Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Excellent 2-4-1 First and business class flights deals from the UK with Lufthansa and SWISS

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If you thought we’d never see the return of pre-Covid sub-£1,000 long haul business class flight deals, think again.

SWISS and Lufthansa have launched an astonishing 2-4-1 sale from the UK and some other European countries.

We have fares in business class as low as £694 return to Dubai (from London) and £864 return to Seoul (from Stockholm).

You can find out more, and book, on this page of the Lufthansa website.

SWISS and Lufthansa 2-4-1 business class flight deals

Here, partly courtesy of Luxury Flight Club, are the best of the deals, starting with London departures. It is important to note these are only example deals – the booking page says that other destinations are also discounted.

Here are the rules:

  • you need to book for two or more people
  • you can travel until 30th June 2025 (best availability is September and March-June)
  • you must book by 3rd September 2024
  • it seems that a six night stay is required, with a 14 day maximum

IMPORTANT: Whilst the website says you can book for two people, you can book for 3, 4 or however many you want – although you will struggle to find flights with a lot of seats at these prices.

London:

Business Class

  • Dubai £710
  • Johannesburg £1,040
  • Delhi £1,100
  • Bangkok £1,155
  • Mumbai £1,280
  • Singapore £1,475
  • Sao Paulo £1,700
  • Buenos Aires £1,820
  • Hong Kong £2,199
  • Seoul £2,309

First Class

  • Delhi £2,070
  • Dubai £2,120
  • Johannesburg £2,320
  • Sao Paulo £2,530
  • Singapore £2,530
  • Buenos Aires £2,665

Manchester

Business Class

  • Mumbai £1,070
  • Dubai £1,165
  • Johannesburg £1,175
  • Delhi £1,210

First Class

  • Johannesburg £1,925
  • Dubai £2,160

IMPORTANT: Other UK departure points are available – Lufthansa and/or SWISS fly from most major regional airports. Deals may be more restricted though.

If you are flexible about your departure point, look at Norway:

Oslo

Business Class

  • Delhi €848
  • Bangkok €840
  • Beijing €820
  • Dubai €750
  • Hong Kong €1,030
  • Mumbai €960
  • Shanghai €840
  • Johannesburg €1,032

First Class

  • Dubai €1,985
  • Delhi €2,282
  • Johannesburg €2,341

Fancy Singapore for under £900 return? Or Seoul? Head to Stockholm:

Stockholm

Business Class​

  • Delhi €807
  • Singapore €950
  • Dubai €962
  • Seoul €996
  • Mumbai €1,086
  • Hong Kong €1,132

First Class

  • Dubai €2,020
  • Singapore €2,372
  • Seoul €2,378
  • Delhi €2,422
  • Hong Kong €2,573

These flights are very much bookable

You can get seats at these prices. To make it easier, the booking page shows (when you start to select a date) a calendar showing when you can get this price. The price is shows is NOT per person, it is for the group – be aware! It won’t look as low as the headline per person price.

Here is Dubai DURING OCTOBER HALF TERM (if your kids get two weeks off) for £694 per person:

Here are two people to Seoul from Stockholm at SEK 23,000 (£1,729, so £864 each):

Where can I credit my flights?

SWISS and Lufthansa are both part of Lufthansa’s Miles & More loyalty scheme.

Because Miles & More is revenue based (your earnings are based on the price of your flight), you won’t do very well given how cheap these tickets are.  Think about a different Star Alliance programme.

The Lufthansa business class fares usually book into P class.  This page of wheretocredit.com shows what you can do with that – ‘not much’ is unfortunately the answer.

This HfP article looks at which is the best Star Alliance frequent flyer programme for you.

How should I pay?

If you are booking in £, or you don’t have a credit card with 0% foreign exchange fees, your best option for paying if you book direct is American Express Preferred Rewards Gold.

This offers triple points – 3 per £1 – when you book flight tickets in a foreign currency.  This is because the transaction triggers the ‘double points for airline spend’ and the ‘double points for foreign spend’ bonuses.  Our review of Amex Gold is here.

Conclusion

It’s fantastic to see these crazy SWISS and Lufthansa 2-4-1 deals return.

Don’t wait if you see something you want. If you are reading this via email on Wednesday morning then the best options will have gone – don’t even think about waiting until nearer the nominal 3rd September end date for these deals.

You can book on this special page of the Lufthansa website.


best credit card to use when buying flights

How to maximise your miles when paying for flights (April 2025)

Some UK credit cards offer special bonuses when used for buying flights. If you spend a lot on airline tickets, using one of these cards could sharply increase the credit card points you earn.

Booking flights on any airline?

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold earns double points (2 Membership Rewards points per £1) when used to buy flights directly from an airline website.

The card comes with a sign-up bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points. These would convert to 20,000 Avios or various other airline or hotel programmes. The standard earning rate is 1 point per £1.

You can apply here.

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

Buying flights on British Airways?

The British Airways Premium Plus American Express card earns double Avios (3 Avios per £1) when used at ba.com.

The card comes with a sign-up bonus of 30,000 Avios. The standard earning rate is 1.5 Avios per £1.

You do not earn bonus Avios if you pay for BA flights on the free British Airways American Express card or either of the Barclaycard Avios Mastercards.

You can apply here.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

Buying flights on Virgin Atlantic?

Both the free Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard and the annual fee Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard earn double Virgin Points when used at fly.virgin.com.

This means 1.5 Virgin Points per £1 on the free card and 3 Virgin Points per £1 on the paid card.

There is a sign-up bonus of 3,000 Virgin Points on the free card and 18,000 Virgin Points on the paid card.

You can apply for either of the cards here.

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

3,000 bonus points, no fee and 1 point for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Comments (180)

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

  • TGLoyalty says:

    Does seem to be there but awful choices. Either 22 hrs flights or 6am departures.

  • Dannyrado says:

    Any other departure cities worth checking?

  • Domo1915 says:

    Doesn’t look drastically different prices to other times I’ve searched using Lufthansa Web page.

  • Yan says:

    Availability is disappearing fast. I got ex-LCY HKG on LX 77W over Christmas for £1,100 per person. I almost booked it last night for £1,800, which wasn’t a bad price, but I’m glad I waited another day.

  • Bobby says:

    I don’t understand the reasoning behind these only being offered to non solo travellers. Surely they are missing out on all of the solo travellers unable to book?

    • Lady London says:

      Yes this annoys me too and LX has put this restriction on at least one promotion before that I can recall.

      Perhaps it’s to enable married women to travel as tney shouldn’t be travelling without their husbands.

  • BJ says:

    Dubai must now top the league of low-yield cities … Butlins ME … don’t forget to pack your buckets and spades 😀

    • TGLoyalty says:

      I’m not actually seeing any this low that any sane couple would want to fly though especially with kids.

      My best guess is it gets them headlines and exposure for the other routes.

      I’d add it’s peaks and throughs with any of these destinations the go in and out of fashion. I know of the 3 families with teenage kids going this year for the very first time.

      • BJ says:

        Yes, just saw meta comments on 14 day max stays too. Obvious there are some amazing feals to be had though for those with huge flexibility on dates, destinations, journey times, and trip durations. Vheap marketing, a decent number of very happy bunnies but masses more disappointment and sad faces.

    • Tom says:

      EK seems to consistently be able to charge an absolute minimum of £2.5-3K in J for LHR-DXB across a very large number of seats these days.

      There is definitely higher margin business to be had, but the kind of passengers willing to almost double the time a six and a half hour journey should take are clearly not it!

      • BJ says:

        Emirates are not cheap to anywhere and they don’t run promos to anything like the same extent as thrir competitors . They don’t need to, I believe they are by far the most highly valued and most trusted airline brand in the world by Joe Bloggs. I think they’ve built this on pioneering regionvtovregion one change flights and going in for the A380 bigger than all others combined.

        • patrick C says:

          I am wondering why though. The business product is very average the mileage scheme crap. Just baffles me why you would buy a J seat there when you can go via qatar at better prices and better quality. Besides the fact that Dubai is probably the most boring and overhyped city. Ok, doha is boring as well but they don’t advertise anything else 😉
          But dubai is great for money laundering

          • Rob says:

            Emirates prefers NOT to sell you a Dubai ticket – it would prefer someone else to buy that seat going to Asia or Australia. I think they are happy to leave Dubai to BA etc, oddly.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        Sure they just dump excess capacity via holiday package deals rather than flight only ones like this.

  • reddot says:

    Thanks for the article Rob! Bought EDI-SIN premium economy for Jan-Feb (3 weeks) at £1860 for 2. Long layover on the way out but we’ll just settle into an Amex Platinum lounge to read / have a shower.

    • BJ says:

      That’s a good price. Prepandemic you would have got that for two on AF most dates but in last two years thry’ve been charging around £1500pp.

      • reddot says:

        Thanks BJ. In the last 3 years, Economy out of EDI (1 stopover) were going for no less than £840.

  • e14 says:

    Folks should see what J out F returns look like

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