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.

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 2025)

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

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Barclaycard Avios card

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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

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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

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

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We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

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There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

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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.

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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.

  • Dutch_122 says:

    Beware MH I-class no TP’s.

    • Rob says:

      This is not fully clear. There is an example on Flyertalk of someone who did get them. Whilst I class is not on the list it is not specifically excluded either.

  • Ross Park says:

    I love these point runs! I just wish there are some from the Middle East. Now based in Dubai, can you let me know if you see any of these from the Middle East (going anywhere).

    • Matt says:

      Qatar J flights out of Cairo are usually very cheap, if that helps.

    • Rob says:

      Every airline has deals out of Egypt!

    • Ricardo says:

      Sri Lankan is a decent option for a TP run out of the UAE. While living in Dubai last year I did DXB-CMB in Business (went to the cricket!) netting 280 TPs return given the route is fractionally over 2000 miles.

      Departing from AUH would be similar, plus you could combine it with another of Sri Lankan’s destinations over 2000 miles from CMB to get another 140 TPs each way, e.g. China or Europe.

  • Jon says:

    Sorry for a beginner’s question, but I can’t get ba.com to accept an itinerary which works fine on ITA Matrix – how do you book the multistop itinerary of your choice? Do you have to call them?

    • Rob says:

      Did you tick ‘only show available flights’ in ITA? If so, try Expedia multi city tool and, if that fails, email an ITA screenshot to our booking partner Propeller Travel (www.propellertravel.com, submission form on their site) and for £30 IIRC they will book it if available.

      • Sussex Bantam says:

        Is there anyway to force any of the sites to accept a mixed class of flights ? Specifically I want to fly Business on the out DUB-CLT-MCO and then return in WTP MCO-LGW.

        I only seem to be able to select one class for the whole journey. Any advice ?

  • Adam W says:

    I can book one of these and then cancel it in a couple of days claiming I made a mistake for a full refund and no hard feelings????

    • Polly says:

      No, BA allows you to cancel or change it within 24 hrs of booking it, only. Really for those might have made a mistake or something… Just keep an eye on the clock!

  • Robbie says:

    Word on the street is that Paddy Power are taking bets on how soon after confirming and ticketing your booking BA will take to cancel and refund you. 7/4 on 26.5 hours at the moment.

    • cheekychappie says:

      Just silly – one was an obvious misprice/ mistake we all could see, the other is a sale price.

  • Ben says:

    I have booked CW OSL-SYD on BA15 and inbound BNE-HKG-OSL with the BNE-HKG on Cathay Pacific.. On the tier point calculator on BA.com it says we get 40 tier points e/w for the OSL-LHR legs, 240 tier points for LHR-SYD on BA15, and then 140 tier points each for the BNE-HKG and HKG-LHR legs. Are the tier point totals quoted in the article above (LHR-SYD as 360 tier points and BNE-LHR via HKG as 480) in F, rather than CW, or am I adding it up wrong?!

    • Rob says:

      Yes, they were wrong and are now corrected. I should have corrected them earlier but have been out all day, apologies.

      You get 240 each way for the direct (ie same flight number) LHR-SYD.
      You get 300 for LHR-SIN, SIN-SYD when you don’t continue on the same plane.
      You get 280 for LHR-HKG, HKG-SYD with Cathay on the last leg.

      Apologies.

  • Lady London says:

    are all the routes via Asia?

  • Drue23 says:

    Does anyone know if MMB will allow you to upgrade one sector to First using Avios after the booking is complete?

    • Rob says:

      If you booked on ba.com then, yes, it should be do-able online. However you booked, the call centre should be able to do it.

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

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