Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Fly to Australia and NZ in British Airways Club World from £1,700 …. out of Norway

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If British Airways has cancelled your £1,300 ‘mistake fare’ First Class ticket to Sydney, there is an alternative ….

On Thursday I mentioned some of the exceptional sale prices that British Airways is offering out of Dublin, including Hawaii for £1,200 and New York for under £1,000, all in Club World.

There is also an excellent deal to Australia currently available.  This is not actually part of the sale – it seems to be something unique to the Norwegian market.

British Airways BA A380 flying

You can book a Club World (flat bed business class) return ticket to Sydney for roughly £1,700.  For a small supplement, it also works to Auckland and Christchurch and presumably other cities in Australia and New Zealand.

Here are the headline fare rules:

You need to start in Norway – Oslo, Bergen or Stavanger

You must book by September 7th

You must travel outbound by June 19th 2016

You can have two stopovers but they must not exceed two days and will cost €200 each (plus you would be charged extra Air Passenger Duty if you stopped over in London for more than 24 hours)

If you are purely interested in tier points there are some crazy routings allowed – Oslo to Auckland lists, if you dig out the full fare rules via ITA Matrix, 261 permitted routings!  I assume that few HFP readers will want to do that, especially as stopovers are restricted to two days.

The easiest way to get this to price is via ba.com.  Use the multi-city tool if you want to take a circuitous route.  Expedia also has a multi-city option and may throw up different options.  You will NOT see this fare available every day so you may need to play around a bit.

It does exist, though.

Here is one for the crazy tier point runner which I found on Flyertalk:

SIN routing

I tried Christchurch in February and got a price of £1,902.  This was routed to Sydney as per my first example with an additional Qantas connection (as a BA codeshare) over to New Zealand.

Remember that you MUST start your trip in Norway – you cannot simply hop on at Heathrow.  Your flight will have been permanently cancelled by then.

You should also take the last leg back to Norway, as BA appears to be clamping down on passengers who skip the last legs on ex-EU routings.  That is a small price to pay for what is a fantastic fare.

In terms of tier points, remember that booking the direct London – Sydney service (keeping the same flight number) means you lose out.  It is treated as one flight and awards 240 tier points each way.  If you have a clean break in Singapore, you would get 160 + 140 = 300 tier points each way for the long haul segments.  Going via Hong Kong would get you 140 + 140 = 280 tier points each way.


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

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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

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The Platinum Card from American Express

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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

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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

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American Express Business Gold

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Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Comments (45)

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

  • Peter Taysum says:

    I’m looking at a change to the mad tier point run, but extending Beijing Stopover to two days, which costs an extra 200 pounds, which is worth it to me.

    Can an itinerary like this be booked with hotels and therefore becoming “a holiday” gaining additional Avios, and pay only deposit (pay balance with pay.com online)?

    Thanks,
    Peter

    • Rob says:

      Never tried … but potentially yes, I imagine, if the Norwegian BA site supports holiday bookings.

  • Charlie says:

    Thanks for the heads up on this, just booked 4 flights to NZ for a wedding. 2 Have a 3 day stop over in Brisbane on the way back and 2 have a 2 day stop in Hong Kong – stopovers didn’t seem to add anything to the cost, £1913 each for the first 2, and £1850 for the 2nd. Playing around with dates however did make a big difference.

  • Eric says:

    Booked family to NZ for December 12th. Decided to go via Stockholm, prices were in same range. The routing is ARN-LHR-HKG-AKL. BA to LHR and then CX. Very happy.

  • David says:

    Thanks for this article.
    Managed to book return flights into Sydney and out of Cairns with a stopover in Hong Kong for £1800. BA (Airbus A380) to/from Hong Kong & CX (Airbus A330) to/from Oz…
    Happy Days

    Thanks, David

    • Rob says:

      Excellent, you can’t complain at that price. I remember being happy being able to get to California for £1700 on an ex-Budapest about 8 years ago – prices really are cheaper now than ever.

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

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