Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

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

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

Well, this is quite impressive.

British Airways has launched a new ‘Avios only’ flight. This is a flight where EVERY seat in EVERY cabin is bookable for Avios.

Frankly, it’s a cracker and I’m genuinely impressed Avios could pull this off. You could be spending Christmas and New Year in Cape Town.

Avios only flight to Cape Town

These seats are bookable now and will not last long, at least in premium cabins.

You can use British Airways American Express 2-4-1 Companion Vouchers and Barclays Upgrade Vouchers.

Here are the timings:

Outbound:

  • Saturday 20th December 2025
  • Departs Heathrow 18.25, arrives Cape Town 08.05 + 1

Inbound:

  • Friday 2nd January 2026
  • Departs Cape Town 20.55, arrives Heathrow 07.00 + 1

It is a four class service so First Class is bookable. It is a Boeing 777 so you will get Club Suite in business class.

The cost, per person, is (using the ‘most Avios, least cash’ option):

  • World Traveller: 70,000 Avios + £150 return
  • World Traveller Plus: 135,000 Avios + £355 return
  • Club World: 200,000 Avios + £475 return
  • First Class: 200,000 Avios + £900 return

First Class does not use Reward Flight Saver pricing, hence the odd comparison to Club World. Remmeber that you cannot mix Club and First on the same booking without paying excessive amounts of taxes and charges.

Get booking!

If you miss out, keep an eye on ba.com as a lot of people will book immediately and then ask their partner tonight!

If their partner isn’t keen, or they suddenly realise how expensive hotels are in Cape Town at this time of the year, the seats will be cancelled under the 24 hour cooling off period. Set up a SeatSpy seat alert if you have a subscription.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (103)

  • LittleNick says:
    31 Jul31 July 16:30

    Call me a cynic, but while Avios-only flights may be good marketing, aren’t they also an opportunity for BA—and perhaps even the cabin crew—to dial down the food and service onboard? After all, they know all passengers haven’t paid cash, but are flying on redemptions using miles or vouchers. Sure, the seats are the same, so if you’re mainly after the Club Suite or First for a comfy enough way to get there, fair enough—assuming the cabin’s clean (which often leaves a lot to be desired anyway).

    Reply
    • Sarah says:
      31 Jul31 July 16:34

      Or, they know that passengers are likely to be frequent travellers, so they’d better step their game up a bit?

      I can’t imagine that BA are going to say to the caterers, let’s spend a bit less on this flight, it will be exactly the same catering as all the other CPT flights.

      Reply
    • Rob says:
      31 Jul31 July 16:34

      You have to be even dimmer than BA to deliberately annoy some of your best customers. The aircraft will also fly the other way with paying customers.

      However, there have been some really bizarre things done to Avios-only flights in the past. I know one was transferred to a charter operator and I think one got cancelled? The BA schedulers either don’t know or don’t care about them, that’s for sure.

      Reply
      • No Longer Entitled says:
        31 Jul31 July 18:40

        There have only been a handful of Avios only flights so to transfer one to a charter and cancel another doesn’t suggest you need to be “dimmer than BA to annoy some of your best customers”. You just need to be equal to BA.

        Reply
      • CheshirePete says:
        31 Jul31 July 19:57

        I thought they already did this with BAC………

        Reply
      • Paul says:
        31 Jul31 July 21:13

        Perhaps Global will rise from its self induced coma and operate the flights on behalf of BA 🙂

        Reply
  • Lady London says:
    31 Jul31 July 16:39

    What a great opportunity for a family to get seats to a Christmas destination that is normally relatively hard to get avios seats for.

    And with kiddies there’s not such a time gap as to cause much problem with jetlag.

    The price is still not a giveaway but most definitely still within the bounds of fair.

    Reply
  • Nico says:
    31 Jul31 July 16:44

    Rob – how did you get the article out so quickly?

    Reply
    • Rob says:
      31 Jul31 July 17:14

      Writing stuffs easy 🙂

      It’s running a large media / financial services business that’s the painful part!

      More specifically, the photo was already in our system and the Avios pricing was already in our system (except for the First Class taxes), so there wasn’t much to research. It was just handy that I was actually in the office when it landed.

      Reply
  • Garethgerry says:
    31 Jul31 July 16:51

    I presume this is an extra flight. They haven’t kicked paying passengers off existing scheduled flights.

    It won’t utilise regular flights staff , who stay , 1 overnight cabin crew 2 nights pilot. When will plane be coming back, will it use outbound crew, 2 days later .Similarly for January return, when will plane be going out. Will thi open up other opportunities, it won’t fly empty.

    Reply
    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      31 Jul31 July 21:14

      These aren’t usually extra flights but already scheduled ones and already booked passengers won’t be kicked off.

      So it will operate a return as usual etc etc

      Reply
      • LittleNick says:
        31 Jul31 July 22:19

        Oh, so there will already be some cash tickets on this flight then in that case. It’s just they’ve restricted sales to avios only, interesting, thanks

        Reply
      • Garethgerry says:
        1 Aug1 August 11:39

        Given that business to cape town is very popular, by now it would be half sold out. I know because I check events and again, look at seating map in case of aircraft change.

        So it’s not an avios only flight just opened all remaining seats to avios.

        @ROB hfp, what was availability like when you first looked

        Reply
  • Garethgerry says:
    31 Jul31 July 16:53

    Sorry didn’t make it clear I’m talking about crew for getting these planes back from Cape Town and then out in January. They won’t be empty

    Reply
  • Garethgerry says:
    31 Jul31 July 17:00

    No extra flights appearing in BA schedule

    Reply
  • Adam says:
    31 Jul31 July 17:28

    Miles & More and Lufthansa also have a members only flight going to Cape Town ? Wonder what’s going on in Cape Town this year ?

    Reply
    • Throwawayname says:
      31 Jul31 July 18:20

      It’s because wealthy Europeans who want to catch a bit of good weather tend to be terrified of the likes of Africa and Brazil because they are DaNgErOuS (and who can blame them, I for one have been killed multiple times when visiting those places), that’s why they all flock to the one city that they know is sterile enough for them.

      Reply
  • Ghost11 says:
    31 Jul31 July 17:54

    I know these are probably gone now (pending any cancellations) but can regional BA connections be included for free?

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Garethgerry Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Please click here to read our data protection policy before submitting your comment

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 50,000 bonus points (worth 50,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Special offer: Get 30,000 bonus Hilton Honors points until 14th August 2025

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 credit card with points which convert to Avios

Get points worth 20,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold

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!