British Airways gave me a bit of a surprise this morning by launching a ‘flash’ redemption sale via an announcement on the ‘offers’ page of ba.com.
This is a very quick post as I am due at an event at World Travel Market in 5 minutes!
The short haul deal covers 10 European routes.
You need to book your seat before midnight on November 17th and travel before January 31st.
You will pay the usual Avios price but the taxes charge is reduced by £34 to just £1!
The list of participating routes is here. They are all in the 15,000 to 20,000 Avios per seat band which means they are generally ‘Winter sun’ routes. Only economy seats are available.
The long haul deal covers 35 routes.
The number of Avios required for World Traveller (ie economy) seats is reduced by HALF on 30 routes and by a quarter on the remaining five. The taxes figure is unchanged, however.
The booking and travel dates are the same as for the short haul offer.
The list of routes is here. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are included if the Winter weather is getting you down this week.
Not sure if these can be booked via avios.com or if you need to move your points over to British Airways Executive Club first.
Seats are available for booking now. Full analysis tomorrow. Right, off to my meeting ….
(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to see our latest articles on earning and spending your points and click here to see our list of current Avios promotions.)
About Head for Points
Thank you Raffles, love this deal and the timing is perfect 🙂
I would love to hear your view on the WTM as I was suppose to go but couldn’t make it last minute.
I dislike it immensely and usually don’t go at all. However, this year I was asked to take part in a blogger networking session. Of about 10 people I spoke with only one was even vaguely relevant or interesting – but that one person may actually be able to offer me a very interesting trip next year which would make a good story. It may pay off in the end.
I heard that Etihad has their new A380 seats on show so if I can find those and get some pictures then I will get a story out of the day!
I think that avios.com are running the same deal as they have a winter flight deal here: https://www.avios.com/gb/en_gb/spend/cp/winter-flight-sale
Jo’burg and Calgary (for Banff) will both be in season and are destinations with a high base fare. Will be quite good value I think.
Cheapest WT fare to Calgary is £285, so that’s at least 1.14p/Avios.
The BA page says that it’s on offer from London airports but I just checked from MAN and got the same discount. Well done, BA.
Pleased to report that I successfully booked a weekend trip to Malta from Edinburgh for 1 GBP. As my husband and I go back and forth between Edinburgh and London, I also used it to get a free round-trip between Edinburgh and London as explained by Raffles here. Pleased as punch!
https://www.headforpoints.com/2014/10/31/how-to-get-a-free-domestic-avios-redemption-with-an-overseas-reward/
Its not letting me book flights at the moment, keeps telling me their is an issue and to call the contact centre.
Hi Raffles – do you (or anyone else) know whether the same trick that worked for Gold members in Jan of 2014 (your article on Jan 14th) would work for GGL members now? I am referring to booking the £1 redemption, and then changing it to a different date? Although the terms do state that “Changes are not permitted”
The problem is that Gold members now need to pay the £35 change fee, so it is a pointless exercise!
In January you could actually change the destination as well so you could effectively book a £1 ticket to anywhere if Gold.
I suppose you need to grateful for any of the crumbs that BA scatter from time to time.
Ian particularly underwhelmed and even though I need to plan a weekend break for January this offer does not encourage me to book. Great however if you wee already planning to go
Warning. Avois.com will try to charge full charge (£35) for cancellations (assuming you want your avoid refunded) This has happened to me and others in the past.
Meanwhile is there a cast iron guarantee ba.com wouldn’t do the same?
Last time around I cancelled a £1 flight to Dublin and got my BA avios back no worries. No attempt to make me pay an additional £34 to cancel?
I have cancelled numerous redemptions on ba.com and not been asked for additional charges. If you ring up to cancel they may try it on but cancel online and you’re fine.
Hi guys, my point was aimed at Avios.com – trust me, they try it on! Plus they have no option for online cancellations to match BA.
I recently cancelled a flight with £8 taxes on the phone to gold line, along with other flights, no attempt to charge any more money, or even take it from the taxes on the other flights. flights were separate bookings but all cancx on same call.
All you need now is to find a date available…
And there’s more good news today. Emirates has just announced that they now provide free on-board wifi. It’s only 10mb, but then you can pay USD1 for 600mb.
Interesting – A very quick, side by side comparison to BCN for 3 days in December nets a fairly normal value of 0.6p per avios. The same 0.6p per avios you get when applying avios for cash saving. I think I’d rather pay the 90 quid and get the tier points 🙂
Thanks for highlighting / reminding me of this – in the excitement of saving a few quid and utilising avios, it hadn’t crossed my mind that prices to some destinations are usually cheaper through January
that’s the problem,. with cash tickets generally so cheap as they are now, it oftenmakes no points.
Dubai etc will presumably be relatively pricey, or at least not as low as mid-Summer. Although the Middle East is not boiling in January, we were in Dubai in February a few years ago and it was only warm enough for sunbathing between, say, 10 and 2. Albeit that is 4 hours more sunbathing than you will be doing in London!
The lowest fare in Jan to Dubai on ba.com is £43 + £341 in taxes.
The avios on offer deal is 20,000 avios + £341 tax.
I value 20,000 avios at more than £43. Plus for that additional outlay I would earn 6806 additional avios and tier points for doing so. I could also use 3,000 avios and have the fare reduced by £20 and still be richer in avios from when I started to the tune of 3806. So its important to weigh up (like anything) how good a deal REALLY is
Is it really so cheap? I’m surprised.
50% on Iberia too
Booking Period: From 5 to 15 November, 2014.
Flight Period: From 1 December, 2014 to 31 January, 2015.
http://www.iberia.com/ibcomv3/content/COMUN/PDF/Rebajas_nov_es.pdf
i will be busy this weekend!
I neither speak or read Spainish so I could be wrong but it looks like Iberia are including some business class seats?
I can’t spell in English either!
ahaha, this is a good one!
EN TODAS LAS CLASES: in all classes
Desde 20.000 Avios por trayecto means “from 20k per segment”
It’s far easier to just use the English language version of the Iberia website!
http://www.iberia.com/?language=en
Here’s the English version of the pdf http://www.iberia.com/ibcomv3/content/COMUN/PDF/Rebajas_nov_en.pdf
Ahah for some reason the browser was setup to Spanish.i am not even Spanish! Are you an Iberia rep?
I’m not an Iberia rep, just a regular reader of this website (thanks Raffles) and thought I’d lend a hand.
Bravo thanks!
Its annoying how Dublin is never included in any of Iberias deals
Mmmm…arrived in Alicante today, 6th November, on a RFS booked last week…so missed out there, no chance of a retrospective I guess!?!
Also, have used a 241 for a trip to Washington in December….so the 50% deal looked good for a cancellation / re-booking, until I saw it was in World Traveller only. Think I’d rather keep my CW booking at full avios and 241. Unless it might be extended across all classes????
I too had to forego a planned visit to WTM, look forward to your WTM post Raffles!
I am not a fan of WTM but was invited to a blogger networking event today. Met one useful trade person and 10 less useful ones but, if that one comes to something, it will have been worth it.
Need some help here guys as I have not booked any RFS before.
Just tried Venice in Dec/Jan on BA, however, it’s still showing 15,000 Avios + £35 tax (not £1)
Just did a dummy flight for you LHR-VCE 9-17 Dec.
Loads of availability then & each side.
Use the links above.
Thanks…just saw some Avios+£1 flights
Not sure what I was doing wrong earlier