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British Airways launches extra flights to Cape Town, St Lucia and Cancun

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By an amazing coincidence, one day after Virgin Atlantic announced its new route to Cape Town, British Airways has announced an extra Cape Town service.

There will be an additional two flights per week from London Gatwick to Cape Town, starting on 10th January.

This takes the number of weekly British Airways flights from London to Cape Town to 19, on top of the 14 BA flights to Johannesburg and the three weekly services to Durban.

This is not necessarily overkill, because Cape Town was a route also served by Thomas Cook before its demise.  It is possible that both BA and Virgin can make a success of their flights, although the lack of full fare Business Class traffic – as opposed to leisure travellers in flat beds on £1,750 sale deals – may prove to be an issue.

British Airways also announced two other frequency increases yesterday:

St Lucia gains an additional flight on Wednesday and Saturday.  No dates were given, but the implication is that the service will simply continue to operate nine times per week when the Summer timetable ends in October, rather than dropping down to seven as it does usually.

Cancun gains an additional weekly service, on Sundays, from 6th December.  This will take the number of weekly flights up to six.

Both of these routes operate from London Gatwick.

It isn’t clear where the aircraft are coming from to operate these new services.  BA has some flexibility due to the arrival of additional A350 and Boeing 777 aircraft and the ability to flex the retirement of the Boeing 747 and older Boeing 777 fleet.

PS.  If you missed it, take a look at our recent article on the top 10 benefits of the British Airways Premium Plus American Express credit card.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

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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.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (133)

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

  • JR says:
    14 Feb14 February 09:33

    I’ve used Transferwise to take advantage of foreign transfer offers from unmentionable websites before and that worked fine. I seem to remember I didn’t lose out much on exchange rates and fees after converting back as well

  • Lilly says:
    14 Feb14 February 09:37

    Thanks Rob, I’ve got the offer saved – a respectable target to hit of 2k in March for the 1500 point bonus. Should do doable if I move all my spending across.

  • Anttelli says:
    14 Feb14 February 09:56

    I’ve had 3000 Points for £1600 spend on my Amex Rewards card!

  • SultanOfCroydon says:
    14 Feb14 February 10:34

    I am offered a 1500 MR bonus for a £5900 spend.
    Funny thing is I would have done it If the Monese PO route still worked. However, the blabbermouths on this forum had to openly talk about it and the route that worked for many years is now dead…….

  • BJ says:
    14 Feb14 February 10:38

    OT: AFVALDAYUK gers £50 off a long-haul Air France booking. Valid until 28 February.

  • maccymac says:
    14 Feb14 February 10:44

    OT-ish… Do Amex offers stack? Have the £80 off when spending £800 or more with QR and 1500 MR points for £1800 spend on PRG and was thinking could possibly kill two birds with one stone.

  • Boi says:
    14 Feb14 February 11:00

    @Ian are their exchange rates similar to Revolut? I will avail of your referral with thanks

    • ian_h says:
      15 Feb15 February 22:27

      Hi

      I find I get a slightly better rate on Fineco than either Revolut or Transferwise

  • john says:
    14 Feb14 February 11:35

    Wonder how many people actually shop without a nectar card then…

    • BJ says:
      14 Feb14 February 11:51

      I collect points but I’ve often found myself at checkouts minus my Boots or Morrisons cards so it could be a lot higher than we might think.

      • Doug M says:
        14 Feb14 February 11:54

        I try to centralise everything on my phone. Upside and down to this obviously.

        • BJ says:
          14 Feb14 February 15:11

          I should probably do that where possible. A lot of failures with the original Tesco payment app was a deterrant though.

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

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