Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

British Airways Holidays luxury city breaks flash offer – can be cheaper than just a flight

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

British Airways Holidays is running a special luxury breaks flash offer this weekend, valid for holidays to Europe, New York and South Africa amongst other places.

There are some decent prices here but you need to book by midnight on Monday 18th February.

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

The short-haul Club Europe holiday deals are here.

The key thing to know about BA Holidays is that – due to the weird world of airline pricing – booking a flight and hotel, or flight and car hire, together can often work out cheaper than just booking a flight itself.

British Airways A320

The ‘lead in’ deals are:

Europe

Verona from £269 per person – three nights at the 4* Montemezzi Hotel including breakfast, travelling 24th February to 31st March, with Club Europe return flights from Gatwick

Amsterdam from £289 per person – three nights at the 4* Xo Blue Square Hotel, travelling 24th February to 18th March, with Club Europe return flights from Heathrow

Nice from £269 per person – three nights at the 4* Villa Bougainville Hotel, travelling 18th February to 25th March, with Club Europe return flights from Gatwick

Rome from £299 per person – three nights at the 4* Occidental Aurelia, travelling 24th February – 12th March, with Club Europe return flights from Gatwick

USA

New York from £1,629 per person – three nights at the 4* DoubleTree by Hilton New York Times Square West, travelling 14th February to 31st March, with Club World return flights from Gatwick

South Africa

Durban from £1,649 per person – five nights at the 5* Hilton Durban including breakfast, travelling 7th October to 31st October, with Club World return flights from Heathrow

Cape Town from £2,319 per person – five nights at the 5* Hilton Cape Town City Centre, travelling 2nd November to 8th December, with Club World return flights from Heathrow

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

As usual with BA Holidays you don’t have to pay in full when booking.  Secure the deal with a small deposit, and then pay the balance five weeks before departure.  This is a substantial extra benefit compared to just booking flights.

You also earn a bonus 1 Avios per £1 for booking with BA Holidays.  Find out more here.

This is on top of the Avios and tier points you will earn from the flights which are the same as you would get for booking a ‘flight only’, and from your credit card.  Remember that BA Holidays spending earns you double Avios (3 per £1) if you charge it to a British Airways Premium Plus American Express card.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (September 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 26th September 2024, sign up for FREE Barclaycard Avios Mastercard and you will receive a sign-up bonus of 10,000 Avios. This is double the usual bonus! You only need to spend £1,000 within 90 days. Our full review is here. Click here to apply.

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

10,000 Avios (to 26th September) 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.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus 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 (52)

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

  • Milo234 says:
    15 Feb15 February 02:42

    Perfect timing, I am 100 tier points short for my BA gold, end date early April. Now, If I book a break with an IHG hotel, will I get the IHG points and status benefits as well?

  • Matt says:
    15 Feb15 February 13:17

    OT – How are the MBNA cards working with curve?
    Transactions with HMRC, odd cash withdrawals via curve working OK?
    Would be great to hear from MBNA users if they have been using it?
    Thanks Matt

    • Rob says:
      15 Feb15 February 13:27

      Works fine on my Horizon, better than Creation cards ever did.

      • Rob says:
        15 Feb15 February 14:22

        Tesco and NatWest now too.

      • MikiMan says:
        15 Feb15 February 18:46

        What about the new Virgin Atlantic Credit Card. Have anyone tried this on Curve for HMRC payments?

        • Rob says:
          15 Feb15 February 21:32

          No problems reported, but not tried myself as our VS card is in my wife’s name.

      • Helen says:
        17 Feb17 February 18:58

        Paid my end of SA tax in Jan with my VS Plus card via Curve. No issues at all – it went through with no problems and now shows on my VS statement as HMRC.
        I now want to pay more tax to HMRC (for my business) but have hit my Curve limit, asked them for a temporary increase but they said No, so i can’t pay my taxes and get points.

      • Shoestring says:
        17 Feb17 February 19:08

        You can still get Tesco points (debit card on current a/c)

  • Richard says:
    15 Feb15 February 14:03

    OT – Are you able to book Aer Lingus Birmingham to Dublin using points? It doesn’t look like there is any availability for any dates on either Aer Lingus or BA websites, there is for Heathrow to Dublin though.

    • Richard says:
      15 Feb15 February 14:09

      Typical found the Avios.com link a couple of minutes after, am I still able to transfer or make bookings by that site all my points were moved out to my BA account awhile ago?

    • Rob says:
      15 Feb15 February 14:19

      BA site does not show Lingus, you must call.

      • Richard says:
        15 Feb15 February 14:56

        Thanks, apparently there’s an issue at them moment linking accounts when you sign up to Aer Club, their sending my details to a back office to fix and Avios.com support could only direct me to the Aer Club.

        Does anyone know if there are additional charges booking reward flight with BA over the phone vs online? I might try that way next.
        Thanks again

        • Richard says:
          15 Feb15 February 15:47

          Apparently taxes through BA are more expensive than Aer Club £63.21 vs £41.31, there’s still 9 seats left so I’ll wait and see if Aer Club sort out the IT issues.

  • Sandra says:
    15 Feb15 February 14:42

    Looking to book 4/5 nights in Athens in June as post A level trip with daughter who is going to study Classics/Ancient History at Uni. There’s a myriad of hotels come up on BA site, can anyone with recent knowledge recommend anything central for Acropolis, museums, Syntagma etc please? Will be using current BA holiday sale most likely so not worried about hotel points.Thanks!

    • Dimitri says:
      16 Feb16 February 19:10

      What’s your budget?

      Grande Bretagne is the best hotel in Athens and right at the heart of the city. Your trip will be memorable. Of-course there are more budget options around..

      • Sandra says:
        16 Feb16 February 20:37

        Thanks, will have a look it, location, comfort and a safe area are more important than price.

        • Alan says:
          17 Feb17 February 01:20

          I liked the Hilton when I was there – good pool, nice rooms and great Acropolis views from the rooftop restaurant.

        • Dimitri says:
          17 Feb17 February 16:59

          Hilton is not in the city centre though.. Too far in my opinion. Same with IC and Crowne Plaza unfortunately.

  • Chris Shimmin-Vincent says:
    16 Feb16 February 13:24

    Got a great deal in Nice going at the end of March. Looking forward to it.

  • Justin says:
    17 Feb17 February 07:42

    Another 80TP towards finally getting to Bronze, with a 3 day break in Gib way cheaper than the actual CE flight cost (c £120pp cheaper). How can they do this? And another chance to go to the fantastic CF lounge in T3!

    • Rob says:
      17 Feb17 February 08:28

      How? is easy. All airlines sell super-cheap tickets to tour operators. To protect their margins, they don’t sell these tickets directly to the public. Tour operators are only allowed to use these tickets if they are sold with a car or hotel.

      BA decided that it might as well start its own tour operator and pick up some extra revenue this way rather than letting the tour operators take the profit.

      • Justin says:
        17 Feb17 February 18:14

        Don’t get me wrong I understand the concept of palming off seats to the tour operator and the tax benefit of that but LHR-GIB is a route with consistently load factor. Why question is more why sell these in CE when they can just move the curtain further forward. The cost of the inceeased APD and the Avios and TP must surely offset any commission they get the TO.

        • Shoestring says:
          17 Feb17 February 19:05

          OK back of fag packet:

          3 nights in Gibraltar is from £440. APD in business is £26, Avios & TPs are hardly going to be costed @ even £25 to BA (depends on passenger’s status). LHR passenger service charge is £29, GIB probs nothing much.

          BA also has to negotiate a decent rate for the 3 nights – what’s a decent hotel going to charge a bulk buyer – £50/ night?

          I reckon headline costs are going to be minimum about £230 (not forgetting tax treatment) – still leaving BA with plenty to play with as it accounts for the flight itself & its profitability.

  • Robert says:
    17 Feb17 February 11:09

    Can anyone recommend a central, safe hotel in Rome please?

    • Shoestring says:
      17 Feb17 February 18:26

      The problem we found last summer (Rome hotel for my wife & 2 of the kids) is that if by ‘central’ you mean in or close to the historic centre – which is what we wanted – there’s not much in the way of big chain hotels (which presumably would meet your ‘safe’ requirement and might seem more familiar).

      In the end we settled for a smaller independent hotel with a perfect centro storico location, we just picked it out of the hotels.com selection (with good reports). It was fine and not expensive either.

  • james67 says:
    17 Feb17 February 11:41

    OT

    I have a spend £600 on amex Travel get £200 off voucher. I need to buy 2 sets of ~£400 flights, is there any way for me to put it through as one transaction so I get the money off?

    • Matt B says:
      17 Feb17 February 12:42

      You dont have to, cumulative spend is fine, we just made 2 separate transactions recently and got confirmation immediately and the £200 credit within a week

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Get 10,000 Avios with the free Barclaycard until 26th September 2024!

NEW: Sign-up bonuses boosted to 3,000 and 18,000 points

Latest Forum Posts

Get 40,000 bonus points (worth 40,000 Avios) and £300 dining credit with The Platinum Card

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

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

Get £10 when you spend £150 on your free Currensea card

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 POINTS WORTH 10,500 AVIOS WITH CAPITAL ON TAP

Get 20,000 bonus points (converts to 20,000 Avios) with 'first year free' American Express Gold

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!