British Airways launches flights to Cologne – book your Avios Christmas Market trips now

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• David says:

  18 Jul18 July 07:05

  Good to see BA back to Cologne after many years away.

• Andrew Stock says:

  18 Jul18 July 07:32

  Good news, however BA has far more London to Dusseldorf flights. 3 from London City & 6 from Heathrow I think.

  You can get the train dirext from Dusseldorf airport to Koln HBF

  • 1nfrequent says:

    18 Jul18 July 10:21

    Just to add to this – be very careful at Dusseldorf airport station. There are gangs of pickpockets operating there – they crowd you as you go to board to do their thieving. Sadly my dad lost his wallet and my mum her purse during a trip there and they’d only been in the place for 30 minutes. The police were kind but there was little they could do other than take a report. Their advice was to wait to board a train until the crowds have dissipated – even if that means waiting until the last minute (not great advice for elderly parents though). I offer that up for whatever it’s worth.

    • Thomas Howard says:

      18 Jul18 July 10:58

      Is this one of the benefits of Merkels migrant policy? Every time I go to Germany now I usually see small fights breaking out in the streets. Never been involved but it’s not a place I’d go with anyone I felt the need to protect like kids or partner.

      • Cat says:

        18 Jul18 July 23:26

        Why are you assuming it’s migrants?

      • Jack says:

        19 Jul19 July 01:00

        Agreed – blatant racism. Who said anything about migrants??

      • Lady London says:

        19 Jul19 July 18:28

        Well that may be who he saw fighting.

    • Sammyjlb says:

      18 Jul18 July 20:58

      Thankyou for posting this advice ! Off to Dusseldorf this weekend and really appreciate the tip ! So sorry to hear about your parents having had this experience though – very unpleasant x

    • Brasov says:

      19 Jul19 July 01:45

      I wonder whether it was the poorly lit station under the terminal or the nicer station which is a monorail ride away. I’m surprised as I haven’t seen anything like that in those places, it sounds like some of the gangs in Barcelona.

    • Alex Sm says:

      21 Jul21 July 22:43

      They should have been holding on to their belongings better – not all the countries in Europe are as non-chalanr as the UK…

• Stu N says:

  18 Jul18 July 08:04

  OT- good value part cash part Avios redemptions on partners airlines.

  Just booked a Hong Kong to Singapore one way Avios redemption, flying Cathay in Business. Normally I ignore the part cash options as they are pretty poor deal. Here there was a sliding scale from £31 plus 20k Avios to £106 plus 11k Avios. The deals in the middle weren’t great but at the max cash element I’m spending £75 more but to saving 9k Avios so equivalent to buying at 0.83p. I’m a buyer at that price. (The cash price for the flights is about £1,400 so we are looking at 12p/ Avios in theory).

  Not sure how widespread this is but if you’re booking a partner redemption it’s worth looking at the pricing options.

  • Sapiens says:

    18 Jul18 July 08:16

    Agree Cathay can be excellent for this. If you care, be careful to ensure that you select a plane with the flat biz bed, and not the regional business offering (looks similar to BA WTP). Cathay serve the same SH/MH destinations with a mix of business class offerings.

    • Gavin says:

      18 Jul18 July 08:32

      Very easy to get substituted planes on the day on Cathay. Believe there isn’t first any more on the regional routes which used to indicate what sort of plane it would be.

      • Stu N says:

        18 Jul18 July 08:45

        @Gavin – we did Haneda to HKG in F this year which was exceptionally nice. Tokyo seems to be a rare example of F on regional routes and from what I could work out there is a F cabin every day but it is a mix of HND and NRT – flights. Very fortunately the HND flight worked out for us.

        SIN is business only. While flat beds would be nice, for 4 hours the recliners would do the job if we do get subbed.

    • Stu N says:

      18 Jul18 July 08:39

      Thanks – SIN is about a 50-50 mix but all A330 which makes it tricky to tell what set-up is scheduled. Fortunately Google Flights now tells you if it’s a recliner seat or lie flat seats. We have ended up on a flight with lie flats though timings and availability were the primary factors for us. Looking forward to Cathay business service and some Pier Lounge time.

      • Cat says:

        19 Jul19 July 07:33

        Enjoy! I love the Hong Kong Cathay lounges, especially the won ton soup at the noodle bar!

• Simon says:

  18 Jul18 July 08:25

  Is the 2 Club Europe and 4 economy seat Avios release on all BA flights ?? BA Cityflyer from LCY seem to only release 2 and 2…..

• qfx says:

  18 Jul18 July 08:46

  O/T – i have a great banner advert on HfP from Air Baltic looking for B737 Captains! Wont have to worry about the points game any longer. Not sure of their website’s homepage, i dont see no runway on the horizon, and they are flying low.

• AndyR says:

  18 Jul18 July 08:53

  Check cash prices before using Avios for Cologne. Just booked a Friday to Sunday return in December for £49!

  • Nick says:

    18 Jul18 July 11:00

    Snap!! Can’t wait for BA to declare this an ‘error fare’ and cancel it ????

    • Alex says:

      18 Jul18 July 13:30

      Snap x3

    • the real harry1 says:

      18 Jul18 July 16:20

      It’s not an error price, that’s BA competing with the LCCs. On my regular routes there are regularly now amazingly cheap off-peak prices that simply didn’t exist 18 months ago.

      • Nick says:

        18 Jul18 July 17:55

        Harry what’s the best price you’ve found? I’ve been looking to go for a year but have never found anything (on BA) for less than £120 return. I’m willing to pay more to go from LHR not LTN but it’s still always more expensive than every other SH route!

      • Lady London says:

        18 Jul18 July 18:22

        That’s why checking a bag in short-haul Europe on British Airways is now something like £65. Which is a lot more than any LCC I’m aware of.

      • the real harry1 says:

        18 Jul18 July 18:30

        @Nick HBO something like £90 rtn on BA. LTN can be cheaper if you don’t mind getting up at the crack of dawn. But again, off peak.

        No good for me as I am school hols sort of guy 🙂

        My wife got decent prices from Luton for a ‘weekend’ (hmm, I don’t call that a weekend!), wedding in early September, something like your £120 and I was pretty pleased with that as she only decided quite late to go (she’ll basically arrive, sleep, go to wedding + food, sleep & home)

      • the real harry1 says:

        18 Jul18 July 18:35

        @Lady London – yes & no – if you pay when booking for Plus instead of HBO, it’s only about £15 ISTR – paying £65 later looks remiss 🙂

      • the real harry1 says:

        18 Jul18 July 18:46

        I see BA put the price difference Europe HBO vs Plus up to £19 (ie your checked bag), CBA to check more than my route but it would probably hold true across the board.

        And @Nick – £85 rtn in HBO

• Lady London says:

  18 Jul18 July 18:23

  Gotta say I find CGN an intensely boring city. I had the misfortune to have to visit there a few times when I was working for a very large telecom.

  • Alex Sm says:

    21 Jul21 July 22:39

    The beauty is in the eye of a beholder, init?

• the real harry1 says:

  18 Jul18 July 18:52

  O/T IB – so many people complaining about no partner airline award flights available for the 90K promo points. I simply don’t think this is intended.

  If you remember, I commented a few days ago that with the IB new website refresh portal to buy reward flights, there was no partner (BA or otherwise) availability at all.

  I switched back to the old portal and was able to book my 2 return reward flights, on BA, no problem.

  I think it’s just this new website look/ development that is the issue & will get resolved.

  Are people now able to book hotels on IB with the 90K points?

  • Steve-B says:

    18 Jul18 July 20:10

    Agree, I was able to use my promo points for BA flights a few days ago, no problem.

  • Mark says:

    18 Jul18 July 22:21

    Wheres, the new / old portal?

    also do Iberia only release two biz seats like BA?

  • Frankie says:

    19 Jul19 July 11:08

    Harry. Have you booked your BA flights (on the Iberia site) direct from London and paid the hefty taxes and charges?

    • the real harry1 says:

      19 Jul19 July 11:37

      Yes – it was £143 for 2x Business (outward), + 2x Economy (homeward).

      Compared to BA direct I make it: 2x Business = £50, 2x Economy = £35 RFS fees.

      So I paid £58 extra. I can sort of justify it as follows:

      Free lounge x2 = £30
      Free F&B on board = £15
      [Other Business outward extras nice to have, no value attributed; I might actually use the extra luggage allowance because that half term it’s just my eldest son & myself, the other 2 kids decided to stay at home to revise for GCSEs/ see friends (they sometimes complain it’s too much hassle travelling out & back for 9 days break when 2 of them include travelling, I get the point – anyway, frees up some space in the car and we always have a huge backlog of things to take out to the place in the sun.]

      Anyway, a net £13 extra, I don’t mind that as with my IB points coming in @0.3p, these flights are much cheaper than I normally ‘pay’ just for economy flights.

      Why, do you think the IB fees are astronomical?

      • Frankie says:

        19 Jul19 July 15:53

        I didn’t realise you were only booking to Europe. I should have though. I thought you’d booked long haul BA from UK and hence much higher taxes and charges than booking long haul from Madrid. My confusion.

      • the real harry1 says:

        19 Jul19 July 16:07

        Aha. No LH for us until the kids have flown the nest, well, 2 of them, anyway. Can’t justify the cost when we have a place in the sun to maintain (and where we all love the holidays as well, no small consideration).

        My wife & I are great LH fliers so it’ll be straight back to Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and quite a few more in that direction from about 2022-23 🙂

  • Lady London says:

    19 Jul19 July 18:35

    Do you have the link to old portal then, please Harry?

    Tx for tip on luggage, I think difference on my main route fluctuates a big higher but it’s a good tip to not put myself in that position and buy Plus upfront.

    • the real harry1 says:

      19 Jul19 July 18:49

      it was this way, no particular tricks:
      log in
      use flight search box on left, input flight
      click ‘using Avios’
      click search
      takes you to another search box with same search details you just input
      click search again

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