New British Airways flight sale launched

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• Manuel says:

  29 Aug29 August 07:18

  Hello,

  What would be the best use of the sale with the 30.000 bonus Avios promotion for European customers?

  Any Tp-run available?

  • Raffles says:

    29 Aug29 August 07:37

    Presumably Tel Aviv or Moscow (on a 747)

• James says:

  29 Aug29 August 07:32

  Is this an EU wide sale or UK only? With fares from CPH to new York in club from £1059 recently I’m more likely to hunt for ex EU deals than pay £550pp for the priviage of starting in the UK :/

• oyster says:

  29 Aug29 August 07:38

  I remember how we always used to say what good value it was to use Avios for premium long haul but that’s not true anymore.
  With fares like this available, many Club World redemptions are valuing Avios at less than 1p.

  Yes I know sale fares aren’t as flexible as redemptions, but it doesn’t change the fact that the obscene and immoral BA surcharges have entirely changed the game.

  • AviosNewbie says:

    29 Aug29 August 07:51

    Yes, agreed – but from a cash outlay perspective, think Avios redemptions will still rule, no? especially if the stack is from bonus offers and not regular spending.

    • CV says:

      30 Aug30 August 08:36

      Agree with comments – i was quoted £1200 for a return economy flight to asia at christmas (various airlines). Fortunately i have a stack of avios which allowed me to book redemption flights instead. So now i am going GLA – AMS – KUL – GLA (rtn) and all in I have spent about £360 in cash and now travelling in business class. Equivalent cash price for this was over £3.5k

  • Raffles says:

    29 Aug29 August 08:21

    Not really. I mean, 2 Club World to Abu Dhabi or New York is £3000 even in the sale, compared with £1100 of tax for a redemption. That is still 2.3p per Avios with a 241 or 1.15p otherwise, which is more than acceptable. And you get cancellation flexibility. (Albeit, of course, you would earn some Avios back.)

    Since I generally work on the basis that I won’t get more than 0.75p – to be very conservative – this is still a decent result.

    • oyster says:

      29 Aug29 August 09:40

      I agree, just saying the value proposition isn’t quite what it used to be. There’s also tier points to consider.

  • Mark says:

    29 Aug29 August 08:25

    Depends on how you use the Avios. Straight redemptions with BA are not the way to get best value per Avios, but there are other options. Our upcoming trips:

    Johannesburg in September out in Club World, return in First – £600 plus 62.5k Avios each (and an Amex 2for1). Cheapest cash fare currently available – £3821 (next 12 months), so just over 5p/Avios.

    New York over new year in Club World, Avios for upgrade – £900 plus approx 11k Avios (after taking earnt Avios into account). Cheapest cash fare currently available (next 12 months) – £1591, so just over 6p/Avios.

    Berlin and Abu Dhabi over Easter, economy cash fare to Berlin with BA plus a business class redemption with Air Berlin – total £187 plus 50k Avios each. Cheapest direct BA Club cash fare to Abu Dhabi (next 12 months) – £1479, approx 2.5p/Avios.

    All the above assumes we could have obtained these fares on the dates we want to travel, which given two are over holiday periods is far from certain.

    • Worzel says:

      29 Aug29 August 08:57

      Are you sure about the maths Mark? Looking at the Johannesburg example and factoring in the £150 annual fee, it looks like 1.83p per Avios-without factoring in any Avios awarded with a cash ticket. Happy to be proved wrong, Worz.

      • Mark says:

        29 Aug29 August 09:13

        Let’s assume that we should factor in the £150 annual card fee:

        Two return cash fares @ cheapest available price over next 12 months = £7642
        Taxes and fees, plus £150 Amex annual fee = £1350
        Cash saving on two tickets= £6292

        Avios cost, LHR-JNB (Club) and JNB-LHR (First) = 125000

        Value per avios = 629200p/125000 = 5p/avios

        I’d argue that the £150 fee brings other value, such as more avios earnt per £ (which reasonably offsets some of it though not all) and we do also tend to get the value from the various offers run by Amex and Foursquare (such as the current £20 of £100 spend at Westfield), although that would be available on a free card of course.

        Taking into account avios earnings potential on a cash fare would bring it down further of course, but if the premise is that the sale cash fares are better value you’d never use them anyway.

        • Worzel says:

          29 Aug29 August 09:24

          Well Done Mark and thanks for your swift response-back to school for me as I didn’t double up the cash fare/read the example properly!
          Good to know that you are getting very good value.
          Thanks again for clarification, Worz.

        • oyster says:

          29 Aug29 August 09:45

          I prefer Raffles’ method of calculation value per Avios by assessing whether you would pay an equivalent cash fare.

          I never value Avios on 1st class redemptions because I’d never pay cash for First (I can’t afford it!).

          But CW and RFS redemptions do.

        • Mark says:

          29 Aug29 August 10:10

          True, we probably wouldn’t. It’s more like 3p/avios if you base it on a return Club cash fare. That’s still factoring the avios to travel back in F; J redemption wasn’t available on that date though arguably we’d have chosen different dates.

          You then have the intangible ‘value’ of travelling in F over J, which arguably would have been more on the outbound (with access to the Concorde Room) and which my wife almost certainly values more highly than I do!

• richie says:

  29 Aug29 August 08:47

  iv got a few evouchers i cant use if anyone wants to buy one at a 20% discount

  • Manuel says:

    29 Aug29 August 09:33

    Hello,

    Do this qualify for TP and Avios earning? If yes then I am interested.

    • richie says:

      29 Aug29 August 09:51

      yes they are offerd as compensation with delays and lost baggage, its exactly the same as paying with cash.
      any change is also credited back to the bookers email. so if you bought an £800 voucher for £650 from me, and then spent £200 on ba.com, £600 would be returned to your email in a new evoucher.
      if your flight was £1000 you would just pay the additional £200 in cash.
      i have £600, £800, and 2x £411.

      only one can be used per booking,

      • Manuel says:

        29 Aug29 August 09:54

        can you mail me then as I am really interested in this. especally if you can use it multiple times for small fractions.

        Manu is my name
        voetbalkrant is my COMmercial enteroprise 🙂

      • Leo says:

        29 Aug29 August 10:43

        Hi Richie,

        I’m also interested. Could you pop me an email too?

        leo dot barker at gmail dot com

      • Col A-B says:

        29 Aug29 August 12:12

        I’m interested in those too. Can I pay with 3V cards? 😉

        Seriously though please email me: mkcol74 {at} gmail dot com

  • Adrian says:

    29 Aug29 August 15:05

    Hi Richie

    I would be interested. Could you please email me at:

    adriks at hotmail dot com

• goglobalnz says:

  29 Aug29 August 10:15

  Wow that’s quite a deal. How strict are they on cross checking against UKTI events, do you know? Maybe once you have the code it doesn’t matter about the destination and it could be applied to anywhere?

  • Will says:

    29 Aug29 August 10:16

    I’ve not tried it yet, certainly worth a go!

    • goglobalnz says:

      29 Aug29 August 10:43

      There’s a V8 supercars expo on in Sydney in March, which could be plausible… (I’m looking at going back to NZ for a family visit around then).

• Alan says:

  29 Aug29 August 11:16

  Phew – was worried I’d jumped the gun on my ex-OSL booking, but at £2,100 CW return to Oz (with stopovers in Singapore on the way out and Hong Kong on the way back) it’s still 40% cheaper than the sale price 😀

  • James says:

    29 Aug29 August 16:31

    some cracking ex EU fares out there at the mo, £1186 to Dubai for example ex BRU on BA or ex ARN on QR.

• Rob says:

  29 Aug29 August 13:02

  Fine, I know (in the virtual sense) Michael who writes this

• Nathan says:

  29 Aug29 August 17:53

  Quick question – if you pay with cash and upgrade with avios do you get tier points for the class you travel in or the class you pay for?

  • Alan says:

    29 Aug29 August 17:55

    The class you pay for. Also if you have a UK connection on a WTP or higher booking that’ll give you 20 TPs each way 🙂

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