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

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• Damien says:

  30 Apr30 April 14:02

  If your just flying with hand luggage, is there any issue just getting off at Heathrow?

  • Alan says:

    30 Apr30 April 14:04

    Nope, just the advice above about not dropping your final sector too often – doing it occasionally won’t be an issue with BA.

  • thesaver79 says:

    30 Apr30 April 14:04

    As Raffles has said before, there is no issue provided that you don’t do it often (once a year is fine) and that you inform BA you won’t be catching the following segment.

    • Andy says:

      30 Apr30 April 15:02

      Do you really need to inform BA you won’t catch the last segment? When do you usually do this, at the airport where you collect your baggage or do you call them? What you reason do you give?

      Cheers!

      • Rob says:

        30 Apr30 April 15:47

        I have never told them!

        • thesaver79 says:

          30 Apr30 April 15:53

          Wouldn’t it be nicer to let them know so that there is no risk they’ll wait for you?

        • Paul says:

          30 Apr30 April 19:50

          I thought you run the risk if telling them that they take the opportunity to re-price the ticket to reflect the sectors you intend to take (or have taken depending on when you tell them) and then charge you the higher price…

        • Callum says:

          1 May1 May 01:02

          They won’t wait for you. And as Paul says, there’s a risk that by cancelling the last leg you will be charged a fare-difference.

• Adam says:

  30 Apr30 April 14:11

  How do you search for theses fares? Is it through BA’s UK Site?

  • Alan says:

    30 Apr30 April 14:23

    For straightforward routings you can use BA.com. For more complex ones the multi-city tool on AA.com can be better. You can also call BA to book over the phone, which can be good for more complex itineraries – this also lets you pay in GBP and avoid 3% forex fees, which can be a substantial saving. BA Golds don’t pay phone booking fees but even if you are stuck paying £15 then it’d be worth it for fares >£500 given the saving in forex fees (plus if you have a BA Amex you’d get the bonus for booking with BA).

    • John says:

      30 Apr30 April 14:46

      You need to think of the 3% forex fee as paying for MR points/insurance/no credit limit on charge cards, because there is no need to pay any fee. Furthermore the mastercard rate is usually 0.25-0.5% better than the amex rate (before the fee) for any given day.

      You can book on Amex Travel (UK) if plans are fixed, to use the IATA exchange rate and pay in GBP and earn an extra MR point per £ too

      • Alan says:

        30 Apr30 April 14:50

        Yes, fair point although a lot of folk I know have a sign-up or voucher target to hit and thus keen to use their Amex 😉

        Re. rates – it really does seem to vary day-by-day as to which one wins on the rate front – I remember a few comparisons were posted on BA. I’ve always been very impressed with how close the rate on my PO MC is to the rates listed on xe.com!

        The other benefit to booking with BA is for using Avios to upgrade if there’s availability. For AA TP runs I still prefer being on AA-issued stock as they seem to find it much easier to make booking changes when it’s ‘their’ ticket – I’ve not found that such an issue on BA.

        Glad Amex travel have finally dropped their booking fees on air tickets, although I wish their online search tool was a bit better.

  • Rob says:

    30 Apr30 April 14:48

    Yes, I pulled them all up yesterday via the UK BA site. Just because you aren’t starting in the UK doesn’t mean you have to use an overseas version of the site.

• pauldb says:

  30 Apr30 April 14:58

  The OSL-SYD fare (also available from BGO/SVG for a 4500 avios positioning flight) allows 2 free stopovers. So you if you aren’t bothered about stopping twice in Asia, you can easily get your bags bag with a stop (<10 days) on your return to LHR (though that adds £26 of UK APD).
  This is useful as, arriving back early morning from Asia, there are no next day, <24hr options, nor LGW options, back to Norway.

• Froggitt says:

  30 Apr30 April 20:35

  The so-called green APD tax again leading to behaviours that significantly increase CO2 emissions……flying to Rome and back etc.

  • Paul says:

    30 Apr30 April 20:43

    APD is not the reason these fares are less than the UK, I don’t know anyone who starts in the EU to avoid just APD.

    Yes it is avoided but the fare difference is often 000’s not a £180. People use these routes as it saves a lot more than APD, indeed the fuel surcharge or “carrier imposed fees” is often at the same level as the UK APD had the journey started in London.

    These are greatly reduced fares to fill unwanted seats without impacting on the main yield revenue stream…..ie the UK market.

    It would be significantly more beneficial to consumers if people’s ire was directed at carrier fees and fuel surcharges, which are often double APD in most instances.

• John says:

  1 May1 May 02:28

  Well this is not a problem for anyone with an EEA passport. But really they should have predicted this and booked a fully refundable return.

• Richard says:

  1 May1 May 06:36

  At least for HEL-JFK these low fares are loaded in a very strange way. The price is CHEAPER during peak times (july/august holiday period, thanksgiving, Christmas) and more EXPENSIVE after this. It’s as if they loaded the peak time version of this fare (IL28SALE) but forgot to upload the off-peak version.
  Flying at thanksgiving/christmas is 600e cheaper than flying the week after!

  Or they have mixed up IL28SALE and I28SALE.
  IL28SALE=1119euro, I28SALE=1792euro
  You would think 1119e would be off peak and 1792 peak times, but they defined the dates the other way around. IL28SALE is valid only for holiday time/thanksgiving/christmas!

• How to find cheap British Airways fares from Europe says:

  1 May1 May 07:00

  […] I ran a post which highlighted some of the excellent fares that British Airways is currently offering from starting points in Europe.  These […]

• Damien says:

  1 May1 May 09:52

  If you were flying to NYC. Then would these flights also qualify for the First class upgrade offer BA have?
  http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/offers/flights/upgrade-to-first?source=H05X&hpsource=H05EXFreeupgradetoFi

  • Rob says:

    1 May1 May 11:13

    They book into I-class so no.

  • Richard says:

    1 May1 May 11:42

    The J -> F upgrade offers are normally for fares from the UK. This discussion is about fares from Europe

    >>A Qualifying Flight: (i) is a published fully or semi flexible return fare in Club World on a BA mainline service departing from the UK<<

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