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British Airways Holidays launches short-haul and long-haul luxury sale – cheaper than just a flight

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British Airways Holidays has launched a special luxury promotion, valid for both short haul and long haul departures.

There are some decent prices here but you need to book by Tuesday 24th July. The prices are not quite as good as we saw this time last year but they are still very good value for what you get.

You can see the deals available with Club World flights here.

The short-haul Club Europe holidays are here.

BA Holidays

The ‘lead in’ flight and hotel offers are:

New York from £1,449 per person – three nights at the 4* Moxy Times Square from £1,449 per person, travelling August 3 – August 28, 2018, with Club World flights from London Gatwick

Seychelles from £2,219 per person – seven nights with breakfast at the 4* Coco de Mer Hotel and Black Parrot suites, Seychelles, travelling 31 October – 15 December, 2018, with Club World flights from London Heathrow

Dubai from £1,389 per person – three nights at the 5* Hyatt Regency Dubai from £1,389 per person, travelling 1 September – 30 September 2018, with Club World return flights from London Heathrow 

Barcelona from £269 per person – three nights at the 4* Ilunion Bel Art, Barcelona, travelling 1 November – 9 December 2018, with Club Europe return flights from London Gatwick

Thessaloniki from £599 per person – seven nights with breakfast at the 5* Anastasia Resort & Spa, Thessaloniki, travelling 5 October – 15 October 2018, with Club Europe return flights from London Gatwick

Amsterdam from £269 per person – three nights at the 4* XO Hotels Park West, Amsterdam, travelling 1 January 1 – 31 January 2019, with Club Europe return flights from London Heathrow

Orlando from £1999 per person – seven nights at the 4* DoubleTree by Hilton Orlando Seaworld, travelling 3 September – 20 September 2018, with Club World flights from London Gatwick

These prices are based on two people sharing.  Travel dates vary by destination.

As usual with BA Holiday you don’t have to pay in full when booking. Apart from a small deposit, you only need to pay the balance five weeks before departure.  This is a substantial extra benefit compared to just booking flights.

Remember that you also earn a bonus 1 Avios per £1 for booking with BA Holidays on top of the Avios you will earn from the flights and from your credit card.  Details of this offer are here.

One minor downside is that BA Holidays packages do not earn On Business points in BA’s small business loyalty scheme for the flights.  You WILL earn the usual Avios and tier points.

The BA Holidays Club World promo page is here and the Club Europe short-haul page is here.

To maximise your miles when paying, your best bet is the British Airways American Express Premium Plus card which earns double Avios (3 per £1) when you book at ba.com or via BA Holidays.  You do not get double Avios if you book with the free British Airways American Express card. 

Another option is American Express Preferred Rewards Gold which offers double points – 2 per £1 – when you book flight tickets directly with an airline.

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

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There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

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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

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The Platinum Card from American Express

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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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

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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

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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.

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

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (50)

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

  • patchy mcbest says:
    22 Jul22 July 05:15

    I think the holiday deals seem so patchy – a month here or there. Kinda looks like scraps from things they couldn’t sell! I have no doubt it can save a bit of money, but nothing for me unfortunately.

    O/T travelled on P/E VS the other day and was amazed by how good it was. Better P/E than BA by a mile. Thanks Rob for your help in getting the points required. Great site.

  • Anna says:
    22 Jul22 July 06:48

    How often does BA have these sales, I need to book a substantial flight/hotel/car package in the autumn when flights for summer 2019 are released?

    • Jack says:
      22 Jul22 July 07:49

      I’ve also read somewhere a couple of years ago (Economist??) that the magic window to book is T-10 weeks. Would be interesting to find some research.

      • Rob says:
        22 Jul22 July 08:17

        Various newspaper articles over the years generally say the 3 month mark is best, yes.

    • Rob says:
      22 Jul22 July 08:19

      Pretty regular, BA Holidays is now where BA dumps flights it can’t sell but where it doesn’t want to reduce the published price.

    • Andrew says:
      22 Jul22 July 09:31

      Surely it all depends on how you define “Summer 2019”?

      Scottish Schools finish at the end of June. Bizarrely, a flight on BA from EDI or GLA to MCO for a week on Saturday 28th June costs under £500 – so peak flights. Flights on the same legs from LON to MCO, before the English holidays start, cost £850…

      • Anna says:
        22 Jul22 July 10:24

        Yes, MCO is unaffordable for a lot of people now, though I would refuse to pay that anyway!

        • Lady London says:
          22 Jul22 July 12:10

          There are several airports within easy driving distance of MCO such as TPA. If you really need to get to that area I’d even consider Sarasota or Naples via US domestic connection and there are several others. One way car hire within Florida usually doesn’t have any surcharge so you can pick up at one airport and drop at another.

      • Yawn says:
        22 Jul22 July 13:29

        But…of all the wonderful places in the world (and much on our doorstep), isn’t Orlando just tedium personified? Many just go because so many other families do.
        An American Dubai.

        • Anna says:
          22 Jul22 July 13:41

          Yes but you can give your brain a complete rest from entertaining kids for a fortnight because it’s all there on a plate, which you almost can’t put a price on – until they made it so outrageously expensive!

          Yes LL, I am definitely considering making it a 2-centre holiday next time with a stop in NYC or similar.

    • Anna says:
      22 Jul22 July 10:23

      Yes it’s school holidays, we are chained to these for at least the next 4 years! The plan is to get 2 reward seats with Lloyds upgrade vouchers at T-355 and then book a package with the same flight for my OH. We have done this in the past but paid for the 3rd flight up front, however, experimenting with a few dummy bookings shows that packages can give tremendous value. However, I need to book early enough to make sure we can all be on the same flight!

  • Jack says:
    22 Jul22 July 07:48

    I booked a reward ticket using Avios in QR. any idea why the “Rewards for this flight” would be showing 140 Tier Points? I wouldn’t expect any TPs for a reward flight, surely??

    • Rob says:
      22 Jul22 July 08:17

      Because their IT is messed up – although there is a chance it posts. Similarly, crediting BA redemptions to AA can occasionally lead to them posting.

  • Gary Oswald says:
    22 Jul22 July 09:22

    The Club World Link isn’t working for me. Anyone else having the same problem?

  • SouthernEM says:
    22 Jul22 July 09:24

    I love looking at these sales and dreaming. Dreaming because as a single traveller, these prices are not applicable. Any ideas for the single traveller who likes a bit of luxury?

    • Vicky says:
      22 Jul22 July 10:59

      If you fiddle around you can submit “1 traveller” I just got a decent deal on club flights to New York and 3 nights at the Moxy for £1700. A little bit more than the sale prices for 2 travellers but all the more space for me in the hotel 🙂

      • Mansplaining says:
        22 Jul22 July 13:32

        Would you not prefer slightly less space in your room, but more fun?

    • Anna says:
      22 Jul22 July 13:43

      Hotel rooms in the US are generally priced per room, not per person. Package deals for 1 person are still a great bargain, see my post above about how we travel as a family of 3 (2 of redemptions, one on a paid booking).

    • 1nfrequent says:
      22 Jul22 July 21:11

      I have the same issue – what sort of budget are you on?

      If you’re single and don’t have children so that you’re flexible in your holiday dates then keep an eye out on the blogs and FT for sales fares and ex-EU deals on flights (ex-DUB or ex-INV is better for the US if you’re looking at the Far East then Finnair is good from the UK).

      For hotel rooms, if you’re not married to loyalty schemes so that points can be used to bring the costs down, then I’d recommend hotels.com (although it doesn’t offer loyalty nights/discounts on some chains).

      1F

  • Tubbs says:
    22 Jul22 July 10:45

    I’m having trouble when looking at BA Holidays with flights originating outside UK (specifically DUB). I am forced to navigate away from the BA Hols page. I can search for flight+hotel or flight+car but only if the hotel or car if for the entire holiday rather than a few days. Any workaround?

    • Stu N says:
      22 Jul22 July 11:41

      Nothing works reliably in my experience. I usually price up from London then add domestics and check it’s still reasonable. Benchmark is about £150 pp for CE connections from Edinburgh, sometimes it’s a bit more than that, sometimes a bit less.

      Occasionally on long haul flights the connections reduce the overall price; our thanksgiving trip to DC a couple of years ago was a couple of hundred cheaper than starting in London. Flip side is if sale fares are ex London only, the domestic can add thousands.

      • Nuts says:
        22 Jul22 July 13:48

        Why on earth would you choose to fly CE (domestic) as a basic add-on in such a circumstance?

        • Stu N says:
          22 Jul22 July 13:53

          Not everyone lives in London so you have to get to Heathrow/ Gatwick somehow, and if you book your onward flight in CE or F then the domestics go into CE too. And I rather like CE anyway, as long as you get it for reasonable money and Row 1 is available.

        • Stu N says:
          22 Jul22 July 13:59

          (Unless you mean the scenario that adds thousands to the package. In that case you either don’t book it, or sort the domestics separately accepting issues that come with separate tickets.)

        • John says:
          22 Jul22 July 17:00

          Tier points too

  • Simon says:
    22 Jul22 July 11:25

    Do these packages earn hotel points / enjoy their tier benefits?

    • Stu N says:
      22 Jul22 July 11:42

      No, they are third party travel agent bookings. You might get lucky with individual hotels but wouldn’t bank on that.

  • Alan says:
    22 Jul22 July 11:29

    Sadly as ever these promos are pretty poor unless travelling as (a) a couple and (b) from London 🙁

    • KBuffett says:
      22 Jul22 July 12:05

      Perfect

      • badly designed penguin says:
        22 Jul22 July 12:11

        these places in europe will be ice cold in winter. visiting places like amsterdam when it’s freezing versus beautifully sunny is completely different. this ‘sale’ from that perspective is terrible. however, hopefully it helps somebody save a bit of money :).

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