Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

1 million British Airways seats bookable for less than £40

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

As part of its current sale, British Airways has released over 1 million seats to Europe for less than £40 each way!

In addition to these very low Economy prices, there are also some excellent fares to be found in Club Europe, including Malaga from as little as £84 one way.

You must book by midnight on 26th January to get these extra 1 million seats, but the offer covers travel dates all the way through until December 2021.

You can see all deals available here.

Club Europe British Airways

What are the Club Europe flight prices?

Let’s focus on Club Europe, as this is can be a source of good value Executive Club tier points as well as offering you a more relaxing flight.

Here are some ‘lead-in’ prices in Club Europe (note these are each-way):

  • Malaga £84
  • Faro £94
  • Geneva £90
  • Larnaca £114
  • Nice £94
  • Palma (Majorca) £119

It wasn’t many years ago that any Club Europe trip under £250 return was seen as sensational. British Airways is now offering flights from under £170 return, which come with the usual Club Europe benefits:

  • Priority check-in
  • Fast track security
  • Lounge access
  • Guaranteed empty middle seat
  • Complementary food and drink
  • At least 40 tier points each way
  • 1.5 Avios per mile flown, with a minimum of 750, plus any status bonus

These are all based on a seven day return trip flying from London Heathrow. Don’t forget that, from the examples above, Larnaca is a 160 tier point Club Europe destination when flying return, so this could be a nice tier point earner at a low price point.

What about Club World flights?

If you want your first trip out of lockdown to be a little further afield, there are some appealing Club World / Club Suite offers too. Jamaica from £1,189 is sounding particularly attractive on this cold January day.

You can find out more about Club Suite, now available on selected aircraft, in the HfP Club Suite guide here.

British Airways Club Suite cabin

These prices are RETURN:

  • New York £1,199
  • Orlando £1,499
  • Las Vegas £1,599
  • Los Angeles £1,399
  • Barbados £1,339
  • Kingston, Jamaica £1,189
  • Tokyo £1,898
  • Singapore £1,999
  • Mauritius £1,799

As above, all prices are based on a seven day return trip flying from London Heathrow.

British Airways ‘Book with Confidence’ commitment

We are still in some very uncertain times and booking a flight may feel a little risky. Here is the British Airways’ ‘Book with confidence’ commitment for reassurance:

Changing your booking
You can change the dates and destination of your booking without incurring a change fee, although you will need to pay any difference in price. This applies to bookings made from 3rd March 2020 onwards for journeys that are due to have been completed by 31st August 2021.

Cancelling your booking
If you decide you no longer want to travel, you can cancel your booking and BA will give you a voucher to the same value for a future booking (as above, this applies to bookings made from 3rd March 2020 onwards for journeys that are due to have been completed by 31st August 2021).

COVID-19 Safety
British Airways has a 4-star COVID-19 safety rating, awarded due to their stringent cleaning measures and protective customer standards

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, the free Barclaycard Avios Mastercard or the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard.

Another option is American Express Preferred Rewards Gold which offers double points – 2 per £1 – when you book flight tickets directly with an airline.

Conclusion

The ‘1 million seats for less than £40 each way’ offer is only available until 26th January so you have just a few days to book. Don’t forget this

The other offers will be available until the sale ends on 2nd February.

You can search for flights and see all applicable terms and conditions here.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

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

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

Get 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

30,000 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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

50,000 points when you sign-up 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 (57)

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

  • Tyra says:
    22 Jan22 January 08:16

    For these deals, you also need to factor in destination country quarantine measures. For example, “Passengers arriving at Larnaka or Pafos Airports from UK airports, will undergo a molecular test upon their arrival at the Airports and will be transferred to hotels provided by the Republic for compulsory 7-day self-isolation.”

  • Anna says:
    22 Jan22 January 08:39

    How many tier points are needed to get to Silver now? I have MAN-LHR-MIA return for cash in J later this year (if it happens) and could probably sneak in a couple of e.g. MAN-LHR-AGP in various school hols before my membership year ends (Jul 8).
    Ghengis, I note you are in fine form this morning for calculating these things!

    • NvT1115 says:
      22 Jan22 January 09:05

      450 TPs

      • Anna says:
        22 Jan22 January 09:07

        Thanks – will that apply to my next tier year (Jul 21 – Jul 22)?

        • Yuff says:
          22 Jan22 January 09:15

          You get it for the rest of your year plus the following year. So ideally you want your Miami flights after your membership year ends and achieve silver as soon after jul 8th with the additional flights, as soon as you achieve the TP’s you achieve the status.
          Qatar flights to DXB etc will make it a lot easier especially ex -eu

  • Niomi says:
    22 Jan22 January 09:04

    Question: if I booked with miles within those dates, does the change policy still apply (ie no fee to move the flights)?

  • Anna says:
    22 Jan22 January 09:14

    No let up in the gouging of families with school kids – MAN-AGP return at October half term is over £700 in CE!

    • Jimmy says:
      22 Jan22 January 10:04

      I think if you’re flying CE to Spain during half term, it’s a bit out of touch to complain about being gouged. You’re well off enough to have benefitted from supply and demand plenty of times in other areas

      • Anna says:
        22 Jan22 January 10:31

        But the price discrepancy applies to any class of travel if you bothered to inform yourself prior to sniping, it’s a general point about the way families of all incomes are treated by travel providers.

        • Rob says:
          22 Jan22 January 10:47

          It’s pure supply and demand, nothing more. The flight will be full at £700, so why should BA sell the seats for £50? If BA decides by early September that it is looking like it won’t be full at £700, the price will fall.

          Even if BA DID sell the seats for £50, your chance of getting them would be virtually nil as they’d sell out instantly.

          • Chrisasaurus says:
            22 Jan22 January 18:53

            Indeed the ‘cheap’ off peak pricing is sometimes below cost, just as much as the peak pricing is well above it, so the gap isn’t as simple as gouging you’re simply choosing to see the cheapest price as the ‘correct’ price and using that as your frame of reference

          • Rob says:
            22 Jan22 January 21:14

            BA is not in the business of selling tickets at a loss for PR reasons, unlike Ryanair.

        • Callum says:
          22 Jan22 January 12:39

          They were probably “sniping” because you were using an absurd example for exaggerated effect.

          The price for economy is well under half that price, and only seems to be about £50 higher than the week before. Though if you’re price sensitive, I don’t know why you wouldn’t be taking one of the direct LCC flights for even less?

          The travel industry doesn’t remotely treat families badly. Are you also suggesting that airlines should all have a set price-per-seat and ditch variable pricing altogether? It’s the exact same thing.

      • Chrisasaurus says:
        22 Jan22 January 18:54

        Since this was criticised I wanted to add my thought that it was very nicely put.

    • The cyclist says:
      22 Jan22 January 10:40

      Simple solution, send your kids to private school, I did, loads more flexibility with dates, and the schools are a lot more flexible regards taking your children out. 😀

      • Gringo says:
        22 Jan22 January 11:08

        Not sure if the cost saving on flights offset the fees

        • Jill ( Kinkell) says:
          22 Jan22 January 16:24

          Sent our 3 privately as boarders…. holidays? Huh … very much staycations for a good few years until they were all through uni. Not complaining, just making up for it now. Well, we would be, if allowed out of the country!

    • Jonathan says:
      22 Jan22 January 11:22

      Get used to it! If Business travel drops off then the pool of high yield travellers will be substantially smaller. BA need a proportion of price insensitive customers to offset the £40 sale fares out of season. Since they have no realistic competition for business class to Spain you can guarantee they’ll be squeezing you as hard as they can.

      The cheap fares are misleading, they’re the equivalent of a supermarket selling you a fillet steak for 20p 5mins before closing time on the sell by date. £350 is probably about par for a 1500 mile flight in business so 2x that is perfectly acceptable for one of the top 5 annual periods of demand on that route.

    • ChrisBCN says:
      22 Jan22 January 12:12

      If they weren’t priced at 700 you’d only be complaining that they are sold out. Some people are never happy!

      • Freddy says:
        22 Jan22 January 13:04

        I’ll be taking the kids out of school during term time once covid has blown over. The schools didn’t seem particularly desperate to get back to proper teaching last year and this year seems like a repeat

  • GaryE says:
    22 Jan22 January 09:38

    I think if BA wanted to attract a substantial amount of money they should have extended their Book with Confidence cancellation peiod to the end of 2021 as there is still alot of uncertainty about travelling abroad upto the end of August.

  • tony says:
    22 Jan22 January 10:17

    £1692 to Seattle in First. Blimey! But as others have noted, without the BWC scheme beyond August, there’s no way I’d be happy to lay out cash. The current vouchers have to be used by April ’22 as well, so with government chatter about another lockdown next winter, it’s just too risky.

    Have now booked Avios seats for the revised summer family holiday and won’t be booking anything else until there’s absolute certainty we can travel.

  • Fadi says:
    22 Jan22 January 10:33

    I need 40tp and 4 ba flights to hit silver (from blue!) by early March. Can’t see that happening. My airport is Manchester if anyone knows a way.

    • Alex says:
      22 Jan22 January 10:42

      Manchester to London is still running if you needed to travel for business. 5-20 TP’s in economy based on booking class or 40 in club. If you had enough tier points you could call BA and see if they’ll give status despite being flights short due to covid etc…

    • Rob says:
      22 Jan22 January 10:45

      The 4 BA flights is an issue – you’d be looking at an economy domestic flight and a Club one-way / economy back domestic flight. This assumes domestic travel restrictions relax.

      • Fadi says:
        22 Jan22 January 13:31

        Yeah I’m not feeling optimistic. Did all my flying with QR and probably shouldn’t have credited to BA. Would need the domestic J/Y twice which is an expensive outing.

  • Nic says:
    22 Jan22 January 11:14

    Perhaps hang on until Monday which is when EU Council discuss the possibility of banning all non-essential travel within (and certainly from outside) of Europe, proposed yesterday, while they get a handle on Covid situation.

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 80,000 bonus points (worth 80,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card (Offer ends 27th May)

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get up to 10,000 bonus Hilton Honors points

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? GET THE ONLY FREE SMALL BUSINESS CREDIT CARD WHICH CAN EARN AVIOS

Get points worth 30,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold (ends 27th May)

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!