British Airways Holidays launches short-haul and long-haul luxury sale – cheaper than just a flight

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• patchy mcbest says:

  22 Jul22 July 05:15

  I think the holiday deals seem so patchy – a month here or there. Kinda looks like scraps from things they couldn’t sell! I have no doubt it can save a bit of money, but nothing for me unfortunately.

  O/T travelled on P/E VS the other day and was amazed by how good it was. Better P/E than BA by a mile. Thanks Rob for your help in getting the points required. Great site.

  • Sussex bantam says:

    22 Jul22 July 08:24

    Isn’t that usually the point of a sale ?

    • badly designed penguin says:

      22 Jul22 July 12:07

      Not really

• Anna says:

  22 Jul22 July 06:48

  How often does BA have these sales, I need to book a substantial flight/hotel/car package in the autumn when flights for summer 2019 are released?

  • Jonathan says:

    22 Jul22 July 07:35

    http://blog.continentalclub.co.uk/offers/the-ultimate-british-airways-sale-fare-archive/

    This will give you a good idea of timing & prices in previous sales although no guarantee prices/destinations will stay the same. Are you looking for somewhere in school holidays? If so I wouldn’t expect much in a sale unless it’s somewhere business focussed with lots of flights e.g. New York can often be very good value in Premium cabins in August/December/Easter.

    There’s also a school of thought that you shouldn’t buy (certainly long haul) flights as soon as they’re released as this is the behaviour of the naive or those who have very specific requirements and therefore airlines won’t offer a good price at this point. Best offers are normally around the 8-12 weeks out mark when they can estimate how much spare capacity they have and tempt some discretionary buyers before the price insensitive business travelers appear at circa t – 4weeks. Obviously a gamble that doesn’t work if you know exact dates/destination but unless you want 10F tickets on a specific flight I wouldn’t jump in on release date but monitor prices for a few months & step in when they were at a level I was happy with.

    • Jack says:

      22 Jul22 July 07:49

      I’ve also read somewhere a couple of years ago (Economist??) that the magic window to book is T-10 weeks. Would be interesting to find some research.

      • Rob says:

        22 Jul22 July 08:17

        Various newspaper articles over the years generally say the 3 month mark is best, yes.

    • Anna says:

      22 Jul22 July 10:23

      Yes it’s school holidays, we are chained to these for at least the next 4 years! The plan is to get 2 reward seats with Lloyds upgrade vouchers at T-355 and then book a package with the same flight for my OH. We have done this in the past but paid for the 3rd flight up front, however, experimenting with a few dummy bookings shows that packages can give tremendous value. However, I need to book early enough to make sure we can all be on the same flight!

  • Rob says:

    22 Jul22 July 08:19

    Pretty regular, BA Holidays is now where BA dumps flights it can’t sell but where it doesn’t want to reduce the published price.

  • Andrew says:

    22 Jul22 July 09:31

    Surely it all depends on how you define “Summer 2019”?

    Scottish Schools finish at the end of June. Bizarrely, a flight on BA from EDI or GLA to MCO for a week on Saturday 28th June costs under £500 – so peak flights. Flights on the same legs from LON to MCO, before the English holidays start, cost £850…

    • Anna says:

      22 Jul22 July 10:24

      Yes, MCO is unaffordable for a lot of people now, though I would refuse to pay that anyway!

      • Lady London says:

        22 Jul22 July 12:10

        There are several airports within easy driving distance of MCO such as TPA. If you really need to get to that area I’d even consider Sarasota or Naples via US domestic connection and there are several others. One way car hire within Florida usually doesn’t have any surcharge so you can pick up at one airport and drop at another.

    • Yawn says:

      22 Jul22 July 13:29

      But…of all the wonderful places in the world (and much on our doorstep), isn’t Orlando just tedium personified? Many just go because so many other families do.
      An American Dubai.

      • Anna says:

        22 Jul22 July 13:41

        Yes but you can give your brain a complete rest from entertaining kids for a fortnight because it’s all there on a plate, which you almost can’t put a price on – until they made it so outrageously expensive!

        Yes LL, I am definitely considering making it a 2-centre holiday next time with a stop in NYC or similar.

• Jack says:

  22 Jul22 July 07:48

  I booked a reward ticket using Avios in QR. any idea why the “Rewards for this flight” would be showing 140 Tier Points? I wouldn’t expect any TPs for a reward flight, surely??

  • Rob says:

    22 Jul22 July 08:17

    Because their IT is messed up – although there is a chance it posts. Similarly, crediting BA redemptions to AA can occasionally lead to them posting.

• Gary Oswald says:

  22 Jul22 July 09:22

  The Club World Link isn’t working for me. Anyone else having the same problem?

  • Following on behind says:

    22 Jul22 July 09:24

    No links working for me 🙁

  • Rob says:

    22 Jul22 July 09:59

    You can navigate from the BA Holidays home page but it should be ok.

• SouthernEM says:

  22 Jul22 July 09:24

  I love looking at these sales and dreaming. Dreaming because as a single traveller, these prices are not applicable. Any ideas for the single traveller who likes a bit of luxury?

  • Vicky says:

    22 Jul22 July 10:59

    If you fiddle around you can submit “1 traveller” I just got a decent deal on club flights to New York and 3 nights at the Moxy for £1700. A little bit more than the sale prices for 2 travellers but all the more space for me in the hotel 🙂

    • Mansplaining says:

      22 Jul22 July 13:32

      Would you not prefer slightly less space in your room, but more fun?

  • Anna says:

    22 Jul22 July 13:43

    Hotel rooms in the US are generally priced per room, not per person. Package deals for 1 person are still a great bargain, see my post above about how we travel as a family of 3 (2 of redemptions, one on a paid booking).

  • 1nfrequent says:

    22 Jul22 July 21:11

    I have the same issue – what sort of budget are you on?

    If you’re single and don’t have children so that you’re flexible in your holiday dates then keep an eye out on the blogs and FT for sales fares and ex-EU deals on flights (ex-DUB or ex-INV is better for the US if you’re looking at the Far East then Finnair is good from the UK).

    For hotel rooms, if you’re not married to loyalty schemes so that points can be used to bring the costs down, then I’d recommend hotels.com (although it doesn’t offer loyalty nights/discounts on some chains).

    1F

• Tubbs says:

  22 Jul22 July 10:45

  I’m having trouble when looking at BA Holidays with flights originating outside UK (specifically DUB). I am forced to navigate away from the BA Hols page. I can search for flight+hotel or flight+car but only if the hotel or car if for the entire holiday rather than a few days. Any workaround?

  • Stu N says:

    22 Jul22 July 11:41

    Nothing works reliably in my experience. I usually price up from London then add domestics and check it’s still reasonable. Benchmark is about £150 pp for CE connections from Edinburgh, sometimes it’s a bit more than that, sometimes a bit less.

    Occasionally on long haul flights the connections reduce the overall price; our thanksgiving trip to DC a couple of years ago was a couple of hundred cheaper than starting in London. Flip side is if sale fares are ex London only, the domestic can add thousands.

    • Nuts says:

      22 Jul22 July 13:48

      Why on earth would you choose to fly CE (domestic) as a basic add-on in such a circumstance?

      • Stu N says:

        22 Jul22 July 13:53

        Not everyone lives in London so you have to get to Heathrow/ Gatwick somehow, and if you book your onward flight in CE or F then the domestics go into CE too. And I rather like CE anyway, as long as you get it for reasonable money and Row 1 is available.

      • Stu N says:

        22 Jul22 July 13:59

        (Unless you mean the scenario that adds thousands to the package. In that case you either don’t book it, or sort the domestics separately accepting issues that come with separate tickets.)

      • John says:

        22 Jul22 July 17:00

        Tier points too

• Simon says:

  22 Jul22 July 11:25

  Do these packages earn hotel points / enjoy their tier benefits?

  • Stu N says:

    22 Jul22 July 11:42

    No, they are third party travel agent bookings. You might get lucky with individual hotels but wouldn’t bank on that.

• Alan says:

  22 Jul22 July 11:29

  Sadly as ever these promos are pretty poor unless travelling as (a) a couple and (b) from London 🙁

  • KBuffett says:

    22 Jul22 July 12:05

    Perfect

    • badly designed penguin says:

      22 Jul22 July 12:11

      these places in europe will be ice cold in winter. visiting places like amsterdam when it’s freezing versus beautifully sunny is completely different. this ‘sale’ from that perspective is terrible. however, hopefully it helps somebody save a bit of money :).

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