Exceptional £924 British Airways business class fares to the USA from Paris

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• ChrisC says:

  3 Mar3 March 04:58

  For Jan 2021 ORY-MAD-JFK return on IB popped up for £895.

  Not so easy to get to,ORY though on One World though Google flights suggested LHR-MAD-ORY on IB for £660 in business.

  Still think of the TPs!

  • Doug M says:

    3 Mar3 March 07:11

    Eurostar and metro.

  • J99 says:

    3 Mar3 March 08:06

    That seems like putting yourself through 5/6 hours of discomfort to get 6 hours of comfort. I’d rather fly direct in economy.

    • HAk` says:

      3 Mar3 March 15:33

      Eurostar is not uncomfortable. The Metro is less pleasant but at non-peak hours it is fine. If you were a silver status, I would just get a flight to Paris and enjoy the lounge at Heathrow and tolerate the 50 minutes or so flying to Paris in the back of the plane. That is fine.

      • J99 says:

        3 Mar3 March 21:48

        There’s also the flight from Paris to Madrid

• Paul says:

  3 Mar3 March 06:44

  Quote. “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.“

  Today “exceptional £924 Paris to USA”

  Is this not the definition of a fire sale?

  It must surely be sensible to hold off booking anything at the moment. Fares clearly have some way to fall yet and the rest of ex EU usual suspects are still showing fares that are dizzyingly high.

  • Doug M says:

    3 Mar3 March 07:10

    This price is bottom end, but £1K to £1200 is frequently available ex-EU to USA.

    • Shoestring says:

      3 Mar3 March 07:56

      I wouldn’t go expecting lower fares than this
      https://gainspainscapital.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/GPC227201.png

      • Will says:

        3 Mar3 March 09:35

        I’m not convinced that pricing the market the same post virus as pre virus is entirely rational considering output is down.
        It’ll be interesting to see though, if this is a price with Coronavirus in the system, what would a non Coronavirus price have been?

• Max says:

  3 Mar3 March 07:08

  Booked a July trip from Paris to Chicago yesterday for £924 each. Bargain.

  How strict are BA if you skip the last leg from London to Paris?

  • Stuart says:

    3 Mar3 March 07:25

    Unless you aren’t taking baggage or connecting airports in London you’ll be pretty screwed as your bags will be checked through to Paris

  • Ricatti says:

    3 Mar3 March 07:32

    Yes, BA-instructed ground agent will insist on checking the luggage through to Paris.

    • Max says:

      3 Mar3 March 07:45

      Even if I schedule a 24 hour layover in London before the flight to Paris?

      • david says:

        3 Mar3 March 07:49

        I found that the sweet spot for a bag drop off in a stopover is around 9+ hours. Anything more than that and there is no way you cannot have access to the contents of your luggage i.e. sentimental items, medications etc

        • Tom H says:

          3 Mar3 March 11:34

          I did exactly that scheduled the following morning for the last leg, baggage claimed, dropped leg no problems and no come back, that was in August 2019

    • paul says:

      3 Mar3 March 13:19

      This is yet another reason to avoid BA. I have never had an issue with AA in tagging bags to exactly where I want them to go. This included getting it done at the kerbside at LAX.
      Opt for codeshare and you get all the “benefits” of BA without having to actually set foot on them.
      Alternatively made onward connection following day up to 23hrs and 59 minutes after STA

  • david says:

    3 Mar3 March 07:44

    Your luggage may not be allowed to be checked into London, rather Paris. If your on hand luggage no problem. I have done it numerous times where you have a 24 stopover on the return into London, but then the next day for your last leg to Paris, you unfortunately 🙂 missed your flight. You probably will not get the miles between LHR-CDG.

  • ChrisC says:

    3 Mar3 March 11:32

    Don’t make a habbit of skipping the last leg.

    Although BA outstatins are strict on not short checking bags it is possible to have them pulled on arrival at LHR though it can take some time to extract them.

    Yes an option is to have the final leg the day after you land at LHR and then they will short check to LHR.

    Another way (but won’t work for Paris) is to have the final leg from LCY or LGW rather than LHR because you then will have to get your bags anyway

    You can of course price up CDG-LHR-USA-LHR rather than a rull return to CDG . It will cost a little more but you can leave LHR with your bags and with a clear conscious about not missing any flights

    • Luckyjim says:

      4 Mar4 March 07:16

      My conscience would be clear anyway. Why wouldn’t it?

    • Andy says:

      4 Mar4 March 21:13

      I priced up CDG-LAS-LHR and it came out about £2K more!
      Opted for CDG-DFW-LAS-LGW-LHR-CDG for £1.1K . Get off at LGW where luggage will come off and get bus straight back to Nottingham for £35

  • Doug M says:

    3 Mar3 March 13:29

    They’ll hunt you down, there is no hiding place. BA will own your soul.

  • Charlieface says:

    3 Mar3 March 14:17

    Always wondered what happens if you tell them in London you’re not taking the flight.
    They’d need to offload the luggage anyway, what are they going to do?

    • Doug M says:

      3 Mar3 March 14:33

      Nothing is the answer. But apparently you can expect to wait 2 – 3 hours for your luggage, not sure if that’s punishment or inefficiency. Tales of “you understand if you don’t rebook and fly the final leg we may reprice the flight and charge you any difference”. The general view was they don’t want to do that as it may lead to precedent and close examination of their right (or not) to do that.

      • Lady London says:

        3 Mar3 March 19:07

        I once had to ask the BA T5 lounge dragons at LHR how to get back landside after having checked in well ahead of my flight. I got a call in the lounge saying my meeting in EDI was cancelled so there was no point flying anymore.

        I had to wait around for someone to be available to escort me back to landside after the lounge dragons offloaded me from the flight. The whole process took about 2 and a quarter hours. Luckily I was HBO. It was made clear to me that retrieving checked luggage would have added a lot more difficulty for everyone.

        Everyone was very pleasant but there is no way I would want to draw attention to myself for that again as it was clearly very inconvenient for everybody. I’d almost fly to EDI then fly straight back again if it happened again.

        I would expect any request to retrieve checked-through luggage at LHR would be an equal pain and for it to draw attention to me. Much better to stop overnight before continuing on from LHR if you think you might need your luggage.

        • Doug M says:

          3 Mar3 March 20:18

          HBO only you just go to B or C and then ride the mover back and that dumps you in arrivals, where they care only about your passport, no?

        • Lady London says:

          3 Mar3 March 21:25

          Hum. If that was possible then I would consider that Heathrow’s separation of incoming and outgoing passengers had failed, which is a “thing” in the UK and would doubtless lead to serious security concerns.

        • Lady London says:

          3 Mar3 March 21:31

          PS A while back I missed a flight out of Stansted too, I was quite happy sitting in the deserted gate area getting loads of work done and planning on exiting after another trip to the lounge at the end of the day after I’d got some urgent stuff done, but was found by officious staff who told me I was not allowed to remain in the outbound area and they insisted on escorting me immediately to the exit. When we reached almost-out they had to pick up a special phone and someone had to come through and collect me to escort me back to the main concourse. Very annoying as having missed the flight after much effort against thing after thing that went wrong, it was actually calming to think I could get some work done and reach people in business hours from the airport. But no, I had to spend most of the day trekking back from STN when I’d much rather have done it in the evening and avoided completely wasting the day.

          Luckily in those days I was full of air miles so having been forced onto the train from STN back to London I decided just to carry on straight to Heathrow and flew British Airways on on an avios ticket I arranged on the phone instead on the way.

          So at least I ended up swopping grotty Ryanair for British Airways so the day wasn;t completely wasted.

          But I think the separation of incoming and outgoing passengers why why I got frogmarched out of STN airside departures to the exit.

        • Doug M says:

          3 Mar3 March 23:28

          Yes I’ve wondered about this in terms of T5B and T5C. But I’m positive if you take the mover back you cross from departing to arriving. I can see how this is less of a concern, as a departing passenger has cleared security and had a boarding pass and ID check.
          If you walk the tunnels you stay departing if that’s how you started. But I believe if you ride the mover at C an announcement repeatedly warns you to get off, if you don’t the doors shut, and then open the other side, which is the arrivals side and you’ve switched over. When you return to A you’re just a regular arrival and you leave.
          There is much anecdotal evidence of spotter types going to B and C and then coming back to A on the mover and finding themselves in trouble. Because T5 works that conformance system even if you have time you’ll struggle to get into T5 again with the boarding pass you used first time. BA have to undo something, then reissue your boarding pass to comply with T5 conformance.

        • Lady London says:

          4 Mar4 March 12:32

          At STN IIRC the driver walks down the mover train and checks all carriages are empty before opening the doors to allow next load of passengers. Sure Ive been ordered off when I’ve nodded off.

          It would surprise me if driver not also required to check train empty before loading pax and returning if there is a risk of incoming and outgoing pax mixing on the LHR T5 B/C mover. I’ve never paid attention. Because I’m usually fuming that once again British Airways is wasting everybody’s time by using a bus for West Coast flight instead of an air bridge so I don’t notice.

          It would be easy for an incoming passenger from an airport with poorer standards of security to pass me as a departing passenger something they shouldn’t and departing passenger takes it on a plane. A stretch but with organization and mobile or radio comms could be done and I assume this kind of possibility is within the minds of the excellent UK security services.

        • Lady London says:

          4 Mar4 March 12:34

          PS reading the STN ‘frogmarched out’ above realized my mistake. Should have toddled straight back to the lounge and organized things from there.

    • Rob says:

      3 Mar3 March 16:55

      Worse case scenario, BA is told you skipped the flight and BA takes action against you because you have defrauded them. This is unlikely as a one-off, of course, but closing BAEC accounts of persistent offenders is not unknown.

      • Prins Polo says:

        3 Mar3 March 19:33

        And to be clear, the action that they may take against you is auditing/freezing your Executive Club account – which can be a nuisance.

        They will not take any legal action as they clearly have zero chances of winning.

        • Anna says:

          3 Mar3 March 20:26

          Indeed, you would not have defrauded BA out of anything so no criminality.

        • Rob says:

          3 Mar3 March 21:47

          Not true. Price A gets you Paris-London-XXX-London-Paris whilst the far higher Price B gets you Paris-London-XXX-London.

          You fradulently bought Price A when you intended to use (and indeed did use) Price B.

        • Lady London says:

          4 Mar4 March 12:43

          Hard to prove intention though.

          If I buy a packet of Rice Krispies am I obliged to eat every last one? Weaker, but worth arguing.

          Intention is harder to prove – unless you make a habit of it.

          Personally I would love to see this issue decided in court. In the internet and global age I think any sane judge is going to come out on the side of people can buy products globally across markets that the airline would like to separate and should be allowed to decide how/if he consumes all the product or not.

          The airlines know they are likely to lose this in court thus creating a precedent for their overall business. So they make s lot of noise but can only punish you by withdrawing your Exec Club privileges. They won’t go to law if they can avoid despite all their threats.

• LewisB says:

  3 Mar3 March 07:11

  BA holidays don’t seem to help here. They clearly want the cash up front now! No surprise there

  • Anna says:

    3 Mar3 March 07:24

    What do you mean, you normally just have to pay a deposit?

    • LewisB says:

      3 Mar3 March 08:00

      Apologies. I meant adding a hotel in most cases quadruples the cost. Some sweet spots found however.

• LewisB says:

  3 Mar3 March 07:36

  If you book American from CDG to IAD via JFK. Do you get lounge access in JFK? I know domestic business generally doesn’t come with lounge access.

  • Genghis says:

    3 Mar3 March 07:45

    OW rules connecting flight rules
    https://www.oneworld.com/airport-lounges

    • Genghis says:

      3 Mar3 March 07:45

      That came out wrong!

      • LewisB says:

        3 Mar3 March 07:48

        I thought so! Found a cracking deal to IAD over New Years. 4 nights in the Hilton on Capital Hill for £1079 per person. American out. Aer Lingus back. Both new products for me. Day or two in Paris before hand. Mrs will be happy.

        • ChrisC says:

          3 Mar3 March 11:42

          Depending what you want to do in DC be aware that preparations will be in full flow for the Presidential Inaugration on 20th January 2021 which includes a lot of construction at the Capitol and the National Mall and surounding areas of grandstands etc etc

        • MandS says:

          3 Mar3 March 13:21

          hopefully Donald gets another term

• Brian says:

  3 Mar3 March 07:48

  If you can fly direct from London for one or two hundred pounds more, it seems hardly worth going to Paris first.

  • david says:

    3 Mar3 March 07:51

    But is it £100-200 Really?!?!?! We talking a whole lot more.

  • Paul says:

    3 Mar3 March 08:59

    Indeed if it were a couple of hundred more, very true, however, LON-LAS end of September, £3683.88 with good old BA, and CDG-LAS £1388 with good old AA on same planes, plus the Paris return.

  • Doug M says:

    3 Mar3 March 13:33

    But you can’t fly the same class for £100 or £200 more. APD alone will add £172.

    • Brian says:

      3 Mar3 March 23:09

      I was going by the article on BA deals from London the other day. Maybe I misunderstood.

• Stu P. says:

  3 Mar3 March 08:51

  O/T Rob, any hint on wether Nutmeg will be doing their transfer bonus this year?

  • Rhys says:

    3 Mar3 March 08:54

    I would sit tight for a couple weeks 🙂

    • Stu P. says:

      3 Mar3 March 09:03

      Splendid😊

• Anna says:

  3 Mar3 March 09:01

  That sounds like very expensive lounge access! I may have not read your post correctly but can you not guest your child into the lounge?

  • Freddy says:

    3 Mar3 March 11:04

    My thoughts entirely

  • Doug M says:

    3 Mar3 March 13:51

    How much would the seat selection fees be? Silver is not to be sniffed at, it’s more than lounge access.

  • Lady London says:

    3 Mar3 March 19:19

    If child is young might they waive and let the kiddie in?

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