Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Here are the best Business and First Class deals in the new British Airways sale

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British Airways has launched a new sale, with deals in every class from First to World Traveller and Euro Traveller.

The home page for the premium class part of the sale is here.  You can book until 25th September.

Travel dates are all over the place and it would take me a full article just to list all the permutations.  On most routes you can travel until March 2019 but that statement hides a lot of variability.  Advance purchase restrictions also vary and can be as high as 50 days, so don’t plan on a last-minute getaway to New York JFK ….

British Airways business first class sale

You should take a look at the small print at the bottom of the sale website for all the travel date details.

We will look at Premium Economy deals in a separate article soon.  We won’t focus on Economy deals, but you can see what is available via this sale page of ba.com.  The headline fare to New York is £317 return.

The easiest way to check out the best prices to a specific destination is with the British Airways Low Fare Finder tool on ba.com. This will show you the cheapest price on any route, in any class, on month by month basis.

If you can be flexible with dates, there are some decent fares available.

In general, fares in First and Club World are similar to what we saw in the January sale although this masks some route by route variation.  I picked out in Club World:

  • Atlanta £1,475
  • Boston £1,335
  • Chicago £1,350
  • Las Vegas £1,624
  • New York £1,343
  • Philadelphia £1,297
  • Antigua £1,696
  • Kingston £1,197
  • Punta Cana £1,150
  • St Lucia £1,497
  • Amman £1,100
  • Abu Dhabi £1,600
  • Dubai £1,699
  • Cape Town £1,966
  • Johannesburg £2,011
  • Seychelles £1,932
  • Lima £1,796
  • Tel Aviv £1,232
  • Delhi £1,749
  • Bangkok £1,763
  • Shanghai £1,808
  • Tokyo £2,245

In First Class, I spotted:

  • Boston £1,976
  • Chicago £1,901
  • New York £2,006
  • San Francisco £2,391
  • Tel Aviv £1,632
  • Singapore £2,781
  • Seychelles £2,663
  • Johannesburg £2,832

There are also deals on European Club Europe short-haul flights with some destinations at £225 return or less for 80 tier points. I spotted Alicante, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bilbao, Billund, Bologne, Bordeaux, Cologne, Dublin, Dusseldorf, Genoa, Gibraltar, Gothenburg, Hamburg, Hannover, Limoges, Luxembourg, Lyon, Malaga, Marseilles, Milan, Nice, Nuremberg, Palma, Paris, Prague, Seville, Stuttgart, Tallinn, Toulouse, Turin, Valencia, Venice and Zagreb. These fares will require a Saturday night stay.

One to note is Helsinki from £238 return.  This is a ‘160 tier points’ route (80 tier points each way) which means that a weekend break here is a cheap way to get your nearer Bronze, Silver or Gold status.  I list all the 160 tier point Club Europe routes in this article.  If you’re in Scotland, Glasgow to Helsinki (via Heathrow) is £341 return for 240 tier points.

Remember that ‘Part Pay With Avios’ (details here) can be used with these fares.  Think twice before using this, however, as you generally get little more than a poor 0.5p per Avios at the higher levels.

BA Holidays is also running deals

It is well worth pricing up BA’s ‘flight and hotel’ or ‘flight and car’ options.  Adding a hotel, even a one-star one, or a small car can bring down the cost to less than the flight itself.

I strongly recommend popping over to BA Holidays here and doing a test booking before booking anything as ‘flight only’.

Another benefit of booking your flight as a holiday is that you only pay a deposit now with the balance due five weeks before departure.  To top it off, you get a bonus 1 Avios per £1 spent when booking via BA Holidays.

Here are a few examples of BA Holidays pricing:

Palma –  Club Europe flights and 3 nights at a 4-star hotel from £238 per person

Venice –  Club Europe flights and 2 nights at a 4-star hotel from £259 per person

New York – Club World flights and 4 nights at a 4-star hotel from £1,536 per person

Dubai –  Club World flights and 3 nights at a 4-star hotel from £1,632 per person

Las Vegas –  Club World flights and 5 nights at a 4-star hotel from £1,752 per person

Barbados –  Club World flights and 7 nights at a 4-star hotel from £1,865 per person

Club World holiday deals are here and Club Europe holiday deals are here.

The best thing to do if you are interested is to go to ba.com and have a look around.  The full BA premium sale details are 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.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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:

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

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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.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (55)

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

  • Mrs M says:
    31 Aug31 August 06:30

    We have been watching fares for a weekend break in November and today’s sale saw absolutely no movement on prices to Austria. If you are ex or current armed forces then you can take advantage of the which is approximately 10%.

    The discount is available to all Serving Armed Forces, Reservists, Spouses of Serving Personnel, Forces Veterans, MoD Civil Servants, War widowers and Cadet Forces (over 16) from today (November 2, 2016) and can be booked through a secure, dedicated website.

    • Matt says:
      2 Sep2 September 21:37

      I’ve looked into the “10%” discount before and never found fares discounted anywhere near the 10% mark. If a recall correctly NYC fares were coming out at something silly like £3 less than the standard bookable fare. I’m happy to be told otherwise if you’ve had more success?!

  • Phillip says:
    31 Aug31 August 06:43

    Most of the Club prices have been available throughout the past few months, which I actually found surprising, particularly the US routes.

  • Jords says:
    31 Aug31 August 08:55

    Venice would be Club Europe no?

  • Optimus Prime says:
    31 Aug31 August 09:13

    I take it that for holidays in June we have to wait till the December sale?

    • Anna says:
      31 Aug31 August 12:35

      Prices for our Caribbean destination are v good in July, but horrific in August. This seems to be a trend with BA, their prices are very high until American Airlines release their flights a few weeks later, then they drop considerably, presumably due to the competition in the market at this point?

      • Stuart P says:
        31 Aug31 August 13:35

        There is a revenue sharing joint venture between AA and BA on transatlantic routes so it’s probably not competition between those two that affects the price.

  • Scott says:
    31 Aug31 August 09:18

    I had been watching prices to the Caribbean for Jan/Feb and they have dropped nicely with this sale. Booked last night, winter sun is always a nice treat.

  • LondonFoodie says:
    31 Aug31 August 09:54

    BA ripped me off.. got the email at 11:30am about the sale but website wasnt all red yet. But as email said sale now on, I believed it.
    went ahead and bought a holiday package with club world flights at 11:47.
    15 minutes later the site goes all red exactly same package listed for quite a bit less.
    And that is when I discovered that there is no cooling off period for BA holiday packages.
    So deposited lying to me in their email about the sale being on, agent told me I’m SOL.
    Another reminder why I should stop giving them my business…

    • Genghis says:
      31 Aug31 August 09:59

      But you were happy to part with your money when you bought the holiday, otherwise you wouldn’t have paid that…

    • Alex W says:
      31 Aug31 August 10:04

      Worth a complaint I’d say.

    • Polly says:
      31 Aug31 August 10:06

      Call them immediately!

      • LondonFoodie says:
        31 Aug31 August 12:03

        Called them and filed a complaint. Don’t love my chances as no way for me to prove that I got the pre-sale price deal – they can always say that prices change dynamically, but I know that I got the pre-sale prices as I’ve been tracking it for days.
        Genghis – correct. And I’m happy that I got a very good deal. But as Tversky and Cahanman discovered, a loss is much more painful than a gain…

        • John says:
          31 Aug31 August 12:42

          I don’t get it, you’ve been tracking the price for days, and it didn’t go down, but you got an email saying SALE so you decided the regular price was the sale price?

    • Bonglim says:
      31 Aug31 August 15:39

      I think – someone correct me if I am wrong – that BA allows you to cancel your ticket within 24 hours without penalty.

      Worth a try?

      • Bonglim says:
        31 Aug31 August 15:41

        “Your right to cancel within 24 hours

        If you notice a mistake with your booking after you have paid for your ticket(s), you may cancel a reservation made on ba.com or through the British Airways call center within 24 hours of ticketing for a full refund by calling the British Airways call center at 800-AIRWAYS provided travel is one week or more from the date of purchase. The 24 hour deadline can be extended up to 48 hours if the call center is closed when you first call.”

        Hope you read this in time.

  • Alex W says:
    31 Aug31 August 10:06

    There are some excellent deals there. Once again it makes me question the value of Avios.

    The sale fares are even good for one-way fares if you’re prepared to throw-away an economy return.

    • Doug M says:
      31 Aug31 August 10:22

      Short haul RFS for value. Especially if you need short notice or several tickets. But I broadly agree. I get decent value from Avios because I mostly save them, for when that value is there. As for the sale, it’s just not as good as waiting for the right fare Ex-EU.

      • Alex W says:
        31 Aug31 August 11:17

        Agreed RFS can be good.

        These sale fares seem at least comparable to an Ex-EU and much more convenient if you can get to LHR easily.

      • Roger1* says:
        31 Aug31 August 11:17

        ‘As for the sale, it’s just not as good as waiting for the right fare Ex-EU.’

        Up to a point. Given that F/J redemption awards to Cape Town are difficult to find, the <£2k sale fare is not bad. I've previously booked ex-AMS/LIS/VIE to CPT for £1,500-1,700. Of course, these needed to be topped and tailed from/to LON. The current sale fare without the top and tail is competitive IMO.

        But of course not so competitive as the recent F twofer!

        • Polly says:
          31 Aug31 August 16:51

          Def worth saving and using avio on an F 241 to Asia, or Oz if poss…and RFS invaluable for last minute urgent flights…with not more financial output than ness, odd pro rata fee, usual spend pattern, all necessary. So, feels good taking off in that jet!

        • Alex W says:
          1 Sep1 September 07:36

          F241 to Oz – rare as hen’s teeth and won’t that cost you 300,000 Avios plus about £1400 on fees? Compare that to a Qatar ex EU sale fare, about £1600 each plus you’d earn about 20,000 Avios each.

    • marcw says:
      31 Aug31 August 10:30

      The real value of Avios is on short haul RFS and IB long haul Business. Long Haul BA is just a rip off, even with the loved 241 – the saving is not that much.

      • Genghis says:
        31 Aug31 August 10:33

        IMO it depends heavily on how you collect your points.

        • Roberto says:
          31 Aug31 August 11:54

          Very true G.
          Plan ahead , work it smart and you have many opportunities to travel cheaply in style.

        • Nick_C says:
          31 Aug31 August 12:11

          Absolutely. I’m sitting on a healthy Avios balance (thanks Rob, and others who comment on here!) which have cost me an average of 0.22p each. I flew to NYC in May for £664 – £532 cash and £132 of Avios (60000 Avios using a Lloyds upgrade voucher).

          If I was buying a ticket now, I would fly on AA. A redemption would cost £532 cash and £264 of Avios without a voucher, so £796 total.

          So buying a ticket in the sale for £1343 would cost me an extra £547. Not good value for me.

          If I travelled with a friend on an off peak day using my 241 voucher, the total cost for the two of use would be £1284, a saving of £1400 on the sale price.

          So it depends on what you have paid for your Avios, how many you have, and can you get the availability you want on a redemption.

        • MattyS says:
          31 Aug31 August 14:01

          +1.
          Having saved for a while and redeemed for some Virgin upper class flights for the family to USA, I couldn’t face starting again for one decent long haul redemption.

          Decided to look into RFS (again with thanks to Rob, Anika and many others on here) and collect Avios through a variety of cards, referrals and clubcard transfers. The ability to get tickets for household members and friends / family for a low cash price has been great especially as we have to travel in school hols.

          Just booked four return tickets to Turkey (2*CE, 2* economy) in 2019 school summer hols for 100k Avios incl a 241 plus £170. The best cash price was c. £1,600 for all economy. Have also recently sent my son & his gf and my parents on various CE flights for much lower than the best cash prices I could find.

          Given I’ve spent not much more cash than I would do anyway to collect avios (mainly pro-rata card fees), I look more at the cash saving for the value I get than the points per mile.

  • 1nfrequent says:
    31 Aug31 August 12:29

    I’m pretty with what I got in the sale – open-jaw to Canada for just under 1500 quid (in to Toronto, out of Vancouver) compared to 2200 last week for the same dates (1900 if I’d ex-EUed it).

    1F

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