These flights are now cancelled.
Once these planes had been spotted in the timetable, people piled in to book. Tickets were soon selling for many times the amount you would usually pay for a flight from London – in some cases as much as £400 for an Economy return which is, frankly, absurd for a thirty minute flight.
The general assumption was that, since the August bank holiday marks British Airway’s ‘official’ 100th birthday, these flights would be involved in some sort of celebration event.
British Airways put out a statement yesterday saying there would be no ‘celebrations’ on these flights, and that passengers could have refunds if they wanted. The flights were then switched back to the usual short haul aircraft to ram home the point!
In its statement, BA said that it is “still considering our options for that weekend and will release details in due course”. This suggests that something will happen over the late August Bank Holiday weekend, but these Boeing 747 flights will no longer be part of it.
(BA may also have been stung by criticism from some quarters that this was an environmentally unsound move, although as the flights were virtually sold out this seems a little unfair.)
The actual position here is clouded by the fact that BA’s travel trade announcement blames:
“Some aviation websites [which] made a guess at what we were planning, but we were very clear that this was speculation.”
However, a Flyertalk moderator and uber-heavy BA flyer claims that advance notice of the flights was given to some top customers – including himself – so that they could book straight away if they wished ……
HFP was not promising anyone a great spectacle. Rob wrote:
“I am confused by the enthusiasm. These are all very old Boeing 747 aircraft which are, literally, on the way to the scrapheap. They look good in the new liveries but inside there is nothing special about them. I doubt British Airways can do anything creative on-board in such a short flying time – I doubt there is time to serve anything at all.
If you are SO keen to fly a British Airways long-haul plane on a short-haul route, remember that you can fly a Boeing 777 to Madrid every day of the week. During August, although it is not yet in the timetable, you will be able to fly to Madrid on the brand new A350 with Club Suite in Business Class. Now that is worth doing ….”
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About Head for Points
The LH miles mess: what will happen if I transferred points from a hotel scheme into LH and have already “used” them by booking a flight not yet taken? Will the LH system still reverse the transfer? What about the non-refundable hotel charges I have incurred?
Probably not really relevant for the audience of this blog, but the local shopping programme (I assume this refers to ‘Payback’) doesn’t seem to be affected as the moment. To my knowledge, it’s still possible to transfer Payback points to Miles and More.
The option on the Heathrow Rewards website to convert Miles and More points into £5 shopping vouchers is no longer available. It says:
“The Miles & More voucher function is currently unavailable. We are looking into the issue and hope to have this resolved as soon as possible.”
So I assume this is another victim – hopefully not a permanent one, because I have 7800 orphan miles to dispose of somehow.
https://rewards.heathrow.com/group/lhr/order-vouchers