The British Airways September sale starts TODAY

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• Ben says:

  23 Aug23 August 13:50

  The fights I was looking at yesterday have actually gone up from £530 to £680. Awesome sale.

• ozbar says:

  23 Aug23 August 14:28

  Is there a chance that dub fares have not been loaded yet??

• wetboy1uk says:

  23 Aug23 August 14:37

  O/t – I know I have already posted this on another threat but getting a bit frustrated now – how do you book a vueling flight from cardiff to barcelona? Have tried the iberia route but cardiff does not cone up as an option for airport on their system.

  • Rob says:

    23 Aug23 August 15:32

    No other way unfortunately ….

    • wetboy1uk says:

      23 Aug23 August 22:05

      So I can’t use avios on vueling flights from Cardiff then? Sounds a bit unfair to me!

      • Rob says:

        23 Aug23 August 22:23

        Apparently Vueling will get its own Avios scheme at some point. You could try ringing the IB call centre but I don’t fancy your chances 🙂

• MATTHEW CULVER says:

  23 Aug23 August 14:43

  This is such a poor sale, I can’t find any compelling business class fare either to Asia or Australasia, and it’s not like their business class product is best-in-class.

  £1599 to New York, by way of comparison Vietnam Airlines is offering fares as good as £1660 to Melbourne.

  • Jmes67 says:

    23 Aug23 August 15:32

    TK J rtn EDI-BKK is around £1200 atm so may be worth trying your destinations from airport near you. Also look into Vietnam Airlines as posted by Rob yesterday.

• O Chap says:

  23 Aug23 August 14:57

  Seriously annoying, I was looking at PE flights to New York; a week ago the price dramatically reduced (from around £1,100 to just over £800). Now today it’s back up to £1000.

  • Burd says:

    23 Aug23 August 17:05

    Eww who flies PE?

    • Mike says:

      23 Aug23 August 18:19

      I thought there was a different web site for BA PE customers…………………………………. although don’t drench up a post when I said Air France PE was “OK” well it was actually

• Andrew* says:

  23 Aug23 August 16:10

  OT: test/re-test, Newcastle Aspire lounge with Priority Pass (via Amex Plat): 1 adult and 2 children (8 & 6), no charge for ‘additional guest’…

• David2910 says:

  23 Aug23 August 19:29

  OT (it transpires 75% of my posts are OT): Alaska mileage plan. A lot of chat generally on eg insideflyer about how great it is even ex UK. I have much more faith in the collective view of this forum. Anyone on here with experience?

  • Rob says:

    23 Aug23 August 19:33

    Only real upside is the ability to mix BA and Emirates flight credits – but you can’t IIRC redeem Emirates UK to Middle East, only ex-USA. Any BA partner has no Reward Flight Saver and will likely charge a US-style 25,000 miles for an economy European flight, so they are rubbish for short haul. Difficult to see the attraction and I don’t know anyone who uses it.

    The only merit to me is that you can credit Emirates flights to it and redeem for BA. However, a better deal is to book Emirates flights on the Qantas code share and credit them directly to BAEC.

    • Yan says:

      23 Aug23 August 23:06

      The sweet spot is for CX J redemption between Europe and HKG (42.5k o/w can be purchased at $1,675 on regular sale).

  • Joe Deeney (InsideFlyer) says:

    24 Aug24 August 15:42

    Hi David,

    I’m not one to normally disagree with Raffles but I think he’s being a bit harsh on Alaska there!

    If you fly enough with OneWorld airlines to earn status then I agree that sticking with BA/AA is probably best, but if you can also earn Miles in other ways (Rocketmiles, SPG transfers etc) or fly a variety of different airlines in different alliances then Alaska Mileage Plan has great advantages.

    You can credit Miles to Alaska from AeroMexico, Air France/KLM, AA, BA, Cathay, Delta, Emirates, Fiji, Hainan, Japan, Icelandair, Korean, LAN, Qantas and a couple of odd little ones too. Being able to pool Miles from flights on all of those in one place is a lot more useful than having a few thousand stranded here and there in different programmes.

    The real point to Mileage Plan though (for me anyway) isn’t so much the earning but the redemption side. There are no ‘surcharges’ (except on BA and Icelandair) and you can get a free stopover on one-way redemptions (which can be extremely valuable).

    The award chart(s) take a bit of getting used to but the value can be incredible, eg:

    70,000 Alaska MP Miles and a few quid in taxes can get you from New York to Hong Kong (stopover as long as you want) and then to Johannesburg in Cathay First Class – that’s about 29 hours in Cathay Pacific First Class in total (aka A LOT of Krug…). It’s an extreme example, but BA would charge 280,000 Avios for the same flights!

    50,000 get’s you one-way in AA Business Class (no surcharges) between Europe and Hawaii with a free stopover somewhere in the continental US en route.

    Yan has already mentioned the brilliant pricing between Europe and Hong Kong.

    Asia to Aus/NZ is good too etc

    Alaska have regular Miles sales too (usually end up being about 1.5p each) which can make a lot of sense for people who would otherwise pay cash for Business/First.

    Avios can still be great (eg. Raffles’ Air Berlin post today), but for long haul Business/First Class the amounts required these days are very high (particularly on partners/ peak) and when you factor in the surcharges too, focusing on collecting with other programmes can provide much better value.

    There are definitely big gaps with Alaska as well (particularly for short flights and trips that don’t start/end in the US) so I wouldn’t want it as my only programme, but because there are plenty of ways to get relatively cheap Avios/Virgin FC Miles (Clubcard, subscriptions, credit cards etc) that you can’t get other Miles from, I tend to prioritise collecting Alaska, Virgin America, AA, Etihad, United, Asiana, ANA and Singapore Miles when I’ve got a choice.

    Being aware of the various sweetspots in each award chart and having Miles in a broad range of programmes (or being able to transfer to a broad range – which is why I value Starpoints so highly) can save you vast amounts of Miles/cash.

    • David2910 says:

      25 Aug25 August 00:06

      Lots of food for thought here, thanks both raffles and joe for your views

• Margaret says:

  23 Aug23 August 19:29

  Yesterday flights NY-LON on some dates next April were only about £75 extra in premium economy. Now they are about £160 more. I waited for the sale, so not happy. Are they likely to drop again next month? Their website is more than odd. If I return to Edinburgh instead of London with flights through London it’s £25 cheaper and I get the flights! I tried to change the NY-LHR flights and it initially dropped them and offered an outbound and 5 nights in a hotel for £965 for two people!

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