Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

London-Hong Kong £1420, Manchester-Cape Town £1350 in Qatar Airways business class

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I dropped in an extra article yesterday to cover the amazing £1360 return Manchester to Auckland deal launched by Qatar AirwaysYou can read about that fare here but you must book today.

There are two other great deals which also need to be booked today.

Manchester to Cape Town is available for £1350 return in Business Class.

London Heathrow or Gatwick to Hong Kong is available for £1420 return in Business Class.

These must be booked today, assuming it is part of the 48-hour flash sale.

As with the Auckland deal, you won’t get this price over the Summer school holidays in July and August but apart from that it is fairly open from April until late November.  Availability had already started to tighten up last night but you should be able to find something if you are flexible.  There are only a small number of seats at these prices so the larger your group, the tougher it will be, although I saw up to EIGHT seats to Cape Town at this price on some days in September.

These flights will earn 560 British Airways Executive Club tier points return.  That is almost enough for a BA Silver card although you should remember that you need to have flown four one-way cash BA flights in your current membership year before you are promoted.

The aircraft

For Cape Town, both legs will be on a new Boeing 787This has the herringbone seat which I reviewed here and is very impressive.  Qatar has a special website showing off this seat which you’ll find here.  You won’t go wrong here.

For Hong Kong, from London you can pick either the amazing new Qsuite on an A350 or 777 (reviewed here) or the A380 (reviewed here, not Qsuite but has a great bar).  From Doha to Hong Kong you will be on a Boeing 777 which may have Qsuite but you should assume has the older 2-2-2 seating I reviewed here.

How to book

You can find out more about the flash sale here.  It ends at midnight on Wednesday.

The UK Qatar Airways booking site is here.  Make sure you tick ‘Premium Only’ to make searching easier.

Your best option to maximise your miles when paying is American Express Preferred Rewards Gold.  This offers double points – 2 per £1 – when you when you book flight tickets directly with an airline.  Our review of Amex Gold is here.


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

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

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

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

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

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

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

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

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

Comments (79)

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

  • vand says:

    777’s doha to hkg are not q-suite. Just calling out as the wording above makes it sound like DOH HKG has Q-suites on the route, which it currently does not.

    • KP says:

      “From Doha to Cape Town you will be on a Boeing 777 which may have Qsuite but you should assume has the older 2-2-2 seating I reviewed here.”

      Should read from DOH to HKG…

    • Lumma says:

      I preferred the 2-2-2 777 seating over the reverse herringbone seating on the A350 when I went to Tokyo last year, it’s just a huge amount of space.

      The Qsuites do look good though.

  • Mike L says:

    Tried various dates yesterday for Manchester to Auckland and the price quoted wasn’t available. Tried September, October and November. Cheapest was £1560

  • Alan says:

    When I look from lhr or gwk to hnk the only option is for ba cw to be the last leg. Would that flight count towards status?

  • Ally says:

    November sale fares return doesn’t seem to exist anymore??

  • Jess says:

    Obviously 1350 to CPT is a great deal however we are currently in the process of moving to Czechia and that would make this an ex-UK flight which for once would not be as handy! What are the likelihood of similar deals to JNB or CPT coming ex-EU (possibly even PRG!) in the next six months? I understand that any replies will be speculation but the question is really what is the historical precedent of such prices ex-EU?

    P.s. Would also like to say thanks to Rob, HfP and FlyerTalk members as we started collecting points last year and we made BA Gold Tier 7 days before our deadline due to some amazing Qatar deals found via these sites. So thanks to all and happy collecting!

    • Rob says:

      There will almost certainly be an ex EU deal at this price soon, even if it means going to Sofia or Sarejevo.

      • Jess says:

        Thanks Rob, just did a quick search here and saw the Jan sale for 1280 from SOF so I think I will wait for an ex-EU. Thanks again, keep up the good work!

    • Pangolin says:

      If you live in CEE then the best deals are usually via the Nordics.

      Occasionally also VCE and SOF offer good J pricing to Asia.

  • Roger I* says:

    MAN-AKL return earns 600 TPs, 140 for MAN-DOH and 160 for DOH-AKL per sector.

  • Roger I* says:

    I jumped at this, booking MAN-AKL. From LHR, the fare for 2 would have been £800 more, and there are better ways of spending £800.

    One curiosity. All 4 flights were almost empty and we ended up generally in 2A/3A or similar, window seats all round. Fine for the 787, less sure about the 777. For the 777 flights, the system placed us in rows behind each other, e.g. 2A and 3C. I changed these to pairs of seats.

    Then I thought, was it intentional? In view of the long flight time to AKL, are they deliberately keeping seats empty for weight (or mental stability) reasons?

    • Polly says:

      Thats why they put on these short notice sales…they know there are 1000s of people like us ready to jump in. People will not pay normal J fares from the uk if they can help it l think…just sorry we cant take up the AKL deal….another time hopefully.

    • Polly says:

      We have often found ourselves 2 of 4 pax in a J cabin in and out of our Scandinavia trips to asia.

    • David S says:

      Hi Roger I
      From experience, the AKL flights when we went last year were not full at all in J. It was about 2/3rds full on the way out and less than that on the way back to DOH. This was despite two op-ups!!!
      Although the Scandinavian routes are doing alright since apart from the dreaded 6E/F on the 787, which were unoccupied every time we have flown, all the other J seats from CPH and OSL were taken.

      • Roger I* says:

        Thanks, David. Good to know!

        Not sure whether I should change back to 2A/3C on the 777. We could certainly use the space, so long as nobody else takes 3C or 3A.

    • John says:

      When are the flights? Not sure if you get assigned seats if you don’t specifically go to choose them.

      When I booked AKL last year, the seat map was mostly empty until about 2 months before, and the flights were mostly full.

      There’s nothing wrong with occupying the 17 hour flight in a pair of window seats. There will be plenty wrong if you are forced to spend it next to someone you don’t know because all the seats are taken by the time you next check.

      • Roger I* says:

        Hi, John. Good advice, thanks.

        November, and the seats were pre-assigned.

  • Majunga says:

    Thank you Rob, just booked a return to HKG end of April at £1420 pp.
    LHR-DOH is on A351: are these all Q-suites? Thanks.

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

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