BA Holidays Vs Cash/Points

[Krispy]

Looking at New York next November… and I’ve noticed that the BA holiday prices are really good value compared to booking the flights with points and the hotels separately. Is this a common occurrence? I know there’s a sale on BA Holidays at the moment

[davefl]

Yes often happens. There are lots of articles and discussions mentioning this over the years.

BA Holidays can sell flights from different fare buckets to the ones you can normally buy and the get consolidator rates on the hotels.

[MrWhite]

Coupled with only having to pay a deposit, then the balance 4-6 weeks before, gives a lot of flexibility. The only potential downside, if you’re travelling economy, is that your fare bucket may result in the lowest tier points, which you won’t know until you’ve booked.

[LouiseL]

Does anyone know whether it’s possible to later upgrade flights booked as part of a BAH?

[AndrewT]

Yes, but you would expect to pay the full fare difference between whatever was originally attributed to the fare cost plus the new fare for the higher cabin plus a change fee. i.e. no obvious benefit in doing it later.

Depending on the original fare bucket you may be able to use avios to upgrade if reward seats are available.

[LouiseL]

Thanks Andrew, I am looking at Mauritius in September, popular and so already no reward seats. My challenge is that the economy rate is so low that even opting for Premium seems like such a jump in price that I don’t know if I can justify it (even though 12 hours in economy fills me with dread).

Having a real tug of war in my mind over potentially spending another £2000 just for the slightly better seat/food etc. I travel CS/CW a fair amount and struggle with the downgrade. (1st world problems I know!)

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

Yes it is a common occurnce where cost of Holiday can be cheaper than flight and hotel booked separately.

But not always.

BA Hols is an outlet for BA to sell inventry on what might be seen as ‘unpopular’ flight times or hotels who may find certain rooms hard to sell.

Yesterday I was pricing up a trip for next September. BA hols IS cheaper than what would be separate bookings but only because the cheapest price meant taking a late flight out and an early flight back (might suit some but not me) and they weren’t offering the same range of rooms than booking direct.

Obvious benefits though are – earning TPs (double for a qualifying holiday) and ability to only pay a deposit. And you can now part pay wth avios (though the rate might not be the best)

[runnerbean]

MrWhite wrote:

Coupled with only having to pay a deposit, then the balance 4-6 weeks before, gives a lot of flexibility. The only potential downside, if you’re travelling economy, is that your fare bucket may result in the lowest tier points, which you won’t know until you’ve booked.

I had always assumed that by looking at the fare bucket for the same cash flight and class and luggage allowance, would give assurance on the fare class for BA hols flight. Is that not reliable?

[LD27]

If you are prepared to wait until the day, we have upgraded flights at the airport on a BAH and got much cheaper business class flights than if we had booked them originally. I think it is a set price so doesn’t matter whether you have booked a holiday or just flights, or which fare bucket your flights are.

[AndrewT]

That’s an AUP which is available for all tickets, but subject to availability. Obviously if the flight is full there won’t be any AUP’s up for grabs on the day, so not something to rely on if you really want a higher cabin.

The price does vary according to various things including your starting ticket class, but if you can get it will almost always cheaper than you would have paid beforehand.

[LD27]

Obviously there might not be any seats available, but if business class seats are high for flights (as they seem to be at the moment) and unable to upgrade using Avios, then airport upgrade might be an option. If BAH, it’s the only option.

I thought airport upgrade was a set price. We’ve been on different tickets/buckets eg BAH or regular flight only ticket and have never been quoted a different price. Different for POUG (pro active online upgrade) where we have been quoted different prices depending on fare bucket.

[LouiseL]

Thanks for the comments on upgrading with BAH. I think I just have to decide on how much I am willing to spend, and whether an upgrade now or later is worth it. Part of my problem is that economy is very cheap at the moment, which means the difference gives more pause for thought than normal.
I am Silver so get lounge access either way so that’s something.

[marks7389]

In answer to your upgrade question, if it was about about upgrading BAH flights with Avios then yes it is possible – I have done it booking a trip in WT+ where I knew there was CW redemption availability, and then immediately upgraded with Avios.

However if you are looking to upgrade from WT, I think it remains the case that certain fare buckets are not upgradable so you’d need to be wary of that.

[LD27]

marks7389 wrote:

In answer to your upgrade question, if it was about about upgrading BAH flights with Avios then yes it is possible – I have done it booking a trip in WT+ where I knew there was CW redemption availability, and then immediately upgraded with Avios.

However if you are looking to upgrade from WT, I think it remains the case that certain fare buckets are not upgradable so you’d need to be wary of that.

That’s really interesting. Never been able to upgrade BAH flights with Avios from WT+ to CW, so it’s good to know it’s possible. We’ve booked a holiday to New Orleans/Atlanta for March and there are Avios seats available so will give it a try.

[AndrewT]

Yes it’s definitely achievable with the right agent, but took quite a lot of backwards and forwards between the different teams. I think BAH have to get it priced by the Avios rewards team, who in turn need to know what taxes have been charged previously for the BAH package…

May have improved with BAH transferring to Avios Group.