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

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

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.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

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:

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits 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.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus 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.

  • Frances Butler says:
    22 Dec22 December 18:36

    5th to 9th January is coming out at £934 for 1 person… London to Johannesburg, it’s the day flight back.

  • Craig says:
    22 Dec22 December 19:44

    Tough decision, I have reward flights and hire car booked Jan/Feb. Cancelling and rebooking in the sale will cost me £1200 more but save a lot of Avios. How many will I earn on a LHR-JNB flight?

  • Nathan says:
    22 Dec22 December 21:05

    This could not have come at a better time. Was about to book LHR-JNB-LHR WT+ outbound and UUA to CW on the inbound for £1,800 + 60,000(!) Avios. Instead got this deal for just shy of £2,000 return in CW and earning nearly 50,000 Avios and a retention of Silver status for another year too! Thanks Rob. Any idea what would happen if we returned the car after say 3 days instead of keeping for the full 2 weeks? Would we be charged or penalised in any way? Plan to do more than just Johannesburg 🙂

    • Nathan says:
      22 Dec22 December 21:09

      …For two px I should have said 🙂

      • Sean says:
        22 Dec22 December 21:39

        I wouldn’t suggest returning the car early as they can reprice and void the voucher (making you pay rack for the 3 days). Can you price it with a car booking for part of the trip? Otherwise it seems that not using the car at all would be better

        • Nathan says:
          22 Dec22 December 22:17

          The site was being buggy and didn’t want to lose out so just booked the flights and car for the entire time. So you think that just not showing up for the car would be fine? I thought I’d read somewhere of no show penalties

        • Lady London says:
          23 Dec23 December 21:27

          I have noticed that both Hertz and Avis seem to have changed their t’s and c’s in the past year or so, possibly quite recently. The conditions for prepaid are both very different from what they were, for both. The conditions for Pay at Location also appear to have worsened for both of these, with swingeing new fines for no-shows that weren’t there before. Prepay on the other hand seems to have actually become refundable (which it never was before) provided a certain amount of notice have been given.

          Rather remiss of me not to have noticed since I have hired quite a few cars in the past year and not taken a reqlly good squizz at the t’s and c’s again till recently. But I’d advise anyone hiring a car at least from these, and probably from others, that’s used to a certain set of t’s and c’s to take a look and make themselves aware of what’s changed. Sad to say but I find hiring a car a stressful business due to the rampant levels of fraud and unfair conditions that seem to be reported on the part of the providers. Plus one or two of my own experiences would always urge caution if you’re the one carrying the cost if there’s any issues.

    • Craig says:
      22 Dec22 December 21:48

      Use the custom holiday option, add flight then car. You’ll get similar prices but the car hire will match what you actually want. I’ve got Comair flights to CPT and back from PLZ to tie in and it worked for me.

    • Paul says:
      23 Dec23 December 09:18

      Just priced up 13 days in June, £2554 for 2 inc car hire for entire period, £4224 for same but only 1 day car hire!

  • Kevin says:
    22 Dec22 December 21:27

    Thanks for this! Had used the 241 voucher on this route for May. Paid the extra £1200 and got the same flights in CW without using any miles at all. Great bargain. I’ll gladly pay the £70 and use the voucher some other time!

  • Jimmy says:
    22 Dec22 December 21:40

    That’s a total bargain, thanks Rob (and Frances Butler) – just booked 11-20 January 2019 for £937.50 each. Couldn’t readily find any availability to CPT.

  • Craig says:
    22 Dec22 December 22:29

    Decided to go with the change, 125000 refunded, £1200 extra, 34000 Avios earned and we will be 5 tier points away from Bronze. Thanks Rob.

  • Mark F says:
    22 Dec22 December 23:32

    Hm. Current direct LHR3-CPT 62AB booked with a 2-4-1 vs cash LHR5-JNB-CPT on a b788…

    Stop making things complicated for me, Rob.

  • Henry Young says:
    23 Dec23 December 06:47

    So you are seriously suggesting (a) to go to South Africa during open season on whites and (b) driving a car in the world capital of car-jacking 😉

    • Paul says:
      23 Dec23 December 08:59

      Henry, you’re absolutely correct. Far better to stay at home, nice and safe from the world, not using up availability that those foolish enough to venture out into the world might wish to use. I quite literally cannot count the number of friends and acquaintances who have vanished off to foreign climes never to be seen again.

    • Rob says:
      23 Dec23 December 09:31

      You don’t need to actually collect the car …

      • Jimmy says:
        23 Dec23 December 19:28

        Exactly. We’re flying into Joburg, and prompty flying straight back out to CPT.

    • Mikeact says:
      23 Dec23 December 09:33

      We are lucky enough to go regularly, and have never encountered any problems…but then, we don’t go looking for problems. Even the townships have many decent people more than welcoming…..just ‘ be aware’ , like any part of the world….and I’ve been to many ‘dangerous spots’.

      • Mr Dee says:
        23 Dec23 December 23:06

        Quite sure nobody looks to get robbed in their homes in the middle of the night, crime is high there and you need to be more than just careful.

    • MikeL says:
      23 Dec23 December 11:35

      Henry, have you been to London recently ? 😳

    • Gavin says:
      24 Dec24 December 00:40

      Absolute coddswallop, I went into shabeens in townships with no bother whatsoever!

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 80,000 bonus points (worth 80,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card (Offer ends 27th May)

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get up to 10,000 bonus Hilton Honors points

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? GET THE ONLY FREE SMALL BUSINESS CREDIT CARD WHICH CAN EARN AVIOS

Get points worth 30,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold (ends 27th May)

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!