Air China’s Business Class sale – Asia from £1000, Sydney / Melbourne / Auckland from £1300

Every year, Air China runs a special weekend sale around 11/11.   All European destinations are included, but from Germany there are always some especially aggressive deals.

I’m not sure why Germany always gets the best offers but, year in and year out, it does.

There are also some good deals out of London to Asia starting at £1,230.  Australia and New Zealand are less good.  I have summarised them at the bottom of this article.

How cheap is cheap?

Take a look here and see.

We’re talking, departing Frankfurt, Munich or Dusseldorf in Business Class:

Around the €1,180 level (£1,031):

• Hong Kong
• Taipei
• Bangkok
• Tokyo
• Seoul
• Singapore

Around the €1,350 level (£1,180):

• Beijing
• Shanghai
• Chengdu

Around the €1,500 level (£1,310):

• Sydney
• Melbourne
• Auckland

The last three are, without a doubt, the star deals.  £1,310 in Australasia in Business Class is an outstanding deal.

You must book by 11th November (Sunday).

Travel dates for the Business Class sale are:

• 11 December 2018 – 3 January 2019
• 29 January – 8 February 2019
• 2 April – 21 April, 2019
• 28 May – 24 June,2019
• 28 June – 23 August 2019

It is also worth noting that:

“Passengers on international connecting flights with a layover of 4 hours or more can use our transfer lounges free of charge”

and

“Passengers with an overnight layover between 6 and 24 hours can stay in one of our partner transit hotels free of charge.”

Air China is part of Star Alliance so you could (depending on which booking class the ticket books into) earn miles and status credit with Lufthansa Miles & More or one of the other Star programmes.  Use wheretocredit.com to find the most generous programme – you are looking for ‘R’ class earning which is typically 125% of miles flown.  

I know very little about Air China, so do some research on what planes are flying which route and what kind of seating if will offer.  A typical Air China business class is pictured below.

Some flights use brand new A350-900 aircraft with this impressive 1-2-1 layout:

Earlier this year reader Joel reviewed the Air China Boeing 777 business class service from Heathrow to Beijing for us – see here.

These deals end on Sunday 11th November.  The Air China Germany site, in English, is here.

If you don’t have a credit card with 0% foreign exchange fees, your best option for paying is American Express Preferred Rewards Gold which offers triple points – 3 per £1 – when you book flight tickets in a foreign currency.  This is because the transaction triggers the ‘double points for airline spend’ and the ‘double points for foreign spend’ bonuses.  Our review of Amex Gold is here.

PS.  Here are the London deals if you don’t fancy a trip to Germany, bookable at airchina.co.uk.  Check the site for the travel dates, which are NOT the same as for the Germany sale.  In Business Class:

£1230 – Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Manila, Ho Chi Minh City, Rangoon, Hanoi

£1243 – Hong Kong, Taipei

£1285 – Tokyo, Osaka, Sapporo, Okinawa, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Sendai

£1370 – Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Changsha, Chongqing, Xi’An, Wuhan, Kunming, Shenyang, Changchun, Chengdu, Fuzhou, Xiamen

£1695 – Seoul, Pusan, Jeju

£2294 – Auckland

£2334 – Sydney, Melbourne