News in brief:
British Airways First Class to Cape Town for £2,026 each – or less
British Airways seems to be dipping its toes into the ‘two for the price of one’ premium ticket sector. This is something that Qatar Airways has been doing for a while, on the assumption that forcing two people to travel together means that lucrative business travellers will find it harder to take part.
The first ‘Dream Tickets’ deal is Cape Town. As you can see on this page of ba.com, you get two First Class tickets to Cape Town from Heathrow in January, February or March for £4,052.
You must book by 18th July. All travel must be completed by 31st March. Full details are here on ba.com. Remember to search for two people to get this price.
BUT DON’T BOOK THIS!
Instead, go here to the BA Holidays premium holidays site. Book your First Class flights and throw in a car rental instead. For a seven night stay in March, the cheapest deal for First Class flights and a car for a week was just £1,822 each! Far cheaper than just booking the flight on its own ….
You can also book a ‘flight and hotel’ package here and make a saving over booking the two elements together, but ‘flight and car’ seems the way to go.
And talking of British Airways Holidays …..
Until 10th July, British Airways Holidays (click here) is offering extra discounts on all packages:
- £25 extra discount on Flight + Car holidays to any destination for bookings with a min spend of £600
- £50 extra discount on Flight + Hotel/Car holidays to any destination for bookings with a min spend of £1,250
- £100 extra discount on Flight + Hotel/Car holidays to any destination for bookings with a min spend of £2,500
As you saw above, BA Holidays can often be cheaper via ‘flight and car’ or ‘flight and hotel’ than just booking a flight on its own, especially in premium cabins. Premium offers can be found here.
Holiday Inn Kingston South rebranding
Just a quick update that the Holiday Inn Kingston South is in the process of rebranding as a Crowne Plaza.
Apparently – and slightly unbelievably, since Kingston is not exactly the centre of the universe – IHG says that “the hotel is considered to be one of the top performing hotels within Europe” and “a finalist for Hotel of the Year 2017 at the IHG Europe Conference”.
Redemptions, currently priced at 25,000 IHG Rewards Club points per night, are likely to increase once the rebranding is complete so if you are looking to stay there later in the year you may want to lock it in now. I don’t have a date for the brand switch.
(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for the latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios from current offers and promotions.)
About Head for Points
That Kingston South Holiday Inn is nowhere near the centre of Kingston. It’s closer to Surbiton (and still about a mile away from Surbiton)
Agree, it’s very close to my sister’s house so I’ve stayed here a few times for family events. It’s quite a distance from Kingston & Surbiton stations.
It’s pleasant enough but feels very Holiday Inn rather than Crowne Plaza to me. Note that very few of the rooms have balconies & most are overlooking a Jaguar garage or a self storage facility rather than the Thames. Always seems to have a wedding on at the weekend as well so not always that relaxing an ambience in communal areas. Definitely in the somewhere to get your head down rather than weekend break category for me!
I don’t get why anyone would want to get married in a holiday inn
Surely the location, service and facilities matter far more than the brand above the door?
The last wedding I attended had the reception in a Doubletree by Hilton. It was quite splendid.
https://www.doubletreedunblane.com/
That is not any old Doubletree by Hilton, it is / was The Dunblane Hydro.Probably the best hotel around for many miles, in its day. I can well imagine that it would be an excellent place for a wedding.
I’ve attended two weddings at the Dunblane Hydro Hilton and agree they do it very very well.
Surprised that’s a doubletree and not a proper Hilton
TGLoyalty – “proper”? I find the Doubletree nicer than the nearby/adjacent Hilton at least 70% of the time.
But it is opposite the river so good views from certain rooms
Pffffffftttttttt. Nowhere near Kingston? It’s a 20 minute walk. Along the river. With the beautiful Bushy Park opposite! Even has two pubs, one of them doing decent food. And a Mini / BMW dealership next door!
Slightly odd rebranding, although I suspect it’s to compete with the very excellent Doubletree in Kingston centre (with its very excellent Gin selection). They’ll be able to charge more for a Crowne Plaza
I checked prices of this Holiday Inn couple of times since it opened and it was never cheap. It was stone throw from my previous place.
Did you find your windows kept getting broken?
@Rob *snort*
Not sure if it’s the routes or dates or because Im a solo flyer I pic but I’ve never found a flight + car or flight + hotel d al cheaper than flight alone
Often needs 2 people to make it work, agreed.
I have as a solo traveller, was an European city though. Flight were ard £450 while with a car £125, for exactly the same flights…
BA related. Looking to book flights at T-355 which falls this weekend. Will they just appear online at midnight, (or probably 1am as it is BST now) ? OR do I need to call a foreign call centre? If so, which one?!
If you’re just booking flights, no need for call centre – book online @ 1am
But call if v v popular route
Thanks chaps. Not a popular route. but for a wedding in Europe so v date specific.
On a related question, if I wanted to burn a 241 on this booking – Do i book the outward pair using the 241, then add return legs, using some more avios….Or do i book 2 outbound seats both with avios, then add the 241 in a few days time, so just pay more fees?
Add 241 on outbound
Quite agree with other comments about the HI Kingston South. Stayed there earlier this year and have some redemptions booked around (but not on!) Christmas.
Rooms were cosy (read ‘small’) but well furnished. It’s actually in Long Ditton, about 1.5 miles walk to Kingston. I can’t see it as Crowne Plaza material, but perhaps this says more about the where IHG sees the HI brand sitting these days. Nevertheless, I’m pleased to have got in with my redemption.
What changes need to be made to turn a HI into a Crowne Plaza, other changing signs?
IHG will have strict guideline on sheet thread count etc, but most obviously may be a lounge, 24 hour room service and some in-room tweaks.
OT – for a friend! He’s flying in Y with Swiss. Originally booked a connection that was about 4 hours long. Got an email describing schedule changes changing this to a 16hr connection. Flight is 2 months away. He’s flying with 6 children, I can’t imagine anything more hellish than a 16 hour connection! No other flights available. Can he request a hotel or similar?
If the flight is a long way away, he can get a refund.
He can request a full refund. Anything else is speculative – if they are forcing an overnight he might get a hotel, not if the 16 hours is during the day. Are there really no Lufthansa, Austrian etc options?
Unfortunately refund out of the question – he needs to travel. Original plans had him landing in Zurich at 0630 and leaving at 1030. Now he lands at 1830 the day before, leaving at 1030 the next day, so a forced overnight. Can he ask for a reroute on another carrier from ZRH? Will try and get him on the BA service that evening and see what happens. Will report back.
Be aware that if he doesn’t travel on the first leg of the ticket, i.e. from UK to Zurich, the ticket conditions may entitle them to cancel the entire journey, as he’ll be a ‘no show’ at the first airport…. Before doing the charitable thing and seeing if you can book him some more agreeable connecting flights with BA to Zurich with your Avios arsenal, make very very sure he won’t be left high and dry in Switzerland with 6 (!!) children when Swiss is denying his onward travel….. Otherwise, hat tip to you trying to make his life more bearable. 16 hours connection is incredible for a major carrier these days. Sure, some flights might only go twice a week, but I’d expect them to be able to rejig the feeder flight to suit the onward departure. Swiss has what, 15 departures from London to Zurich a day?
Phone them and get a hotel. Mention the 6 children (requiring Suite at least, or multiple rooms that are sure to be interconnecting for the safety of the children) and they might decide to put him on a decent flight connection (even someone else’s) instead.
It could also be worth taking a look and seeing if seats are still being sold on the original booked combination of flights. Airlines have been known to tell people their flights have shifted or been cancelled when actually the flight is still going ahead they’d just rather sell the seat to someone else – whether someone more important or, because, say, Switzerland just got into a level of a football competition that means there will be a major home game people will pay higher money to fly to.
duty of care rules
all passengers can book a hotel room, eat, drink but not booze – and charge it to Swiss with receipts
not if the flight is in 2 month. No duty of care in that case.
I’d disagree – effectively the first flight has been cancelled and the pax have been re-routed
2 months notice is not relevant to duty of care in this instance
the airline calling it schedule change as a description doesn’t change this – it’s cancellation & re-routing under EC261
the 2 months bit means no compo is payable – but duty of care still applies
OT but just a data point – my 16000 Avios posted today for the BA summer promtion. Think it was something like fly 8 sectors before end of June. I’d forgotten all about it (as you can see!) so that was a nice suprise !
Need to make some changes to a 241 I have booked in November. Am I correct in thinking I can change the inbound can be up to a year after the outbound (or is it 355 days)? What changes are permitted to the inbound after the outbound, just date or route as well?
You can change route too.
Max return date will be around 355 days after issue of the ticket not after the outbound date.
This may well be me being a bit dim but on my computer over time I see several report from Rob referring you to a specific site to go to and then a blank and a full stop. Case in point: “BUT DON’T BOOK THIS! Instead, go . ”
Is there some form of setting that I am missing. It is quite often easy to work out where to go to but sometime it is not. Finger trouble no doubt at my end but where to point the finger to sort it out? answers on a postcard please …
Some adblock and browser combos are playing havoc with our IT. You need to whitelist HFP, all of the text will then be visible.
Thanks Rob, yes I do have an Adblock programme. Will whitelist.
Fantastic price to Cape Town. Quite a few flights at around the £1800 rtn mark.
Although not the case on this occasion, this is of course type of flight where thousands of £ can be saved by starting in Paris/Amsterdam.
And I’m all out of leave until 1 April – such a shame or that would be booked immediately . Thoughts on BA running something like this again?
I booked the CPT deal with car for £3,750.
Very pleased and during half term to boot
Oh tell a lie.
£3,562 .00 !
OT – HH. I’ve noticed that when making bookings for Hilton Hotels I initially get prices quoted on £, but on the booking page the price gets converted to $ and additionally, taxes are added on top. I thought any hotel prices advertised in the EU had to display taxes with the headline price?
e.g. price quoted for 3 nights is £240 per night, so £720 in total, however on the booking page the full price with the taxes added is $1105, i.e. £835.
Double check you are booking hilton.co.uk (it will revert to hilton.com/en). If you are abroad hotel sites have a nasty habit of changing you to the local countries site and then because you have default currency set to £ – converting your payment amount. VPN`s a must for regular travelers.
Will do, thanks Harry. I’m trying to decide whether to stick with Hilton for our mini break to NYC next year or go with the Kaligo offer and pay their slightly inflated prices for a chunk of Avios. The best refundable deal I can get on Kaligo is £1070 for 3 nights without breakfast at a Wyndham hotel, this gives 29000 Avios but is about £200 more expensive than booking direct. First world problems…!
Hilton offered me 4 nights in their W 57th property for £550 for attending a 2 hour timeshare presentation? Anyone been?
The Wyndham New Yorker? I wouldn’t.
My boyfriend and I stayed there, and when we first walked into our shoebox of a room our immediate reaction was “Oh well. It’s not like we plan to spend much time in our room…”
Cough.. Im not Harry BTW 🙂 I predate Harry on here by some years!
The surbiton hotel., I think you are supposed to bike everywhere on the new bike lane outside the hotel.
The flash sale on BA holidays is a bit of a con really…Priced the same flight and hotel in NYC in Nov and it’s gone up by £50 pp, compared to days before the sale was launched. Funny that..
You would think that might be considered a misleading action under the CPUT Regulations. Its lucky we’ve cut public services to the point businesses don’t have to worry about all this red tape now.
agree – maybe there are some genuine discounts there but I am very sceptical after seeing that on the holiday I was looking at. It reminded me that I thin they’ve pulled this stunt before: Hey! Sale! (But we raised prices at the same time…)
BA has to keep documentary proof that they are compliant with UK advertising regulations. If you’re so sure you can prove otherwise, why not try a quick report to the ASA?
OT Looking for some ideas here, I’m planning on spending a couple of months in Australia at the end of the year, very flexible, I can fly from Anywhere in England or Dublin, Belfast or Switzerland, must return to either England or Switzerland. I don’t mind flying to any airport in Australia or NZ, flying out leaving any date after 28th Oct, and want to be back before Christmas day. I don’t mind possibly having a stopover for a few days somewhere else. I’ve got 93k Avios,
Any way of doing this in business class all/most of the way without spending £4k+. As much as I want to fly Business, I can’t justify the £3k+ over an economy ticket.
Air China? not sure if Hainan flies to Oz. Otherwise hold on to your money and watch for a QR sale that with luck, will take you most of the way. If you’re prepared to consider leaving from other European countries you might do even better on price (and you should be prepared to do this given the savings involved). It might even work to bring you back to your preferred country even if you got a much better price by choosing another one to leave from.
I suggest you dig around here on HfP. There’s a search box on the right. You’ll very soon see what I mean, get what you need to know and be well primed.
PS November leaving shouldn’t be a problem but but you might find the best bargains return later in January. as early Dec-Mid or even late January is peak season for what you’re looking for.
Have you looked at leaving from Oslo? Normally about £2.5k in biz, pretty consistent pricing for years.
OT- Virgin Money CC offer
We have two offers in family, Free card with 5k + 6K = 11K bonus
£160 card, with 15k + 18K = 33K VS miles.
Which one should I go for?
Does virgin card has any pro-rata refund?
No pro rata refund so £160 is a sunk cost.
Just had one too.
The extra miles seem v. expensive at £160 unless you want the chance to get other benefits with high spend and have status.
The higher offer is for spending £1k/month, so assuming you can put £10k on the card over the year… £160 cost = +22,000 bonus, +7500 from spend, and the upgrade vouchers.
If there’s a reasonable chance you’d be able to use the voucher then would seem to make sense. A few more factors to consider otherwise
Hello HFP Readers! I’ve got a question that hopefully Rob – or any of you – might be able to help with.
For the last couple of years, British Airways has done a sale for flights to the USA specifically over Thanksgiving & Christmas – that are GREAT deals when doing a flight/hotel or flight/car booking. Two years ago this specific sale occurred in Mid-May – and last year it was mid-June. So far this year, I have not seen this sale being advertised. Head For Points was the publication that ‘broke’ the news for me on this sale over the last few years – so I was hoping someone might have some insight as to if & when this might be taking place this year???? Thanks so much – I really appreciate any help with this. 🙂
Have you tried the low fare finder? Lot of good prices at the moment.
No formal sales for those periods so far, sadly. In the last 2 years we did Washington for Thanksgiving ‘16 in F for <4K including 5 hotel nights and NYC in Club for pre-Xmas ‘17 with 4 hotel nights for <3k on sale fares. Both for 2 people.
Setting up alerts on Google Flights is a good way to go, sometimes you get unpublicised reductions close to those sort of levels but that won’t pick up the holidays deals. Fingers crossed something good comes through for this year.
Hi. Does anyone know – if you book a fly drive (like Rob suggests), but purely for the discount, and don’t turn up to pick up the car, do you suffer any penalty? (Like if you don’t fly one leg of a flight)
no problem at all
I know of one case where Avis made a Euro 50 no-show fee. Unlikely though.