Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Book British Airways Club World flights from £1,172 in the BA Luxury Sale

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

This looks to be a decent salewe’ve started to track British Airways sale fares and these fares are generally lower than we’ve seen in the last two promotions.

Travel dates vary by destination. You must book before 17th March.

British Airways luxury sale

All of the flight deals can be found on the British Airways website. The BA Holidays deals can be found here. We’ll explain later why booking via BA Holidays may be a better deal.

Don’t expect any fire sale deals due to coronavirus. Willie Walsh, the IAG Chief Executive, said during the 2019 results presentation yesterday that it wouldn’t happen. He has been caught out in the past by launching deeply discounted sales during periods of turbulence, only to find that he had no seats left to sell when business levels picked up.

What are the Club World business class flight deals?

There’s some very strongly discounted fares to be found to the US and particularly Canada.

We recommend using the Low Fare Finder tool on ba.com to see which months these fares are available.

Flights in Club World to Toronto, for example, are more than £200 cheaper than both the Winter and Centenary sales in 2019. Here’s our pick of the lowest fares:

  • Boston £1,172
  • Chicago £1,172
  • New York £1,172
  • Philadelphia £1,172
  • Miami £1,395
  • Montreal £1,171
  • Nashville £1,186
  • New Orleans £1,186
  • Toronto £1,147
  • Washington DC £1,172

Latin America and the Caribbean also have some attractive fares. Kingston, Mexico City, Grand Cayman and Nassau are all priced lower than they were for previous 2019 sales.

  • Kingston £1,314
  • Mexico City £1,397
  • Grand Cayman £1,591
  • Nassau £1,591
  • St Lucia £1,509
  • Rio £1,780

Whilst the Middle East and Africa prices aren’t quite as low as we have seen before, they are still much more attractive than they are in non-sale periods:

  • Cape Town £2,658
  • Durban £2,690
  • Johannesburg £2,584
  • Seychelles £1,800
  • Tel Aviv £1,141

Moscow is also available for £1,099 but you need to be careful to book onto a long-haul aircraft.

British Airways First Class luxury sale

And in First Class…

There’s a good selection of First Class routes to North America for under £2,000, which isn’t something you see too often:

  • Chicago: £1,993
  • Las Vegas £1,989
  • San Diego £1,984
  • San Francisco £1,984
  • San Jose £1,984
  • Seattle £1,984
  • Phoenix £1,984
  • Portland £1,989
  • Toronto £1,974
  • Vancouver £1,965

In addition Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Miami, Nashville and Washington DC all come in under £2,100.

The sale isn’t as impressive outside North America for First, but these are worth highlighting:

  • Mexico City £2,213
  • Mumbai £2,442
  • Abu Dhabi £2,205
  • Seychelles £2,500
  • Tel Aviv £1,541

Get an even better deal with BA Holidays

There are also some good deals over at BA Holidays, assuming you are happy to package in a hotel with your flight.

We’ve mentioned this before, but you can make substantial savings when you book a flight+hotel deal with BA Holidays. For example, in the Luxury Sale the Club World flight price to Miami starts at £1,395 pp. However, if you book Club World flights and 4 nights in a hotel in Miami via BA Holidays, packages start from £1,499pp.

Some headline Club World deals are:

  • Boston from £1,259 per person – Flying out from Heathrow in Club World on 23rd November 2020 and staying at the Boston Park Plaza for 4 nights
  • Miami from £1,499 per person – Departing 7th May 2020 and staying 4 nights in a 4* hotel in Miami’s South Beach area. Flights are return from Heathrow and in Club World.
  • New Orleans from £1,669 per person – This offer includes 5 nights in New Orleans staying at the New Orleans Marriott. Flights are Club World return from London Heathrow. Here’s the real shocker – this one is available in school holidays! Flights are available on 6th August, which land back on 12th August (return is an overnight departing 11th August).

Remember that you don’t need to pay now when you book a BA Holidays package. You just pay a deposit and can settle the balance up to five weeks before departure.

You also earn an extra 1 Avios per £1 when you book BA Holidays packages. This is on top of the standard Avios you receive from the flight and the double Avios you would receive if you pay with a British Airways Premium Plus credit card.

The only downside is that flights booked as part of a BA Holidays package do not earn anything in the BA On Business SME loyalty scheme.

Conclusion

You can see full details of offers and fares in the Luxury Sale section of the BA website here. It is also worth using the Low Fare Finder tool on ba.com to track down destinations and fares and which months they’re available. The sale ends on 17th 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 double points – 2 per £1 – when you book flight tickets directly with an airline.

There are also some good short-haul deals in Club Europe. We will look at those in a separate article in a couple of days.

PS.  If you missed it, take a look at our recent article on the top 10 reasons why you should get the British Airways Premium Plus American Express card.


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.

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.

Comments (56)

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

  • Ricatti says:

    But “this time is different” and coronavirus episode will be protracted. Have two key reasons but too long to elaborate.

  • mradey says:

    I’m holding out for some juicy discounts too….. The first class North America are tempting though.

    • insider says:

      Rob has slightly misquoted WW from yesterday.

      “Willie Walsh, the IAG Chief Executive, said during the 2019 results presentation yesterday that it wouldn’t happen. He has been caught out in the past by launching deeply discounted sales during periods of turbulence, only to find that he had no seats left to sell when business levels picked up.”

      He actually said that they had been caught out by reducing capacity too much, then not having enough seats to sell at the higher prices. Implication being he won’t slash capacity in the same way as the financial crisis

  • Marcw says:

    Airlines are pricetakers, not pricemakers. So they’ll have to discount their flight in order to fill their planes. Prices have fallen already, especially on short notice.

    • Lady London says:

      They can keep cutting capacity for a while before it will really hurt though.

      We are right in front of spring and summer in our hemisphere though. I’m pinning my hopes in that helping people’s resistance to the virus.

      Worried about Oz and NZ though as they will shortly be heading to their winter which can be damp and miserable but often not enough freeze to kill bugs. They’ve also had an increasing number of Chinese visitors in recent years and I hope they locked down in time

  • Anna says:

    Grand Cayman, not Gran!

  • Derek Scott says:

    These are interesting, however, for First, I tend to benchmark the cost difference over Club. Last Summer I booked First O/B to San Diego, returning from Calgary (No First), using BA Holidays to include 1 night at the Sofitel T5. It only cost £200 more for First over Club, which to me is a decent offer

    • AJA says:

      £200 more one way to travel First rather than CW is a good deal and should be grabbed if offered. These fares are roughly £400 extra each way in First but that is because the CW fares are pretty good. I think they are worth considering.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        First return to east coast was £1400 in September when I snapped up the 2-4-£2k fares

  • AJA says:

    I fear that this corona virus/ Covid-19 is going to get a lot worse. I hope I’m wrong but when you get the Geneva Motor Show postponed to September and the likes of Amazon restricting its employees from travelling, and the stock markets falling like they have this week then the airlines will have a nasty time ahead. I do hope the Olympics is not affected, Japan has spent years preparing for it but it’s not looking good.

    • Paul Pogba says:

      The Spanish pandemic took nearly two years to burn out which is roughly how long they think it will take to develop and rollout a vaccine against the Wuhan flu (and it could well keep mutating until its wiped out everyone with pre-existing conditions). I doubt we’ll even know how serious this is for another month or so as the largest outbreaks have occurred in countries with greater than usual tendencies to hide the truth.

    • Russ 😷 says:

      Farnborough 🙁

      • Rob says:

        Hope not, we have something cool for readers lined up for Farnborough ….

        • Lady London says:

          Is Rhys going up in a fighter jet this time ?:-)

          • Cupid says:

            I heard the Qsuites will be doing a sponsored flypast.

          • DB2020 says:

            QSuites mixed cabin fly past! 😉

            Sorry I couldn’t help having a dig, despite liking the airline.

            The comments here about the IT glitch and reaction of the airline’s UK team gave me a giggle 🤭 because it is not the first time that they have offered such mixed cabin fares branded as premium, plus they had them on their own website 7-10 days ago. An IT glitch not noticed by anyone before yesterday?

            At least they have now pulled those fares.

  • Sloppy says:

    sounds TERRIBLE – I know…
    but +1 when it comes to waiting for further heavy discounts.
    + I am sure that dropping these prices another 200 quid won’t make the airline go into administration but merely cut their profits a tiny bit.

    • Freddy says:

      These prices will continue to drop when the airlines see ticket sales dry up in the coming months

      • Rhys says:

        Don’t count on it. In the webcast from IAG’s financial results Willie Walsh said they have made the mistake of reducing prices so much that there were no tickets left to sell once the crisis had blown over!

        • Sloth says:

          Which is what short term heavy discounts are for…

          • Rob says:

            No. You cannot give away flights to China, HK or Korea. Best to double your fares to exploit people desperate to get out.

        • Sloppy says:

          I see what you are saying but if its something that lasts 3 months – the airlines WON’T fly all empty planes would they. They may offer last minute things.They can choose not to offer last minute deals and just not sell the seats at all of course but wouldn’t be smart

          • marcw says:

            The offers are there, last minute travel.

          • Rob says:

            BA will fly empty planes if it means they do not have to refund passengers. These flights are massively profitable – no APD, no airport charges etc so the airline keeps your entire fare.

        • insider says:

          he didnt’ say that – he said they made the mistake of cutting capacity too much. A big difference…

        • Paul says:

          The event you refer to is a marketing opportunity for BA not a show and tell. If this gets worse prices will fall as in such circumstances “cash is king”

        • marcw says:

          Fare don´t agree with your BS (WW didn´t say that anyway). How can you explain TA sub 1k fares from Paris on OW?

  • Simon says:

    What other times was Walsh talking about?
    SARS? Ebola?

    Don’t recall an event that has potentially the same impact on travel plans which could stretch on for a while. 9/11 maybe.

    Not that I take any pleasure in it really. I am an IAG shareholder and may be an even bigger one if the price continues to tank.

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