Last chance for Business Class sale bargains with Air France, Etihad, South African and Virgin Atlantic

A number of airline Business Class sales are about to expire in the next few days.  We have put them all together in brief in this article – click through to the relevant sale pages for more details, a full list of destinations and to book.  If you haven’t had a chance yet to look at the prices, here is a reminder of the headline deals.

Etihad

Etihad’s sale ends on 11th February.  We haven’t covered this yet on HFP so don’t think you missed the original article.

The listed prices are for travel until 30th September and the return flight must be completed by 15th October.

The lead prices in Business are:

• London – Mumbai from £1,673
• London – Shanghai from £2,134
• London – Sydney from £2,999
• London – Dubai from £1,500

The sale page is here.  You will also find details of sale fares from Edinburgh and Manchester on that page. In addition, if you are not already an Etihad Guest member, you can sign up here and receive 500 bonus miles.

SAA

The South African Airways sale ends on 8th February.

In Business Class, Johannesburg is £2699, Cape Town is £2685 and Durban is £2909.  Remember that a new A330-300 with the new Business Class seat will be flying from London from 25th March – see my article here.

In Economy, for travel up to 23rd June but excluding Easter, Johannesburg is as low as £595 return.  Cape Town is £610.  There are also special fares to other destinations in South Africa (Durban, Port Elizabeth, Kruger Mpumalanga and East London) as well as Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana.

It is worth noting that, looking at the T&C’s of the sale, SAA allows its economy tickets to be changed for a fee of £100 subject to any difference in fare on the new date.  Tickets are not refundable however.

The sale prices can be found on the SAA website here.

Virgin Atlantic

The Virgin Atlantic Winter sale ends on 8th February.

The lead prices in Upper Class departing London are:

• New York from £1,389
• Barbados from £1,495
• Dubai from £1,493

The lead prices in Upper Class departing Manchester are:

• Boston from £1,289
• Atlanta from £1,692

Premium Economy starts at £632 and Economy at £359.

The Virgin Atlantic Winter Sale site is here.

Air France

There is no end date or travel dates indicated for the Air France sale.  These fares look very attractive in places.

Some lead prices in Business (cabin photo above) are:

• Abu Dhabi from £1,372
• Cairo from £923
• Dubai from £1,233
• Johannesburg from £2,024
• Hong Kong from £1,555

The fares are here and the Air France home page is here.

How to earn Flying Blue miles from UK credit cards (December 2021)

Air France and KLM do not have a UK Flying Blue credit card.  However, you can earn Flying Blue miles by converting Membership Rewards points earned from selected UK American Express cards.  These are:

• American Express Preferred Rewards Gold (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 20,000 Flying Blue miles. This card is FREE for your first year and also comes with two free airport lounge passes.

• The Platinum Card from American Express (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 30,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 30,000 Flying Blue miles

• American Express Rewards credit card (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 5,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 5,000 Flying Blue miles. This card is FREE for life.

Membership Rewards points convert at 1:1 into Flying Blue miles which is an attractive rate.  The cards above all earn 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on your card, which converts to 1 Flying Blue mile. The Gold card earns double points (2 per £1) on all flights you charge to it.