British Airways extends ‘hand baggage only’ fares to all short-haul fare classes

The ‘hand baggage only’ experiment is clearly working.  This was initially trialled at Gatwick, offering a £10 discount each-way on non-flexible economy tickets to a handful of destinations.

Over the course of the last year British Airways has gradually been extending its coverage.  From July 17th, it is now available on ALL short haul departures in ALL fare classes:

From Heathrow and City airports, you can now save £10 each-way on semi-flexible and flexible tickets in the following fare buckets – L, M, K, H, B, Y.

From Gatwick, you can now save £10 in B and Y  – it was already available in the lower classes.

These tickets are only available for point-to-point trips and will not be offered if you are connecting to another flight.

Whilst this does simplify the BA ticketing structure, I’m not entirely sure it makes financial sense.  Business travellers on flexible tickets are unlikely to be price sensitive to the tune of £10.  It will also require a lot of telephone calls back and forth between corporate travel agencies, PAs and travellers over whether the passenger intends to take any checked luggage or not.

For clarity, a British Airways Silver or Gold member CANNOT buy a ‘hand baggage only’ fare and then try to check in a bag for free on the basis of their BA status.  You are effectively required to give up your right to an additional free checked bag in return for buying one of these tickets.

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