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Apologies if this has been covered before, but I need to fly from Manchester to Chicago next April/May. I’ve found some Club World BA flights going MAN-LHR-ORD return at £2143 (direct on BA website) which seems like a reasonable price. I’d like to buy direct from BA using my BA Premium Plus Amex to maximise the Avios earned. Should I just go ahead and secure them or are they likely to reduce between now and then? I guess what I’m asking is, is there a ‘sweet-spot’ time to buy with BA? thank you.
Historically, £2143 would be seen as massively overpaying but these days …..?
BA is doing New York for £1299 in the current sale so arguably you’ll see something nearer £1500 at some point. Cash fares normally bottom out 3-4 months before travel.
However:
*if you travelling over the Easter school holidays or
*you are not staying a Saturday nightthen arguably it’s not a terrible deal. If you are there over a weekend I would arguably hang on for a sale deal around £1500 though.
That sounds a bit on the high side, though I know prices are crazy these days. I think AA release their prices after BA so if they are not available already, BA prices might adjust a bit to compete. IME BA prices are very high immediately after they are released, but people who fly more than me may well know better so don’t just go off this.
Also, have you looked at a BA holiday? Flight plus just 1 night in a hotel, for example, might give you a better price and more time to pay and there’s a “sale” on atm, though that often means absolutely nothing!
Edit – well if @Rob agrees, I know I’m on solid ground!
Google flights has a nice feature that shows you historical prices (so you can have an idea of what prices are supposed to be). You can also select a flight a monitor the price getting alerts in case prices goes up or down.
A good option is to do a BA holiday (pick the flights and maybe a car or hotel for just one day). You will only have to pay £150pp and if prices go down by a lot rebook (only losing the £150).
Thanks SO much for the input. I be there from April 27th to May 1st so NOT Easter holidays and will be staying a Saturday. With these points in mind, I’ll definitely hold-on until the next BA sale! thanks all 🙂
I’ll echo the BA holidays option.
BUT your dates are right at the end of the current booking window and the lower price fare buckets won’t necessarily have been released yet so waiting a week or so should see the price drop anyway once those kick in.
It’s not something I’d wait for another sale for as not all routes and dates would be included.
These days I prefer to book WT+ on the way out and Club on the way back. Often there are very good last-minute upgrade deals (~£300) which can be tempting.
Make sure you check ex -DUB
Have you considered what those avios gained are actually worth against a Man-Dub-Ord ticket?
Pre-clearance at Dub avoiding the immigration hell at ORD would surely be worth a lot to you as a business passenger. Also a tip, if you mix it up and go economy from MAN-Dub, and then Dub-ORD in biz, they give you lounge access at MAN as well (for what that’s worth).
Typical fare is £1660 for that, without trying to mess around reducing it by flying economy to Dub and back.
I can’t argue with any of the above.
I was shocked, really shocked, a few weeks ago on booking a US trip as a BAH at how much difference it made to the hotel costs. I saved £1200 on the total flights+hotels cost for a week’s stay, in WTP, mostly I think because the BA hotel rate was so much lower than hotels.com or direct. Plus…£200 deposit paid and we’ve several months in which plans could change or stuff go wrong, and the whole itinerary can be cancelled without further loss.
I’ve always found it pays handsomely to position elsewhere from MAN in premium cabins; an itinerary I booked for this summer recently was over £4k in discounted business class from MAN, but £2200 ex-DUB on a fully-refundable ticket. Dublin hotels and Airbnb are terribly expensive, which spoils it a bit.
By manipulating the multi-city tool on Google Flights, you can often get something like:
DUB-ORD day 1
ORD-LHR day X
LGW-DUB day X+1
for close to the same price as the DUB-ORD round-trip, but with the bonus that your checked bags will be produced for you to collect at LHR on your return.Ludicrously, my “day X+1” LGW-DUB is actually routed LGW-FRA-DUB taking over 7 hours…preposterous, and I won’t of course fly it, but removing it from the itinerary adds £4000 to the price.
Crikey, which airline(s) was this with?! I need to check out DUB, after all I fly via LON often enough and Dublin is actually nearer to Manchester as the crow flies!
LGW-FRA-DUB sounds like one of those routes you see featured in the press sometimes where someone has flown it for £9.99 or similar compared to paying £400 for the ferry!
I think it’s priced by United, but if you fiddle with the site a bit you can get routings on Air Canada or (I think) LH, hence the LGW-DUB route being on *A. United do codeshare with Aer Lingus on some route/s; if you ask it for ORD-LHR then separate LHR-DUB, you (generally) seem to get a sensible direct flight on EI. I assume they don’t codeshare on LGW-DUB, hence the ludicrous route, but I didn’t look too closely.
It’s *probably* safe to book it as LHR-DUB, as I think your luggage will still be produced for you at LHR given the overnight layover, but I feel like using LGW is belt-and-braces protection against some sort of scheduling/IRROPS cockup getting the bags sent to Germany.
https://www.google.com/travel/flights/s/oQFzq9xcdkcAMPLV7 is the sort of thing I booked –
It shows as £2100 on Google flights as I write this, and if I change it from PHX to ORD it drops to £1900.I found that clicking through to the United site from Google Flights doesn’t reliably work or offer the flexible option. But, if I manually enter the itinerary on United’s site using the (Advanced search->Multi-city) tool, it would offer it as a discounted/non-refundable ticket for about £2k, but for about £2200 I could get fully refundable. It prices in EUR by default on an ex-DUB itinerary but will happily switch to, and charge amex in, sterling at a sensible rate.
There are several possible routes including Air Canada, which I did prefer to United long-haul, but the connection and AC short-haul was shambolic last time.
I did similar last year and found it got cheaper a few weeks before departure so re-booked one of the legs using their website which generated a useful size credit.
If you’re travelling this summer, BA with positioning to MUC, FRA, or DUS is even cheaper – but not flexible.
In this case I like the flexibility as my US client is quite flakey and I don’t want to get stuck with the cost of the ticket if they change their minds…
Best time to buy BA Club World flights?
After all the decent airlines have sold out.
Tyvm, here all week
Thanks for all the input. I’m certainly considering connecting via Dublin with Aer Lingus, but as I have Global Entry, I’m assuming immigration at ORD should be okay so just need to weigh-up how much nicer the BA Club suite experience is vs Aer Lingus business class!
There’s no global entry/clear etc at Dub so you’ll have to weigh that against the saving.
The benefit of Dub is you clear immigration & customs at Dub itself and arrive as a domestic passenger in the US.
There’s no global entry/clear etc at Dub so you’ll have to weigh that against the saving.
Incorrect there is GE at DUB but there is no Pre Check for security.
There’s no global entry/clear etc at Dub so you’ll have to weigh that against the saving.
Incorrect there is GE at DUB but there is no Pre Check for security.
Fair enough, I was under the impression it hadn’t re-opened post pandemic due to lack of staff. I’m headed there next week so all will be ‘clear’ 🙂
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