EDIT: this deal is now over, with my usual great timing!
These fares have been around for four days now. I originally thought that it was a fare error by British Airways and that it would be closed down within a few hours. It wasn’t.
I therefore have to assume that British Airways is genuinely wanted to sell First Class tickets from Krakow or Warsaw (your choice) to any of its Caribbean destinations for around £1,300!
Followers of our Instagram feed will know that I am in Venice at the moment so this article is not as in-depth as I would normally do, but you will find out all you need to know!
Here are some sample prices I pulled up last night:
Warsaw to St Lucia, First Class – £1,298
Warsaw to Port of Spain, First Class – £1,347
Krawkow to Bermuda, First Class – £1,309 (you can route this via New York for extra tier points but you cannot stop more than 24 hours)
It also works on the other Caribbean routes which have a First Class cabin. The only one where I had trouble getting it to price was Barbados.
Note that, as all of the Caribbean flights leave from Gatwick, you will need to transfer from Heathrow (where the Poland flights arrive) and should leave suitable time.
It seems that these fares CAN be cancelled although the fee is steep (PLN 1,275 or £219).
The fare basis is ANCSALE for those of you who care about these things! The fare rules are:
Book by 26th September
Travel OUTBOUND before 10th December or between 4th January and 14th March 2016
Requires A class availability in First Class
The requirement to start your trip in Poland and the fact that you are still spending £1,300 per ticket means that this is not the greatest sale deal of all time. If you were planning a trip to the Caribbean this Winter, though, it is well worth considering. Head over to ba.com and have a poke around.
About Head for Points
Any ideas of what the risks are not travelling the last leg?
If you log on to Flyertalk and locate the British Airways Excutive Club thread you will find this has been debated ad infinitum. That should give you some idea of the potential risks.
I would think the LHR to LGW airport switch will make it easier to skip. Your luggage isn’t tagged through and I know many people who genuinely miss connections trying to get between the airports
Thanks
Hi,
Slightly unrelated question.
Do BA offer a soft landing still? We have silver this year but will likely fall just short of 600 tier points. Will we receive bronze for the following year and if so would we need to get 600 or 300 tier points next year to regain silver?
Thanks for your help!!
Josh
Yes they do offer a soft landing, however you would need to earn the full 600 tier points next year to move up to silver.
Soft landing is exactly that, it stops you losing status all together if you hadn’t earnt 300 tier points this year to get bronze, it’s not a platform to help attain status more easily next year.
Jonathan, thanks for clarifying this issue. I, in my innocence thought we would only need to earn a further 300 TPs plus our 4 BA legs to get back to silver….it is very hard to work this stuff out from the BA website alone, not a lot of the fine detail outlined there. So basically you are almost back at square one, as bronze gets you very little.
Adam, I disagree, BA have only cancelled the very obvious fat finger fares! 1000s of people are flying ex EU these days, and that ex Warsaw one looks ok. Let’s see what happens, the worst is that they cancel it on you. Just cant see them doing this. Weird option for them to chose though. Warsaw tourist board in trouble or something, tying up a deal with BA ? Not the prettiest of cities either, everyone goes to Krakow…
A bit confused Polly, isn’t your QR trip to HKT going to get you silver or are you thinking the year ahead of that? If it’s the same qualifying year as HKT trip you could try something daft like Krabi-KUL-Phuket or vice versa on MH if they happen to have one of their sometimes crazy fares available. If it is for year of Vancouver or Seattle trip then some short AA commuter hops might do the trick. I am also guessing you might be able to credit Alaska flights to BA as the opposite is true, and Alaska have some interesting routes where you are headed.
Yes James we will have at least 560 TP post HKT, as we have paid flights to CPH to top up, plus I have a Dublin run this month from LCY so by the time we return we will have silver. My OH is on a BA work trip at the mo. We planned it almost accidentally, the QR sale wot did it! as our year started mid August ..so I think we should have silver rest of this year and next, then soft landing to bronze, am I correct? As per the above post, we have to start again on the merry go round to obtain 600 near the beginning of year 3. The timing actually is quite good. And yes I have seen v cheap MAS flights between the islands and KUL, so always an option. We really do use our status For the seats, and lounges.
Re SEA may take trains to VAN and to SFO, but flights are v cheap there on AA as you say. But we also want to see the lovely scenery! Decisions again, but nice ones !
As Jonathan says. One thing to add though: if you’re only a few TPs from the 600 you need and you are able to make up that shortfall in the two weeks after your TP collection year ends then BA *may* at its discretion and on a case by case basis extend your collection year by 2 weeks to enable you to retain silver.
Not sure if this helps as it will depend on your travel plans. However if you are interested there are some old FT forums on this topic.
Josh, if you really use your silver well throughout the year, would you not consider a cheap club Europe weekend trip somewhere, or Jersey one day for lunch! Whatever… It just might be worth it. Am sure you have considered this option, but we would def do the CE weekend break or midweek stay to retain it, if that close. Seems a shame to have to start all over again. Or even CE one way… Anyway hope you do manage to retain silver.
I second that, Mrs Danksy was 1 flight away from silver with her collection year finishing 9th Sept. so we booked a couple of cheap HBO fares to Brussels for the weekend! 😛
Dansky, good planning, and people think this avios hobby is easy. It is far from! And certainly not for the faint hearted. Nerves of steel needed when chasing 241 F seats anywhere long haul or west Coast USA, is a nightmare. As we have discussed on other articles, if you can stretch a few £100 more to actually buy in the ex EU QR J sales, (feels like BA F class, same 1-2-1 flat bed seat config) and a more spacious cabin, definitely the easier option these days. Just keep collecting those avios to get to the EU for ex EU sales. Or to use on RFS.
Yea it is worth doing a short CE return to keep silver, but you always start over again each year…
Must be a day for TP musing’s… had the exact same dilemma this morning as to how to cheaply(?) I can attain 370tp’s before January to get Gold (just for the on-going soft landing benefit) 🙂
I’ve given up due to the financial viability of it though (2 x ex-MAN Club Europe fairs would get it, but you’re talking £1k’ish!! – as it’s purely for TP’s I’d only want to spend a day or two attaining it so I’ve come to realise it’s not to be) 🙁
Good luck in your quest!
Given BA’s behaviour on other fares, I wouldn’t be going anywhere near this for fear of cancellation. The fact that it has been up for 4 days is more likely a function of BA’s incompetence, not any reliable indicator that they intend to honour the fare.
This is the problem of ex-Oslo, ex-Ger and ex-Czech – BA has demonstrated that if it doesn’t like the price you buy at, cancellations come flowing without comms etc.
Best to be on the safe side and avoid it.
Agree 100%. Given their recent Norway, then Germany and last Thursday’s Czech Republic “mistake” fares, how does anybody now know whether a BA flight from anywhere other than ex-UK is a great price or just some fat fingered pricing error from head office, which BA can, and will, cancel on a whim.
more whiners 🙂
try & be happy when you grab a glitch fare instead of whining so much, especially if you can’t be bothered to try
Is that directed at me? hardly whining, just struggling to understand when a fare will be honoured and when it will be cancelled by BA. Do you think people are flying on all those BA “glitch” fares.? Perhaps you aren’t aware, they’re being cancelled. Go ahead and book it, no doubt you’ll be the one whining when BA cancel and don’t refund you fare instantly.
Or you can call them, book over the phone, pay the service fee and make sure they transact in sterling to avoid the 3% foreign transaction fee Amex charge. They are much more likely to honour a fair over the telephone. And if you really are worried ask them to double check with a supervisor. I have checked with them the Ex Poland is no mistake this is a genuine fare….
+1
And to be fair, as mentioned before, You better sit back and place the Qatar Belgium, and Qatar Netherlands website in your favourites. J product is better than BA First (in my humble opinion). Bought Phuket for £1050 and DXB for £815 in J,………….And you know you are buying a genuine ticket, get excellent service, on a brand new plane, superior food, drinks, and a not too shabby lounge when transiting through Doha. I can’t see any reason to travel to Poland, than to return to UK, drive in between Airports, Than to have a OK experience at best!
Absolutely. Thomas. As before, we actually cancelled our BA F 241 to KUL to avail of the QR J sale to CPH > HKT vis Doha. Will report back mid oct, on Dreamliner so can’t wait. Yes, of course it’s not direct but still v g experience. And it is a genuine ticket. But I still think in genuine BA sales like last year people did get genuine tickets, from DUB etc to HNL. And now have travelled on them these school holidays. So they do work, just have be sure they are ok sale tickets.
This is in F. If it was in J then it would be in line with usual pricing but it is very cheap for F.
This fare is to the Caribbean. Which is not Phuket or DXB. Don’t think Qatar fly to the Caribbean, though I may be mistaken.
yes Brian, You are correct! But I do not believe that the average British family sat around the table one night for dinner and had a conversation about their next holiday. mum wanted to go to Disneyland, dad wanted to go to Australia, but little Jake said” Why do we not wait until we can travel First class from Poland to the Caribbean, cause that will come along soon! Point being,if you would like to book a certain guaranteed holiday, then stick to the ones who deliver quality time after time with a certain ticket for a certain price! Yes Phuket is not the Caribbean, Ill send a card me lying on the beach in Phuket while you are on the phone to the CC company trying to cut your losses!
This has now died. Was active until earlier today.
New pricing from Sabre:
WP«
26JAN DEPARTURE DATE—–LAST DAY TO PURCHASE 02SEP/2359
BASE FARE EQUIV AMT TAXES/FEES/CHARGES TOTAL
1- PLN24900.00 GBP4303.00 325.37XT GBP4628.37ADT
XT 35.37UB 244.20YQ 10.40XW 0.10ND
4.80VW 2.40FF 3.90JF 9.80YV
14.40OS
24900.00 4303.00 325.37 4628.37TTL
ADT-01 ANCSALE
WAW BA X/LON BA GND3367.84BA X/LON BA WAW3367.84NUC6735.68
END ROE3.69673
CONDITIONS APPLY/NONENDORSABLE/
VALIDATING CARRIER – BA
Previously issued tickets have not been effected so far.
Thanks Daniel. Have been on a plane for much of the day.
Very poor form BA, you’ve lost all credibility now.
However will they survive without a dozen passengers who only travel on the very cheapest tickets…
Any update on booked tickets? Still valid?
Yes, and I would be surprised if they are cancelled given the price paid.
So far all the tickets I issued are valid. I don’t usually agree to book these kinds of fair, but honestly, it seemed legit enough as it was posted with a fare basis of ANCSALE which is similar to the way the I class fares which are sometimes funny-cheap post.
We booked quite a few of these, I am quite certain they will remain as I can’t imagine how they will change a fare that was published and comes under the sabre fare guarantee for auto pricing.
What’s the sabre fare guarantee please?
I love these articles and am addicted but if only I lived in Europe. I am a BA Exec Club member living in Dubai! ANY Oneworld offers from the Middle East to ANYWHERE via everywhere would be perfect! BA keeps on offering Business & First offers from Germany, Poland and Scandinavia?? 🙁
Please let me know if anyone has Middle East!
Ross, Really feel your pain, as we happily all fly over you on our way to sunny HKT, HKG, KUL, Bali or wherever we fancy! Sorry, shouldn’t laugh, but am sure some deal will come soon. You could have hopped over to Warsaw and gone F on BA to the Caribbean today, you know, ha ha!
Ross, try Sri Lankan. They have some great J fares ex Asia so perhaps DXB too. Their hard and sif products are not bad at all, can be great value.