Bits: BA Holidays sale, 50% bonus Virgin tier points, Heathrow Rewards bonus

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News in brief:

British Airways Holidays sale – from £50 down

The British Airways ‘Take-Off’ sale, which was due to run until the 22nd, has changed. BA will now continue discounting until 29th September but only on selected routes. Prices have returned to normal across the rest of the network. The current offers can be seen here.

Instead, BA has added a number of offers with British Airways Holidays. This includes the return of the popular ‘£50 deposit’ promotion until September 22nd.

It can often be cheaper to book a British Airways holiday package than book a stand-alone British Airways flight. Try pricing up a flight and a very poor hotel (which you don’t bother using) or a flight and a car hire and see what you get. The ability to pay just £50 down and the remainder at ten weeks prior to departure is an extra benefit!

When I say ‘BA Holidays’ you should NOT necessarily think of a Spanish beach. You can also get ‘flight and hotel’ short breaks in major cities.

The ‘£50 down’ offer is explained here. It is valid for ‘flight and hotel’ or ‘flight and car’ booking of up to £999.

50% bonus Virgin tier points and Virgin miles on non-US routes

Virgin Atlantic has launched a bonus offer on its Delhi, Dubai, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Lagos and Shanghai routes.

You will receive 50% extra bonus miles on every return flight you take until 31st December 2015. You will also earn extra tier points: two for each Economy return trip, four for Premium Economy and six for Upper Class.

Given that you only need 15 tier points in a rolling 12 month period for Silver and 40 for Gold, this is attractive. An Upper Class return will earn 16-18 tier points under this offer which means that just two and a half Virgin Atlantic return trips before the end of the year will get you Gold from a standing start.

Learn more about this offer and register here. Note that bookings must be made before 31st October.

Heathrow Rewards bonus on fashion

Finally, until 31st October, Heathrow Rewards, the airport loyalty scheme, is offering bonus points on fashion purchases.

You will receive double points when you spend £125-£499.99 and triple points when you spend £500 or more. The list of participating shops can be found here. There is no need to register.

Category

British Airways and Avios, Heathrow Rewards, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Al says:

19 Sep19 September 05:18

Is there any way to add the ‘poor hotel’ to the booking just for a single night, or must the ‘hotel stay’ span over the whole period of your trip?
- Anthony Dunn says:
  
  20 Sep20 September 10:36
  
  Hi, yes you should have the option of either booking a hotel for the duration of your stay or only a part of it.
fiona says:

19 Sep19 September 08:00

You can actually get a beach holiday. I booked a BA holiday to Bangkok with a hotel in Hua Hin. I got a price for the hotel which was far and above the best price I could find. I am pretty certain you can beach options when booking many Spanish destinations as well
- Danny says:
  
  19 Sep19 September 08:06
  
  I thinking what Rob was trying to say was that some people may think of a ‘holiday’ as a beach one, whereas booking a city break, is also a ‘holiday’.
  - Rob says:
    
    19 Sep19 September 08:26
    
    Correct!
fiona says:

19 Sep19 September 08:16

You are right Danny! Too early in the morning for me 🙂
cheekychappie says:

19 Sep19 September 09:02

Just did a couple of checks and indeed, a two day break with hotel included is actually sometimes cheaper than the one way flight out on the same day 1 🙂

Eg return flight + hotel £147 (11th Oct) vs one way HBO £178, with luggage £193 (our usual European destination).

Seems to be more likely with near dates, as you’d expect. So not that much use to us, except if there is a sudden need to fly out.
Jac says:

19 Sep19 September 11:20

One word of warning: when adding car hire (or hotel) to your flight, BA wont allow you to cancel for free within 24 hours nor can you benefit from their price guarantee (on the flight).
even though car hire when booked separetely is normally flexible, BA wont allow you to cancel the car hire part either
Danksy says:

19 Sep19 September 12:20

Can you book these via OB?
James67 says:

19 Sep19 September 12:56

OT Bit: interesting article in bbc today about efforts to get concorde airborne again. It’s hard to believe 12 years have passed since it last flew. Aircraft and spacecraft must be the only technology in history to be going backwards rather than forwards.
- cheekychappie says:
  
  19 Sep19 September 13:26
  
  The technology has improved dramatically since Concorde, which was developed irrationally at immense cost to the taxpayer – and probably robbed BA of the investment monies needed to develop more important services & maintain a commanding position in Europe. The airlines nowadays have to give the beancounters & owners more power to say no to poor investments than in nationalised days – which is a very good thing.
  
  Whilst the technology is much better, it is still far too expensive & would not remotely justify developing supersonic aircraft. Once passengers have to pay the sort of ticket price that would give a reasonable return on the investment, every airline in the world realises the market would be so small as to be irrelevant.
  - Will says:
    
    19 Sep19 September 16:37
    
    BA made money out of Concorde, plus all commercial planes of the era were either directly or indirectly government funded. Look at the A380 – government backed money.
    - cheekychappie says:
      
      19 Sep19 September 16:47
      
      You need a bit of catch-up on the economics front http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2935337.stm
      
      £11 billion (today’s money) down the pan.
      - Will says:
        
        19 Sep19 September 17:49
        
        BA didn’t pay. The taxpayer did. It’s like attributing the R&D costs which remain yet to recoup for the A380 to Emirates just because they fly it. BA was sold for £900 million when it privatised, including the Concorde fleet. Concorde made BA almost £1billion post privatisation.
      - cheekychappie says:
        
        19 Sep19 September 17:52
        
        But it lost the rest of us £10 billion
- Danksy says:
  
  19 Sep19 September 14:38
  
  Whilst the speed may not have increased the environmental impact has reduced hugely… This http://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/Documents/EnvironmentReport-2010/ICAO_EnvReport10-Ch2_en.pdf is 5 years old now, but with the modern lightweight composite materials being used in aircraft design aircraft are much more fuel efficient than previously. The a350Xwb has a 100% carbon fibre fuselage , and reckons on using 10% less fuel as a result based on comparison to an equivalent modern airfcraft.
  
  Part of me harps back to the good old days of supersonic flights and generous air miles scheme, however the world has woken up (unfortunately)!