BE QUICK: British Airways launches Gatwick – Cape Town flights, wide open for Avios

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• Mirp says:

  28 Jul28 July 12:50

  I was too slow no availability for me.

• stevenhp1987 says:

  28 Jul28 July 12:55

  We did a weekend break to Cape Town a few years back on the £200 economy return offer.

  Given the times its really easy with no jetlag! Even easier with a car rental (we used Avis free weekend voucher) as you can store your bags in it until you can check in to your hotel.

• Harry T says:

  28 Jul28 July 13:01

  Thanks, used a companion voucher for 20th to 28th December for two business returns LGW-CPT.

  • Rob says:

    28 Jul28 July 13:04

    Result, well done.

• meta says:

  28 Jul28 July 13:19

  BA charges are atrocious coming at £1450+ for 2 people for mediocre service and terrible seat.

  • Spurs drive me mad says:

    28 Jul28 July 13:36

    I’ve come to this conclusion as well, I’m using my points for reward saver flights in Europe. Don’t think my Son and wife have paid for flights for years. Currently have Faro, Rome, Crete, Santorini booked between us. Club Europe is not much to shout about but in some cases £2 a flight and never more than £50 I can live with.

    • Rob says:

      28 Jul28 July 13:46

      The £2 options are poor value, you really shouldn’t be booking these. Take the £50 one (£100 if booking two seats).

    • meta says:

      28 Jul28 July 13:56

      The best value for new style vouchers is to use them starting outside UK from handful destinations nesting with another voucher.

      • DZOO says:

        28 Jul28 July 14:54

        Like GIG, HKG (when it reopens) – any others?

  • Rob says:

    28 Jul28 July 13:36

    Yes, shocking value compared to £7,300 cash for 2xJ on Harry’s dates over Christmas ….!

    As I found on my Mauritius trip recently, you board late, you spend 10 mins eating your one tray Club Europe meal and then you sleep the entire flight. Repeat on return.

    • Brian78 says:

      28 Jul28 July 13:39

      Less relevant if he wouldn’t have paid the full price (still good value though)

    • meta says:

      28 Jul28 July 14:01

      My comment wasn’t particularly aimed at Harry or Christmas travel. For any dates the charges are the same for 2 people. Cash prices are considerably less outside Christmas period and reward availability with lower taxes much better.

    • Comrade Chag says:

      28 Jul28 July 14:45

      If Harry or anyone would spend £7000 for each trip he wouldn’t be on this site neither he would care about points.

      • Rob says:

        28 Jul28 July 15:22

        That’s the total opposite of the truth.

        If you can afford to pay £7k cash, then you get a real cash saving of £5,600 by getting the tickets on Avios and paying £1,400 taxes. None of this ‘theoretical saving’ mumbo jumbo – you’re saving real cash you would otherwise have spent.

        Even for someone earning £500,000 per year, £5,600 is over 1 weeks income after tax. You don’t say no to that.

        Stop this view that wealthy people don’t care about cash. The only people who think that are those who don’t actually know any wealthy people. Potentially if you inherited millions from your parents, you don’t. For anyone who has worked their guts out since they were a teenager to build a successful professional career or create their own business, they are not in the market for ‘wasting’ £5,600 if they can help it.

        • Comrade Chag says:

          28 Jul28 July 16:11

          I get your point, Rob. However, if you can afford multiple trips a year spending £5000+ on flight tickets, why would you limit yourself to Avios availability? Why would you spend your (probably) very valuable time trying to fly on Avios award days? That’s my argument.

          I, also, agree that wealthy self made people are more less likely to ‘waste’ money but also more likely to sometimes not bother with ‘small things’ like Avios etc.

        • Rob says:

          28 Jul28 July 16:24

          Go and find someone earning £500k (£270k net) and ask them if they are taking ‘multiple trips a year spending £5000+ on flight tickets’ each time. They will laugh in your face and show you the bill for their school fees and nanny plus the vast sum they are paying off on their mortgage in a desperate attempt to pay it off before their employer kicks them out for someone younger.

        • Tariq says:

          28 Jul28 July 17:54

          Absolutely wealthy people care about cash – that’s usually why they have it. The ones that don’t are the unearned wealthy as you say – lottery winners and the onlyfans lot, etc.

        • Magic Mike says:

          29 Jul29 July 08:58

          A massive +1 to Rob. There’s a big difference between the people you think are wealthy, flashily spending it like an Instagram influencer, and those who actually are, who don’t. They might both still travel business class but how they get into that seat will be very different.

          Read “The Millionaire Next Door” (with inflation that book probably applies to decamillionaires too these days).

    • Harry T says:

      28 Jul28 July 14:47

      I reckon I’d spend a couple of k per person for those dates exUK, so that’s a reasonable value per Avios. I agree their taxes and charges are very silly.

  • NorthernLass says:

    28 Jul28 July 13:37

    True – slightly off topic but on my recent GCM trip (a 241 plus a cash booking!), the food in CW was the same as in PE (I had the same chicken pie as someone I spoke to in WTP!) If they don’t get their act together soon there’s going to be very little point booking BA. Might as well use status for other One World carriers.

    • Dr Tom says:

      28 Jul28 July 14:14

      But isn’t one of the selling points of WTP that you get a CW meal?

      • NorthernLass says:

        28 Jul28 July 19:53

        Not on this flight – OH in CW got a choice of sandwiches for breakfast, I got the WTP semi-frozen cheese croissant.

    • Spurs drive me mad says:

      28 Jul28 July 14:25

      My brother and wife took their first Club world flight to Vancouver yesterday. His review of lounge and flight was food was dire in both.

      • AndyGWP says:

        28 Jul28 July 14:39

        I was on that flight too. Completely agree – haven’t travelled BA since pre-pandemic so was surprised at how limited the service still is both onboard and in the lounge.

        We travelled Virgin Upper at Christmas and at Easter… both those trips beat BA handsdown (appreciate the limited destinations however)

      • A says:

        28 Jul28 July 15:47

        I simply cannot stop my dad ranting about the old days of BA. He was gold for many years in the 90s and I was lucky enough to go on many family holidays where we’d book economy and ended up in business.

        Now he reluctantly uses BA for leisure travel and regards them as absolutely hopeless both on the ground and in the air. This has been made worse recently as he flew to Australia with Qatar in J and now has some perspective!

        I know it’s easy to say ‘they have a monopoly at LHR’ and ‘if you don’t like it, walk’….but some of this must come back to bite at some point you would think?

• Scott says:

  28 Jul28 July 13:44

  How long before this route gets canned? 😉

  • Peter K says:

    28 Jul28 July 13:48

    Until approximately 15 days before you are due to fly 🙂

  • Harry T says:

    28 Jul28 July 14:32

    Praying for a cancellation with rerouting on QR 😜

• Fiona says:

  28 Jul28 July 13:58

  Thanks, got a week booked away in Jan using our 241 voucher 🙂 Only pain is that BA are not flying EDI to LGW at the moment so will need to rely on Easyjet to get down.

  • Degsy says:

    28 Jul28 July 14:48

    Based on the current situation I think I’d rather rely on Sleazy-jet than BA for that leg of your journey, Fiona! (Good work on the CPT tickets though.)

  • numpty says:

    28 Jul28 July 15:23

    There is a GLA to LGW if you can handle heading west.

  • ChrisC says:

    28 Jul28 July 17:17

    What about the train into Kings Cross then a short walk across the plaza to St Pancras then the Thameslink to LGW.

    At least that way you can take more luggage than the easyJet allowances even if it’s a slower trip.

• Sprout says:

  28 Jul28 July 13:59

  Just got 4 Bus seats in March. Makes up for the last 2 years of cancelled holidays I suppose. But £3k in fees did seem a bit steep. I’ve never looked at S.Africa before so I’d better start planning. Oh and tell mrs Sprout as well (I’m not normally empowered to make such unilateral decisions. Fingers crossed!)
  Thanks Rob

  • Degsy says:

    28 Jul28 July 14:49

    IME, always easier to ask for forgiveness than permission….

  • ChrisC says:

    28 Jul28 July 17:18

    Yours won’t be the first marital ruction caused by HfP!

• meta says:

  28 Jul28 July 14:02

  You’d still get re-routing rights, but good luck extracting that from BA.

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