British Airways has launched a new World Sale with offers available in all classes.
There is also a range of flight + hotel and flight + car BA Holiday deals as well as an enhancement when you Part Pay with Avios.
BA does seem to have gone into promotion overdrive mode in the last week, with a 50% bonus when you buy Avios also launched (article here). Conspiracy theorists will question the timing of these offers, considering the negative reaction that greeted the impending Avios devaluation. That and the fact that the last BA sale only finished at the end of March. However, two years ago, they did run sales in both March and May two years ago so maybe the timing is just coincidental?
Cheap flight-only deals
If flight-only deals are your thing, there are some good prices floating about. Here are a few that looked particularly interesting:
Economy (World Traveller)
- Barbados – from £424
- Boston – from £248 (more on this deal here)
- Chicago – from £275
- Dever – from £268
- Hong Kong – from £397
- Las Vegas – from £286
- Miami – from £283
- New York – from £251 (choose between BA/Virgin Atlantic at this price)
- Orlando – from £286
- San Fransisco – from £304
- San Jose (California) – from £313
- Sao Paulo – from £598
- Shanghai – £399
- Tampa – from £286
Premium economy (World Traveller Plus)
- Abu Dhabi – from £578
- Antigua – from £684
- Barbados – from £684
- Boston – from £786
- Doha – from £611
- Dubai – from £638
- Grand Cayman – from £890
- Las Vegas – from £740
- New York – from £726
- Tampa – from £788
- Tel Aviv – from £533
Business class (Club World)
Not ‘out-of-this-world’ good but the following destinations are available at £1,300-£1,500 unless stated:
- Abu Dhabi – from £1,448
- Atlanta
- Barbados – from £1,694
- Beirut – from £1068
- Chicago
- Montreal
- Nashville
- New York
- Orlando
- Philadelphia
- Rio de Janeiro – from £1,799
- San Francisco
- Seattle
- Shanghai – from £1889 (not bad, but I’d book SWISS for £1,350)
- Tampa
- Tel Aviv – from £1,134
- Toronto
- Washington
First Class
- Atlanta – from £1,798
- Calgary – from £1,837
- Chicago from £1,848
- New Orleans – from £1802
- Philadelphia – from £1,798
- San Francisco – from £1,802
- Tel Aviv from £1,534
- Washington from £1,798
Standout Club Europe prices
At first glance, Club Europe prices are not quite as generous as those available in the BA Luxury Sale that ran in March. That said, there are still some good deals if you dig around. Using the BA Low Fare Finder, I spotted these deals for around £200 return:
Prices are each-way
- Amsterdam – from £73
- Barcelona – from £108
- Bordeaux – from £71
- Dublin – from £80
- Faro – from £111
- Innsbruck – from £100
- Lyon – from £94
- Malaga – from £99
- Milan – from £87
- Nice – from £109
- Palma – from £102
- Paris – from £98
- Pisa – from £96
- Porto – from £96
- Rome – from £78
- Salzburg – from £94
- Seville – from £105
- Toulouse – from £90
- Venice – from £75
BA Holiday offers
There are numerous good BA Holiday deals available. You can find them on this page of the BA website.
Here are various Flight + Hotel examples:
- Orlando – 7 nights at the 3* Maingate Lakeside Resort, return flights from £379 per person.
- Barbados – 7 nights at the 3* Halcyon Palm, return flights from £549 per person.
- Las Vegas – 7 nights at the 3* The D Las Vegas, return flights from £429 per person.
- Malaga – 7 nights at the 3* Select Marina, return flights from £259 per person.
Remember, there are multiple benefits to throwing in a hotel or a car rental to turn your trip into a ‘BA Holiday’ booking.
Firstly, this can be a good way to pick up an excellent deal on your flights and hotels that would have been far more expensive to book separately.
Secondly, as I always highlight, BA Holiday bookings only require full payment 5 weeks before your flight, with just a small deposit (from £75 per person) required at the time of booking. This is very useful if you’re tempted by this sale pricing but don’t want to have to lay out ££££ months in advance.
Travel period: 2 May 2019 – 31 March 2020.
You can find numerous other Flight + Hotel options on the BA Sale page here
Get a better deal using Part Pay with Avios
Most of the time, using Part Pay with Avios isn’t a great idea if you want to get good value from your Avios. However, British Airways occasionally adjusts the Avios/cash discount amounts which make it a better deal.
On a random London-Miami search for October, I was offered the following offers:
£20 off for 2,000 Avios is excellent, giving you 1p of value per Avios. Some of you may consider redeeming 5,200 Avios for a £40 discount too (0.76p per Avios) especially if you factor that you’d be earning a minimum of 2,216 Avios from this booking.
EDIT: Running some other searches for a different article, it seems BA is also offering £10 off for 800 Avios or £30 off for 3,500 Avios on some dates, which are clearly better than the examples listed above.
Limited time – save up to an extra £100 on BA Holidays
Book a flight + hotel or flight + car holiday in the sale for additional savings:
- £100 extra discount with a minimum spend of £2,500 per booking.
- £50 extra discount with a minimum spend of £1,250 per booking.
Additional discounts end Tuesday 7th May 2019
How to book
Visit the World Sale page on ba.com to view all of the available deals.
Alternatively, the easiest place to start is probably the helpful BA Low Fare Finder tool. This allows you to easily view the cheapest fares across a number of months in different cabins.
Bear in mind that the prices on the Low Fare Finder are only updated every 24 hours, therefore the price you see on may not fully reflect availability or price shifts.
Full T&Cs and details of any advance purchase requirements at the bottom of this page.
Book by midnight 21st May 2019
Verdict
£1,300-£1,400 for direct Club World flights to many North American cities is a strong deal and it does seem that North America has got most of the best deals this time around.
If you’re heading to the Far East, you’re probably better off with the excellent SWISS sale which I covered last week, which currently has deals such as Hong Kong for £999 in business class, or First Class to Shanghai for £1,700.
The BA Holiday offers are well worth a look with various cheap Flight + Hotel combinations available. There’s also the added benefit of only having to pay a small deposit now.