BA Holidays tier point run

[SamT]

I’m trying to book a BA Holiday as a tier point run at the beginning of my new earnings year at some point between 9th December and 31st December – as have about 20 flights planned next year but all in Economy. In order to get Silver in one you need to start from a regional airport. The issue is as soon as I add in a regional start, the price increases massively and in some cases literally doubles for the entire holiday. Does anyone have any tips or tricks for this as I’ve read various blogs saying they’ve managed a holiday booking that would get them silver status for around £550 but I can’t seem to replicate that with a regional start.

Meanwhile if anyone has seen any really good solo holiday deals in December with BA that would enable me to get silver that would be really appreciated.

[Froggee]

I think your problem is that you can fly to e.g. Sofia in December more cheaply than you can fly to the regions. So when you add on your connecting flight it (more than) doubles the price. All I can suggest is that you do a form of simultaneous equation where you try and find a domestic route that suits the sort of dates you like at the bare minimum price which I suspect with be £250+ in J in December.

Dublin will probably be the cheapest route you can find to start from which I hasten to add is not domestic. But is easy to get to from London and they speak a similar standard of English there to what you’ll fine in BA’s regional destinations. Smiley face.

What sort of prices are you seeing?

[Angelamc11]

I think the BA holiday double points has to start in the UK.

I have booked 5 nights BBD-LHR-OTP-LHR-BHD in December with car hire for £505 each, giving 480 points.

Also have 5 nights in December BhD-LHR-KEF-LHR-BHD with car for £609 each, giving 480 points.

I just played around with dates that would suit me.

[NorthernLass]

There’s a really long thread somewhere on here where someone recently had a similar problem, they couldn’t actually get the system to include a regional connection. How many TPs do you need? Could you book somewhere further away then use avios for the domestic sectors?

[astra19]

Don’t start on the basis of cheap London flights. I find regional pricing often has little resemblance to London starts. I’ve sometimes paid half of what the exact same London-departure holiday would have cost when flying from Edinburgh.

[Harry T]

Domestics are priced at a premium right now because BA has cancelled the hell out of them and consolidated passengers on to the limited remaining flights, that are now often completely full. So the remaining fare buckets are the expensive ones like J, rather than cheapy ones like I.

If the domestics are expensive, use Avios to position to and from London, then commence a tier point run from there. Or just book a nice European holiday you actually want to go on and take a similar approach to position.

Silver is very very easy to get at the moment, especially with the double tier points offer, so you shouldn’t need to do anything particularly dastardly.

Ps I earned BA gold the hard way this year (prior to July) and will requalify before the end of the year, and I live in Newcastle with no work travel, so I speak from experience here.

[Richie]

BTW Ski season starts mid December, with BA flights from the regions to Chambery and Salzburg.

[davefl]

Harry T wrote:

Domestics are priced at a premium right now because BA has cancelled the hell out of them and consolidated passengers on to the limited remaining flights, that are now often completely full. So the remaining fare buckets are the expensive ones like J, rather than cheapy ones like I.

If the domestics are expensive, use Avios to position to and from London, then commence a tier point run from there. Or just book a nice European holiday you actually want to go on and take a similar approach to position.

This doesn’t help when you need 4 BA flights. The Avios ones dont count, so those of us in the regions who are having this issue need paid connecting flghts.

BA’s systemic system failure to even ticket valid flight/route combos is a major factor.

I ranted on in a previous thread at length on this matter. Booking a ticket for man-lhr-sofia was not possible without a 18 hour overnight layover even though the individual flights are available.

The only choices were risk a misconnect on 2 seperate tickets or buy through a bucket shop all of which had diabolical reviews.

[memesweeper]

The BA flights don’t actually have to be on BA. Some partners like Iberia count, as do codeshares on any airline.

[davefl]

memesweeper wrote:

The BA flights don’t actually have to be on BA. Some partners like Iberia count, as do codeshares on any airline.

I know, unfortunately it’s a oneworld wasteland. The only non BA shorthail destinations from MAN are currently MAD and HEL. DUB at higher prices on a codeshare,

I’m starting to investigate the Loganair codeshares but something like Man-Inv is £140+ for a day return. BA’s codeshare price con is in full effect. A £37 one way on Loganair prices at £87 with a BA ticket number.

[ZoeB]

Thanks for all of the above info. I’m about to book LHR JER LHR ATH LHR at the end of November for our Silver run. My husband picked Athens we get a night in a hotel in Jersey and 5 nights in Athens total cost £752 each. Seems a decent deal for almost 2 years of silver and an interesting trip.
I priced up holidays from Jersey to Athens but had to ring BA holidays as I couldn’t work out how to do 2 centres.

[polly]

We have booked Sofia for our 5n HOL run, history buffs, and following some of JDB’s recent forays around the area. Thanks JDB for the tips.
Before that a CE return to Bordeaux, a necessary trip, as opposed to the TP run as it originally was. So, as you say, not bad for just under 2 years silver. Plus had a few TPs from a Dublin trip, so all square with 5 pts to spare. Whew…. The lengths we go to, us lot.

[SamT]

Thank you everyone. Departing from a regional airport would’ve been for the sole purpose of gaining the additional tier points as I’m only an hour and half from the London airports. I’ve instead decided to have a 5 day holiday in Sofia in November – not sure if there’s much to do at that time of year but always nice to experience a different country regardless and then going to Marrakech flight only for a few weeks. This seemed a much better option, doing things I would’ve done anyway rather than the hassle and cost of a regional departure