Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Book British Airways Business Class to South Africa from £1,250 – when you book it with a car

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Via Flyertalk, there is a very interesting ‘flight and car’ deal currently available to Johannesburg in the BA sale.

You can get a Club World business class flight, plus a car, for £1250.  It is a little bit cheaper if two people travel.

You need to book this via BA Holidays – click here for their business class holidays page.

The best pricing is Johannesburg from £1250.  Cape Town is more expensive at £1691, based on a solo traveller.  Durban is £1610.  These prices are available well into 2019, and drop further if two travel together.  Availability is slim for more than two people.

You can also book this deal with an inclusive hotel.  The cheapest option for Jo’burg when I checked was the Holiday Inn Express Sandton which comes out at £1341 per person, based on two sharing, for seven nights with Club World flights.

For comparison, buying the Jo’burg flight as ‘flight only’ in the BA sale would cost £2274 for the dates in my example.

Another benefit of using BA Holidays is that you only need to pay a deposit now, with the balance due five weeks before departure.

Have a play around on the BA Holidays site 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 (October 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

Get 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

30,000 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 great travel benefits – for a large 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

10,000 points bonus – plus an extra 500 points for our readers Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 22nd October 2024, the bonus on American Express Business Platinum is increased to up to 80,000 Membership Rewards points, worth 80,000 Avios. You will receive 8 points per £1 spent for the first three months, on up to £10,000 of spending. Click here to read our full card review. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 22nd October 2024, the bonus on American Express Business Gold is increased to up to 40,000 Membership Rewards points, worth 40,000 Avios. You will receive 4 points per £1 spent for the first three months, on up to £10,000 of spending. The card is FREE for your first year. Click here to read our full card review. Click here to apply.

American Express Business Platinum

Up to 80,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

Get up to 40,000 points as a sign-up offer 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.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (39)

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

  • Lynn R says:
    23 Dec23 December 11:09

    I looked for flights plus car from LHR to JNB at the start of February and found a great deal, aound £2500 in cw for the 2 of us. But as soon as I add flights from ABZ into the equation it jumps to over £4000. Is there anyway around this other than to book on seperate tickets, ie. economy ABZ to LHR and then cw LHR to JNB? We don’t need “business seats” for the short hop from ABZ to LHR. But I do understand that by doing seperate tickets there is a risk with connections etc.

    • MikeL says:
      23 Dec23 December 11:33

      Same from Glasgow and Edinburgh on all all of these “London offers”. Only suggestion I can make is, as you suggest, is to book separate tickets or use avios as you have your CW luggage allowance to consider on the domestic leg if it’s economy. There’s always the train of course re the luggage allowance but then again, that’s not a cheap option either.

      • Lynn R says:
        23 Dec23 December 11:44

        I priced the train and even with a “two together” railcard its £550 rtn for the 2 of us. Flights are £257, no wonder so many folk choose to fly rather than take a train! I suppose we could just pay excess baggage which would work out much cheaper than paying for business tickets all the way?

        • Helen says:
          23 Dec23 December 14:21

          That’s probably the price for an Off Peak or Anytime fare. Advance tickets aren’t usually released 6-8 weeks prior to the date

    • Alan says:
      23 Dec23 December 11:34

      Not sure if it’s worth trying calling BA Holidays instead? Their website is pretty poor for non-London options but agree it wouldn’t be ideal at all to have separate tickets from a protected connection perspective, esp now they won’t through-check bags.

    • Rich says:
      24 Dec24 December 13:38

      A missconnect is much less problematic on the return. You can always get yourself home from LHR – at a price.

  • Kevin says:
    23 Dec23 December 12:42

    Very important: the same ’24 hour cooling off period’ for flights DOES NOT apply to package deals. I just found this out the hard way, and thankfully, had only paid the minimum deposit rather than the full amount.

    Package deals are only refundable within 24 hours if you book over the phone. Completely nonsensical, but it is what it is.

  • Neal says:
    23 Dec23 December 12:58

    Thanks very much. Just booked for August at £4995 for 4 seats. Take it from reading the other comments that the car does not need to be collected.

  • JC says:
    23 Dec23 December 15:03

    This is a great deal, JNB looks the cheapest as Rob says.

    What sort of holiday are you guys using for, safari? Keen to get some ideas!!!

    • Neal says:
      23 Dec23 December 16:04

      I think tbd at the moment – just wanted to secure the seats. Will definitely do a safari and fly to Cape Town. Already used 50k for 2 seats (me and my wife) to upgrade to 1st 😎

    • Lynn R says:
      23 Dec23 December 19:43

      We usually stay with friends and then go to various places, game reserves, the coast etc. I have booked seats for February 2019 along with a car which will allow us to do our own thing. Probably go to Kruger Park for a week. We will be away for 4 weeks in total. A trip to one of the game reserves is a must do. We lived in RSA and Botswana for 6 years and it’s got a hold on us for sure. We were back earlier this year for 3 weeks with friends who had never been to Africa before, we covered some 2000+ miles and had a ball. We already have a 5 week trip to Namibia and Botswana booked on a 2-4-1 in May/June 2019 so that we can celebrate our 40th anniversary. We have managed 4 trips to JNB in CW or F using 2-4-1’s. Thanks to HFP and Flyertalk for all the tips and advice, it’s allowed us to have wonderful adventures.
      This latest offer was too good to resist, thanks Rob!

  • Dawn says:
    23 Dec23 December 17:12

    I’ve already got 2-4-1 flights booked for Feb/March/April so will stick with it.
    However, we often go multi city from London – Joburg – Australia – London
    We like to stay in S Africa for longer than the 2 weeks.
    What would happen if we got the ‘2 week’ holiday price to Joburg for £1200 per person CW but just didn’t get on the return flight home?

  • Al says:
    23 Dec23 December 18:32

    Down to Port Elizabeth and I’ve found flights for £915 beginning of Jan (with care hire)!

  • Bhav says:
    8 Jan8 January 20:01

    Firstly, a big thank you for this. Was toying this morning between a trip to Asia (Qatar ex Europe) or Cape Town and decided to go with the latter. Given that we are a family of four (infant and child in tow), a more direct route appeals. Could not find any availability to CPT, so decided to fly in to JNB and then book the internal leg separately. Rather than not pick up the car, I wanted the car hire, but for CPT which I could not get to work online (through the custom holiday option as suggested by Craig above), so called BA holidays who managed to work it. There is no surcharge for booking over the phone and you also get the 24 hour cancellation policy applied. Now just too book some decent hotels.

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