WOW: Spend Christmas in Cape Town with a new ‘Avios only’ BA flight

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• Londonsteve says:

  1 Aug1 August 12:52

  Would be fascinated to learn about the economics of this. We all know that CPT flights at that time of year could be sold for cash many times over, so it’s unquestionably a generous offer. Why is BA waving goodbye to all this cash revenue at the request of the Avios subsidiary? Are the number of unused Avios floating around starting to present BA with an accountancy risk such that they need to make serious moves to get people to part with them? If so, we could be entering a period of tempting Avios deals going forward. I wonder what the calculable ‘loss’ to BA is compared to selling the flights for cash.

  • Richard says:

    1 Aug1 August 14:52

    Its a marketing gimmick that generates loads of positive free coverage about the avios ecosystem and will budgeted for on that basis.. the actual economic cost should calculated against the least probability use of a BA 777 for that time… a number that will be in the millions but not that far into the millions that an org with £30bn of annual revenue as IAG has is totally normal

• Dunders says:

  1 Aug1 August 13:57

  There is some availability opened up today presumably from cancellations within the cooling off period. BA.com showing 6x J on outbound and 3x J on inbound (with PE also available). I may check again in 2-3 months as I will have a CV and enough Avios at that point.

• Hak says:

  1 Aug1 August 17:29

  What is Cape Town like security wise? Been thinking of visiting South Africa for a while and doing a safari whilst there and hitting the Rovos rail but reviews of the Rovos train seem to all suggest the country is creeking at its knees and a quick look through the crime stats doesn’t make for happy reading. Any first hand accounts?

  • Richard says:

    1 Aug1 August 18:03

    Visited SA 10 plus times in the last 20 years, mostly to Cape Town or Kimberley. The tourist areas are absolutely fine, just take the normal sensible precautions against petty crime you would in the UK. Don’t wander into a township alone – but this is really quite hard to do.

  • Throwawayname says:

    1 Aug1 August 18:13

    CPT is perfectly safe, I went a couple of years ago and roamed around areas well beyond the touristy waterfront bits and didn’t even feel any ‘need to be careful here’ vibes. The Stellenbosch wine country is said to be great although I didn’t get to go. On the other hand, I consider Johannesburg to be the most dangerous city that I have ever visited (and I have visited Caracas!)- nothing happened to me in the end but there were a couple of relatively close calls even if I was being super vigilant.

    My choice for safari would be Eswatini, it’s only slightly off the beaten track but an enchanting little country and the lack of large-scale tourism means that you should have no issues with scams, security, overpricing, overcrowding etc. We were on a tight schedule but got to spend time with some locals working for the border police and associated services due to an administrative cock-up and they were an amazing bunch of people.

• Garethgerry says:

  1 Aug1 August 17:46

  Cape Town is like any other big city, perfectly safe if you do your research. Wander into township at night then in trouble.

  South Africa generally works well. Rovos a bit over hyped. Wine district great. Cape town great except over Xmas , full of Joeys on holiday, very busy. Cape town not good starting point for safari. You’d have to fly to Joburg, but if getting on plane might as well go to Botswana

  • NorthernLass says:

    1 Aug1 August 18:09

    Perception is a large part of it. You’d never guess which destination has the highest murder rate, but it’s millionaire’s paradise Turks & Caicos islands. Yet the influencers flock there.
    People were rather dubious when we visited Mexico City last year but we didn’t see anything bad happen the whole time we were there. You have to remember that tourists tend to be less targeted, and much more protected, than local people.

    • Throwawayname says:

      1 Aug1 August 18:17

      Perception is reality. There are some people still thinking Colombia is a super dangerous destination. Oh well, that means more award availability to/via BOG for me!

  • Norfolk&Chance says:

    2 Aug2 August 13:23

    Tourism is a massive earner for the SA economy and as such tourist areas are much better policed. Similarly criminals are more wary to target tourists as they will know it is more likely to be investigated and they could get caught. That being said you should be wary of driving at night and use common sense situational awareness. This mostly applies to the cape Jo’burg is another story…

• HPSauce says:

  1 Aug1 August 19:01

  Seats all taken? Or should we be getting up early tomorrow to check again?

  • Rob says:

    1 Aug1 August 19:08

    We’re now past the 24 hour mark so its too late for anyone to cancel for free who got a premium cabin seat. This means that, whilst a lot will still cancel, there’s no rush. They are paying the fee regardless.

    Set a SeatSpy alert if you have a subscription and wait. Odds are good.

    • HPSauce says:

      1 Aug1 August 19:41

      Thank you.

• kevin86 says:

  1 Aug1 August 20:38

  BA finally admitting to “softness” in US bookings. I knew months ago from my work that talk of no impact from BA was utter garbage

  • Rob says:

    1 Aug1 August 21:42

    Passenger numbers are down over 400,000 vs last year for the first half across all of IAG. It’s just higher fares and lower fuel costs that are keeping the underlying numbers looking good.

    • Throwawayname says:

      1 Aug1 August 22:07

      But how can they get away with charging higher fares in that context? Are they cutting frequencies?

• Ben says:

  2 Aug2 August 07:31

  The flight numbers make it look like this is one of BA’s regular daily cape town flights. What’s more, there is only one other flight available to purchase that day. So I don’t believe this is an extra flight.

  • Garethgerry says:

    2 Aug2 August 10:47

    So it’s not an avios only flight, and by now expect it would have been half full. The BA media said 500 seats , 250 each way, which means it was leß than a 1/3rd full. A bit worrying for BA if they have that much space on such busy route.

    • Norfolk&Chance says:

      2 Aug2 August 13:29

      It would have filled up come xmas with cash bookings

      • Garethgerry says:

        2 Aug2 August 14:24

        The prices for remaining flight on those days have gone through the roof. £3k economy return

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