Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

(DEAD) Cape Town for £900 in Business with a British Airways fare error – will go quickly

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

British Airways has, almost certainly in error, launched sub-£900 Business Class fares to Cape Town.

You need to depart from either:

  • Prague
  • Warsaw / Krakow
  • Stockholm / Oslo / Denmark / Gothenburg / Copenhagen

You need to travel between February and April 2024.

You need to stay for at least five days.

Here is a ba.com example taken at 7.45am:

British Airways Cape Town fare error

PLN 4,833 is £955. However, since I did this screenshot it seems that Prague has cheaper fares at just under £900.

Some online travel agents may have it even cheaper – one reader mentions Prague at £810 – but I’d strongly recommend direct booking to make the refund easier later when BA cancel it ….

WARNING

It is fairly likely that British Airways will cancel your ticket. Do NOT make any other plans (hotels, car hire etc) for a few weeks.

Your ticket is non-refundable except for the 24 cooling off period.

You MUST take the first flight from Central Europe / Scandinavia or your entire ticket will be cancelled, so add in the cost of getting there. If you only had hand baggage you could hop out at Heathrow on the way back.

If you don’t care about tier points, do not credit this flight to BA Executive Club. The base fare is very low and you will only earn a handful of Avios. However, I suspect most HfP readers WILL want the tier points.

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 (May 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 Card

30,000 Avios and the famous annual Companion Voucher voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express Credit Card

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 Credit Card

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 Card

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.

The American Express Business Platinum Card

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

The American Express Business Gold Card

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 (63)

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

  • Mirp says:
    10 Jan10 January 08:58

    Booked. Thank you.

    • WearyTraveller says:
      10 Jan10 January 09:56

      When did you book? I couldnt see any inbound flights at the suggested price, only £450- £550 tickets for the outbound journey. I checked at 8am

  • babyg_wc says:
    10 Jan10 January 09:26

    Alas took much timing aligning ducks (wife/kid holidays etc) Ticket prices changed from £932.58 to £4,567.58 PP during the final booking stage… oh well.

  • El Capitano says:
    10 Jan10 January 09:39

    Did anyone book with BA directly?

  • lee says:
    10 Jan10 January 09:46

    Just got back from CPT and loved it so much I jumped on this fare from OSL got £883. Flight to CPT is from Gatwick though. OSL-LHR LGW-CPT and same on return

  • daveinitalia says:
    10 Jan10 January 09:57

    HfP – where good fares go to die

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      10 Jan10 January 10:02

      More likely killed by the likes of flyer talk where it was posted just before 5am

    • Rob says:
      10 Jan10 January 10:16

      That’s nonsense and you know it. How many error fares do we publish per year? I’m guessing around 0.5, ie the median average is probably none.

      We deliberately didn’t email this one either. What you forget is that HfP ISN’T a website – it’s an email newsletter with a website attached. 4x more people read the email version of an average article than read them online.

      I can even tell you the exact numbers because FT shows post counts. At the time of writing the Flyertalk thread has had 4,400 unique views. This is more page views than our article has had, and our view count isn’t ‘uniques’ either – someone who reads 4 pages of comments is counted as 4 page views.

    • zapato1060 says:
      10 Jan10 January 10:17

      still alive, try Skyscanner for OTAs

    • VerdantBacon says:
      10 Jan10 January 10:18

      HfP aren’t the only site that published these fares, I booked this at 5:30am due to an email from subscribing to FlyerTalk’s Premium Fare Deals forum, which was sent at 4:53am

    • VerdantBacon says:
      10 Jan10 January 10:28

      HfP didn’t even post the recent error OW fare to LIM in J, the 720TP flights for £1300, HEL-SIN in SQ F suites, etc

      Even the current BA F fares from LON to USA/MEX aren’t posted

      Can’t really blame them for ruining fares when they post very few fares, much later than when they’re found and don’t even email it out, unlike FT and LFC

    • Josh O says:
      10 Jan10 January 10:57

      🤡

    • Harry T says:
      10 Jan10 January 12:14

      The real villains are Secret Flying and their ilk!

      • cruser1 says:
        10 Jan10 January 15:34

        I posted this to Flyertalk after finding it myself. I agree with this! SF is where deals go to die!

  • Kwab says:
    10 Jan10 January 10:18

    Thanks for this Rob. I really don’t understand people though who complain about this being highlighted. Why not?

    • Rob says:
      10 Jan10 January 10:44

      People complain when deals go one level beyond where they look themselves 🙂

      Someone who pays for Luxury Flight Club or has an alert set up for FT’s Premium Fare Deals thread will be annoyed when anything is posted here. Someone who only reads us would be annoyed if a deal got into the national press. Someone who only reads the UK national press would be annoyed if the deal made it to a major global news outlet.

      • tw33ty says:
        10 Jan10 January 16:24

        People complain on anything they feel salty about missing out on.

        Some you win, some you loose.

        Good shout out for the folk that did get it, well done, better some than none!

    • Andrew J says:
      10 Jan10 January 12:13

      And the fare will most likely be cancelled anyway so I don’t know why people get upset about missing out on them.

      • Cal says:
        10 Jan10 January 12:27

        Booked at 9am this morning, first time with this type of mistake fare. When would BA cancel it?

      • Harry T says:
        10 Jan10 January 13:11

        BA don’t tend to cancel special promotional fares with regularity, and have honoured better fares than this recently.

        • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
          10 Jan10 January 14:46

          There is also a good chance they will also benefit from lots of cash from people suddently having to be in WAW who wouldn’t ordinarilly be driving up prices!

      • cruser1 says:
        10 Jan10 January 15:37

        This fare wasn’t that low. I don’t work for the airline, but it might be honored. It was a 4 digit price in USD and nearly that in GBP. BA has allowed people to fly on previous lower fares.

  • Tracey says:
    10 Jan10 January 13:15

    In 2019 there was a genuine BA business sale to South Africa, I think flights then were under £1000 return. Direct from London

  • Davey11 says:
    10 Jan10 January 13:43

    Remember the heady days of BA First CPT-BCN for £650 – which BA honoured. Was about 4 years ago if memory serves

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!