrow on Head for Points, I will run a brief tutorial on how to find cheap BA fares with European departure points.

Meanwhile, there is also a five day ‘Flash Sale’ on World Traveller and World Traveller Plus seats at the moment, which ends on May 1st.  This is valid for tickets up to 8th December, although there are date restrictions on some routes.  The Low Fare Finder tool on ba.com will show you the best months for any particular route.


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 (51)

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

  • Brian says:

    Qatar seem to be running their 2for1 business class deal again, too.

    • Rob says:

      Yes they are, will hopefully run a quick overview tomorrow (although time is running out)

    • thesaver79 says:

      Do you have a link?

      • Rob says:

        Yes I know. I am still backlogged from being away for 2 weeks and this one has slipped through.

  • JonnyMcG says:

    Really looking forward to tomorrow’s post. Trying to figure out a BA TP Run from BHD for around 900 TP’s end of August / first week in September

    • thesaver79 says:

      If I find some time today, I’ll try to have a look for you. 🙂

      • JonnyMcG says:

        Thank you very much.

        Just landed in heathrow. Now to drive to Wimbledon for the first time. Have to love the tube strike 🙁

        • thesaver79 says:

          I’m assuming you want an ex-EU TP run. Will you be happy to get your own positioning flights separately?

          • Sabrina says:

            Ex-DUB would be preferential I’m sure to avoid that!

          • Jonnymcg says:

            Sorry for the late reply.
            I could fly to Amsterdam with a.n other airline and start the run from there.
            Ideally finishing the run or last leg to ams from lhr so I could drop it and do the short hop to belfast

  • thesaver79 says:

    For anyone who wants to try the LCY – JFK, you can get it for €1423 for dates in July from FCO. For example, 3-12 July.

    • Rob says:

      Impressive. I have added the June fare to the list.

      • thesaver79 says:

        I’ve combined it with internal flights with AA in First for a holiday/TP run in Chicago and Washington DC in July. 🙂

  • Matt says:

    Any idea on the valid dates for this sale? Checked November and am having little luck.

  • nux says:

    Most if not all of these are sales fares, they are an extension of the recent BA European sales.

    Some are valid through to early 2015 as well.

    • Matt says:

      do you have any examples?

      • nux says:

        VALID FOR TRAVEL COMMENCING ON/AFTER 30APR14 AND ON/BEFORE 27MAR15.

        You can find the fare rules including restrictions / validity period on ITA Matrix.

  • Nick says:

    Amazing! This could work out perfectly for me.

    Do you earn avios on these flights? I can’t see why not, but the BA avios calculator shows exactly 0 avios and 0 tier points earned for a club world flight from oslo to sydney.

  • danksy says:

    Could you explain the bag issue again?

    “The easiest way to guarantee this is to book your last leg from Gatwick or City, as BA cannot tag bags through when you connect to a different airport. This is often not possible – Oslo is only flown from Heathrow, for example. If you can’t manage that, booking the last leg for the following day (but within 24 hours of landing) usually means you can get your bags back in London.”

    I understand the problem, but I don’t understand the solution.

    Assuming I booked from AMS-JFK then JFK-AMS

    How could I “engineer” my bags leaving the plane before they were expecting me to? (i.e they expect me to continue to AMS on my return leg)

    And if i booked another fllight rom AMS-LHR within 24 hours, surely I’d have to collect my bags at the carousel and recheck in for my AMS-LHR flight?

    I think I’m missing something!
    cheers
    Danksy

    • Susan says:

      When you get to the bit where you choose your flights make sure that you transit through different London airports so AMS-LCY-JFK out becomes JFK-LCY- LHR-AMS back.

      An annoying quirk of BA (or very handy additional flexibility, depending on whether you’ve just booked an FCO-LHR-LGW-EDI transit by mistake or intent) is that it offers the chance to fly into one London airport and out of another. However when doing so you have to collect your luggage at the arrival airport and drop it off at the departure, you can’t check it through to the final destination as you can if arriving and departing at the same transit airport.

      • Susan says:

        You can then collect your bags at LCY and fail to turn up for the final LHR-AMS sector

    • Gregor says:

      I think Robert’s been fairly clear on this one. In your example, you come back into LHR from JFK, but he suggests your next leg to AMS is from LCY or LGW, so BA must give you your bags back to allow you to change airport – at that point, you go home instead. Some threads I’ve seen on this subject suggest a risk of losing the Avios & TPs for the booking because technically you didn’t complete your itinerary – I have no idea on that one.

      A few days ago I booked AMS/LHR/DFW/SFO/LAX/LHR/AMS in CW for £1670, to include a 24hr stopover in DFW, and a week in SFO. What a glorious bargain! For what it’s worth I’m going to complete the final AMS leg, just to be sure.

      For a cheap & cheerful overnight at Schiphol, the Yotel or Mercure are actually inside the terminal – very handy.

      Hope that helps.

      • Alan says:

        Indeed. Beware that AA take a much stricter line on this situation, especially on fares from the Caribbean, and have been known to cancel all points for the itinerary. Similarly with BA I’d only do this at most once or twice a year. Remember you’re also giving up 40TPs on the Club Europe flight and those of u that don’t live in London would still need to get a flight home anyway – AMS-EDI is as easy as LHR-EDI for me.

        • Rob says:

          I have done this a few times and never had a problem skipping the last leg. Once a year is OK, once a month is asking for trouble.

    • Paul says:

      There is no legal or other requirement for you to check bags to the final destination. It is an airline imposed requirement generally by staff who don’t actually understand what they are doing.

      I have never had anyone suggest that my bags go to final destination and hve always had them delivered in LHR.

      If you have concerns just book an extended transit and argue that you need the bags in the arrivals lounge. After all the 100ml rule applies to liquids!!!

      Nothing says you have to travel with your bags….airlines mishandle them every day!

      Do not tell them you are not travelling…ever just no show.

  • darrenf says:

    Very timely. Looking to book a SYD trip for early 2015 through AA.com with my new AAdvantage credit card – 12 months interest free on the purchase, and meeting the minimum spend for my signup bonus. 🙂

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