Bits: BA US First sale, KLM launches Barbados, ‘Credit Card Reviews’ returns

News in brief:

British Airways First Class deals for autumn

As per Luxury Flight Club, British Airways has launched some decent First Class flight deals to the US East Coast for autumn travel.

The fares are widely available from October onwards, but this still requires a significant degree of advance commitment.

The deals are only available to the East Coast, where the flights are so short that the premium for First Class isn’t necessarily there. There would historically have been some value in booking these fares for the tier points, but of course that is no longer a factor ….

Typical fares are, from Heathrow (Saturday night stay required):

• New York / Newark – £2,310
• Chicago – £2,509
• Washington – £2,595
• Boston – £2,623

Similar fares are available from Manchester with a connection in Heathrow. New York JFK fares are available for a small premium over Newark.

American Airlines services are available as an alternative to BA.

Here’s a Newark example at £2,368 return:

KLM launches flights to Barbados

Dutch airline KLM is relaunching flights to Bridgetown, Barbados, for Winter 2025. It previously served the route in 2021 and 2022.

From 26th October 2025 to 26th March 2026, flights will operate three times per week from Amsterdam Schiphol.

Departure dates are Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. It will use a Boeing 787-9.

The flights will continue onwards from Bridgetown to Georgetown, Guyana.

The timings are decent although you may need to stay in Amsterdam on the way out. You COULD connect from the first flight of the day from selected airports including Manchester, Edinburgh and Newcastle.

The outbound leaves Amsterdam at 09.35, arriving in Barbados at 13.35. The return leaves Barbados at 15.05, landing in Amsterdam at 08.00, but you have an 80 minute stop in Guyana on the way home.

In theory these flights will become bookable with Virgin Points, although I couldn’t get the Virgin Atlantic website to recognise the route yesterday.

You can check out timings and pricings on the KLM website here.

‘Credit Card Reviews’ returns

A ‘no news’ Bank Holiday weekend is always a good time to start running updated versions of our ‘Credit Card Reviews’ series!

For new readers, once a year we take a deep dive into every ‘miles and points’ credit card (and now debit cards too) on the UK market, helping you decide what is best for your purse or wallet.

We go alphabetically so there is a raft of American Express products at first. We will primarily run the articles over weekends and the May public holidays, although they may pop up on slow news days during the week as well!

We kick off tomorrow with American Express Preferred Rewards Gold which still has an enhanced sign-up bonus of 30,000 Membership Rewards points until the end of May.