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Why should you book with British Airways Holidays in the new BA sale?

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British Airways launched a new sale on Thursday offering savings on both premium flights and holiday packages which include a First or Business Class flight.

There are some decent prices and you have until 19th March to book.

You can see all deals available here. We focused on the flight-only deals in our previous article – see here.  Today I want to look at the BA Holidays offers.

Luxury holidays and city breaks with BA Holidays

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.

The reason for this is that all airlines, not just BA, make discounted tickets available to tour operators which can only be sold in conjunction with a car or hotel booking.  British Airways, Virgin and most other airlines have now decided that it is silly to subsidise independent tour operators when they could be running their own in-house package holiday business.

These are the ‘lead in’ deals in the current sale.  The travel dates required to get these prices are very narrow so treat them as ‘from’ prices rather than what you will pay:

Europe

Tenerife from £539 per person – Seven nights at the 4* Santa Barbara Golf & Ocean Golf Club Diamond Resort, travelling 1st June to 24th June with Club Europe return flights from London Gatwick

Venice from £299 per person – Three nights at the 4* Hotel Admiral, travelling 1st May to 27th May, with Club Europe return flights from Heathrow

USA

New York from £1,399 per person – Four nights at the 4* Hotel Mela, travelling 3rd January to 31st January 2020, with Club World return flights from Heathrow

Las Vegas from £1,699 per person – Four nights at the 4* Luxor, travelling 3rd January to 31st January 2020, with Club World return flights from Gatwick

Orlando from £1,799 per person – Seven nights at the 4* Blue Heron Beach Resort, travelling between 3rd November – 12th December inclusive. Includes Club World return flights from London Gatwick.

Los Angeles from £1,699 per person – Five nights at the 4* Knotts Berry Farm Hotel, travelling between 3rd January – 31st January 20 inclusive. Includes Club World return flights from London Heathrow.

South Africa

Cape Town from £2,489 per person – Seven nights at the 5* Hilton Cape Town City Center, travelling 6th May to 29th May, with Club World return flights from Heathrow

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

Little known benefits of booking with BA Holidays

Benefit 1 – just pay a deposit now

As usual with BA Holidays you don’t have to pay in full when booking.  You can 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.

Benefit 2 – you get a degree of cancellation flexibility

If you only pay the deposit now, you can walk away from your booking at any point up to five weeks before departure, which is when the final payment is due.  You will lose your deposit but that is an excellent outcome compared to having to walk away from pre-paid non-refundable flights.

Benefit 3 – bonus Avios

You earn a bonus 1 Avios per £1 you spend when booking with BA Holidays. You can find out more on ba.com here.

This bonus 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.

A non-benefit – no OnBusiness points

The only downside of using BA Holidays is that the flights do not earn On Business points in BA’s small business loyalty scheme.

The BA luxury flights and holidays promo page is here. Remember that you need to book by midnight on Tuesday 19th March.

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 triple points – 3 per £1 – when you book flight tickets in a foreign currency, because it triggers both the ‘double points for airline spend’ and the ‘double points for foreign spend’ bonuses.

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

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

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

25,000 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 a huge range of valuable benefits – for a 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.

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.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

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

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 (42)

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

  • John says:
    10 Mar10 March 07:10

    Sadly most of these options involve flying the dreadful club world / business cabin on BA.

    I prefer to fly on AA in business – a far superior product.

    • Frenske says:
      10 Mar10 March 07:32

      That means flying to dreadful holiday destinations or have dreadful stopovers.

    • TheSkintTraveller says:
      10 Mar10 March 07:52

      Possible to upgrade to F using minimal avios as cash paid ticket.

      • Prins Polo says:
        10 Mar10 March 10:31

        A lot of CW-F UUAs now include a significant cash payment too.

    • Nick_C says:
      10 Mar10 March 08:29

      In previous BA sales, the sale prices have applied to AA flights as well. I see that is not the case this time. For example, JFK is £1300 on BA but £2466 on AA.

      Don’t know how this works for the airlines with revenue pooling?

      If the prices were the same, I would happily take an indirect flight to travel with AA. I find its nice to break the journey, and some people value the additional tier points.

      • PGW says:
        10 Mar10 March 10:14

        I find that ex UK AA fares in PE and J are typically much more expensive that the equivalent on AA. IMO AA is far superior in both cabins but I am prepared to tolerate BA when I am making such significant savings.

      • Prins Polo says:
        10 Mar10 March 10:35

        I think this applies not only to BA Holidays but more generally follows some recent change to the transatlantic JV as now a lot of, if not most, AA flights have different prices than BA flights (at least on the LHR-JFK route) and they used to be pretty much identical in the past. I’ve noticed this particularly for the premium economy fares recently (obviously, AA didn’t have PE until recently).

    • Lady London says:
      10 Mar10 March 13:31

      Very nicely written article, Anika. I just get really annoyed that all the deals require 2 persons travelling…. not even sure that’s technically legal.

      • Anna says:
        10 Mar10 March 15:23

        I don’t think they do require 2 people to travel, I’ve booked packages for either myself or my OH (either flight plus hotel or flight plus car) to use when the other one of us is travelling on a 2 4 1 with our son and not been charged disproportionately. I think they use the “based on 2 people” line just to cover themselves legally for hotels which do charge single supplements and that kind of thing. However, the hotel we’re staying in in August charges by the night, so my OH is the guest named on the booking but any number of people can check in up to maximum occupancy.

      • RussellH says:
        10 Mar10 March 17:27

        I would guess that it could only be seen as discriminatory if they completely refused a booking for a single person.
        But being single is not a protected characteristic under Discrimination law.

    • Linda says:
      11 Mar11 March 09:00

      Don’t be so pompous, your ‘dread’ of BA Club would be most ordinary person’s dream.

  • nigel whitehouse says:
    10 Mar10 March 07:41

    can anyone tell me, if i book these BA special deal tickets can i change the name of the person flying at a later date ? the booking on ba says “Your ticket conditions Changes to your ticket
    No changes permitted. No upgrades permitted”

    thanks in advance

    • Jonathan says:
      10 Mar10 March 08:02

      Yes. I bought 2 F tickets in the sale last year with car hire but had to cancel due to wife’s work commitments. Changed names to my parents 4 weeks before departure (after balance paid) for the very surprisingly low price of £25pp!

  • Chris says:
    10 Mar10 March 09:04

    I’m very happy with the BA holidays ski deal we got yesterday to Vancouver, with the return in First being only £200 on top of the CW price. The down side is not being able to have the hotel status benefits so we picked a hotel which we really like but have no status with the group.

    • Bolsdon says:
      10 Mar10 March 10:55

      Although this is normal, I have had status recognised and actually some points for incidentals occasionally by sending an email to the hotel. Recently Radisson Jersey credited the night’s as well…

      • Doug M says:
        10 Mar10 March 11:30

        You can always hope for an error. 3rd party booking, but at checkin to an Embassy Suites in Minneapolis I was offered some points in exchange for housekeeping. Gladly accepted as I tend to be a tidy person anyway and it was only 3 nights. What posted was the bonus and the full points for the stay.

  • Tony says:
    10 Mar10 March 09:16

    Another plus is that you can amend the bookings for a minimal fee, where in other circumstances you might be looking at chucking away the whole ticket. I added a night to an Edinburgh trip a couple of years back and the cost of changes for two plus a night in a hotel was under £100.

    On the flip side I’m told these tickets don’t behave as normal in irrops so they can’t be readily endorsed over to other carriers etc.

  • Andy S says:
    10 Mar10 March 09:53

    I know this is about BA holidays but you also mention Virgin holidays in the text. Does virgin have the same advantages of paying just deposit to start with ?

    • Matt B says:
      10 Mar10 March 10:54

      Yes a friend has been organising a stag trip to Vegas through Virgin holidays and only had to pay a deposit up front.

  • MAY L LIM says:
    10 Mar10 March 12:12

    What about tier points?
    Do you get the full tier points for the flight or that flight fare class?
    Where can you see the fare class, if so?

  • The Savage Squirrel says:
    10 Mar10 March 13:03

    LOL at the headline prices. You’d have to be pretty weird to value comfort enough to spend about an extra £1000 each on flying CW rather than econ’ for 18 hours total, but then stay in either the Luxor or the Blue Heron (both adequate but elderly), when a lot less than £1000 extra in that direction will get you in some excellent accomodation – that you use for 168 hours rather than 18.

    • Lady London says:
      10 Mar10 March 13:28

      Hi Savage Squirrel

      normally I agree with everything you say.
      But if you’ve ever sat 24-32 hours total one way on a 2-flight hop down to Aus/NZ on anything other than the top 3 or so airlines that make Economy bearable, believe me if you can possibly find the money £1000 sounds cheap to not do that kind of run in Economy..

      And I say that as someone who is either flying on Business, or very very skint! 🙂

      • The Savage Squirrel says:
        10 Mar10 March 14:03

        I Agree with you about the Aus flight. Only done the Aus flight once in econ (and it was on top 3 carriers) – and with young children and it was still tough. I’d have taken £1000 each upgrade instantly – unfortunately it was £6000 each which is a bit out of my league. Although when young children are involved, direct-as-possible routing, minimal easy transfers and to/from airport journeys do become just as, or even more important as the onboard experience.

        However this is a 9 hr USA flight so my point stands – if your budget is constrained then £1000 extra thrown at a week’s hotel stay will get you a lot more luxury and for far longer than £1000 thrown at a flight. So you should really only look at upgrading flights once you’ve upgraded to your preferred accomodation level. Taking Vegas,, just an extra £150 total cost would upgrade you from Luxor to superior Planet Ho or Mirage while £300 extra gets you in the Waldorf/Astoria (which is basically a Mandarin Oriental that has just changed branding). I can’t see anyone who is prepared to pay for CW not doing this – and if you really can’t you’d be better off reducing to Premium Econ’ so you can.

        Really I was just saying they’ve obviously put the bottom level of accomodation in to get the lowest possible headline price for links and adverts but it’s false advertising. It doesn’t fit in the “luxury” holidays tag at all I’ll bet it’s never actually been booked. 😀

        • Kevin C says:
          10 Mar10 March 14:22

          Similarly, don’t book the Knotts Berry Farm hotel and think you’ll be staying in Los Angeles. It’s fine if you mainly want to go for rollercoasters.

        • TGLoyalty says:
          10 Mar10 March 14:40

          I think booking the cheapest hotel or car with the flights is so you throw them away and only use the cheaper flights?

          Ofcourse it could be much better to upgrade your hotel for a couple £100

        • Doug M says:
          10 Mar10 March 14:57

          The problem with greater LA area is traffic. Getting anywhere in a reasonable time is impossible. Knotts Berry Farm and OC area would take forever up to Hollywood or Santa Monica.

      • Jon says:
        10 Mar10 March 17:13

        Where is best to stay a few nights in LA?

        (Will be driving north via coastline thereafter)

        • Shoestring says:
          10 Mar10 March 17:22

          San Francisco

        • Dan says:
          10 Mar10 March 18:46

          We’ve stayed at the Hilton checkers downtown, which was a good base for travelling down to Anaheim etc. And only 10-15 minute drive to Hollywood. Getting to Santa Barbara / Venice Beach was a bit of a pain in rush hour (which is about 3pm-8pm!?).

          We’ve also stayed at the Hotel Californian in Santa Barbara, which was a great base for a drive up highway 1.

        • The Savage Squirrel says:
          10 Mar10 March 19:20

          Yes, LA is awful, while heading north of there is great. Just get off the plane and drive to Santa Barbara and go from there. The Eagle Inn is a very pleasant place to stay in Santa Barbara.

        • Kevin C says:
          10 Mar10 March 19:35

          What do you like doing?

          West Hollywood is a good base. Santa Monica if you want to be by the sea. Four Seasons Beverly Hills or Chateau Marmont if you have a lot of money and want to see film stars at breakfast. I’m also fond of the Beverly Hilton.
          .

        • Jon says:
          11 Mar11 March 01:39

          Thanks guys!

          Great tips….although Eagle Inn possibly more my budget! (any more hotel tips…heading north to SF)?

  • Graham Walsh says:
    10 Mar10 March 19:52

    OT Looking at an Ex EU from DUB as these prices are crazy high still, something odd I noticed on the Tier Point Calculator is that DUB>DFW doesn’t show up as anything even though AA fly there. Is that their IT being crap and would TP’s still be awarded?

    • Richard says:
      10 Mar10 March 21:58

      Yes to TPs, yes to rubbish IT – I assume they don’t have an army of staff proactively checking the changes to which routes changes all members of the alliance are making.

    • Doug M says:
      10 Mar10 March 23:00

      It’s not crap IT. The AA DUB to DFW doesn’t start until June. It’s a new route using a 787 and it’s just not been loaded into the calculator yet.

      • Graham Walsh says:
        10 Mar10 March 23:10

        Got it. I’m looking for July so makes sense that I can book it. Also anyone booked via AA USA site as seems to work out cheaper via USD.

        • Doug M says:
          11 Mar11 March 14:32

          I’ll be on it 16th July, then onward to LAS. Booked through Amex travel for £1280 with BA flight numbers, extra Avios so best for me. Amex travel because I had the £200 offer and used it for this. Originally was leaving DUB at 14:10 then AA changed to 15:45, hope they don’t move the time again, they already messed up my initial DFW connection, don’t want it to get any later.

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