British Airways selling long haul Economy seats at £100 each way for its 100th birthday

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If you were wondering why Virgin Atlantic brought back its £1 ‘Golden Tickets’ game on Monday (see this article), it seems to be a spoiler for a new British Airways offer.

As part of its 100th birthday celebrations, British Airways will be selling 100 long-haul Economy seats each day for £200 return, ie £100 each way.

Different routes will be offered each day between Monday and Thursday at noon.

There will be two different destinations each day, to include the USA, Africa and South America over the course of the week.

Tickets will be made available at noon exactly. ba.com will collapse at around 12.00:05 ….

Destinations will be listed on this special page of ba.com.

On Monday the destinations were New York and Cape Town. On Tuesday it was Abu Dhabi and Boston. On Wednesday it was Pittsburgh and Rio.

Travel dates have varied by destination so it is impossible to predict what will be offered on Thursday. The window is generally about four weeks.

These tickets have booked into ‘M’ class in general but this is not guaranteed. This means that you can upgrade them later to World Traveller Plus if Avios reward seats open up. Do note, however, that this will trigger the higher rate of Air Passenger Duty plus additional BA surcharges so it won’t be cheap.

As an Avios earning opportunity, this is surprisingly good. A BA Blue member would earn 6,020 Avios and 80 tier points return from the Cape Town offer. A BA Gold would have earned a whopping 18,060 Avios return plus 80 tier points for their £200 outlay – and they got to visit Cape Town. Although 2 x 12-hour overnight flights in Economy is not exactly an easy way of earning cheap Avios ….

The promo page for BA’s 100th birthday sale offer is here.

How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Category

British Airways and Avios

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

Scottydogg says:

21 Jan21 January 11:39

O/T
With regards to SPG redemptions on hotel rooms ,
Ive been looking for hotels in bangkok and singapore , i have searched to 2 adults and 2 kids and mostly all the SPG hotels will say ‘no availability’ , but if i change it to 2 adults and 1 kids , then they suddenly become available ,the rooms are usually showing as 2 double beds so 2 adults and 2 kids would work

Also when i do a dummy booking for 2 adults and 2 kids as if i was paying with cash , the rooms are available ?

Anyone have any experience with this , could i trick the system and book it as 2 adults and 1 child and then try and sort it out at the desk when i get there ?
- Crafty says:
  
  21 Jan21 January 13:33
  
  Don’t wait until you get there. Book, then immediately email the hotel. If they won’t allow it, cancel.
  - ankomonkey says:
    
    21 Jan21 January 16:16
    
    Good advice. I have mailed hotels to ask if 2 adults/2kids can stay in these 2 double rooms before and have usually been allowed the 4 guests even if the official booking engine only accepts 3.
  - Alex W says:
    
    21 Jan21 January 20:58
    
    Or just turn up and sneak one of the kids past the check-in desk?
Journeyingjohn says:

21 Jan21 January 11:47

… but as ever with BA there will be surcharges for baggage, seat choice et al… so net cost will be north of £200
- Jim says:
  
  21 Jan21 January 11:56
  
  Indeed. But one word sums it up. Economy.
  
  How many HFP’ers ‘want’ to fly economy? (regardless of price or perceived ‘offer’)
  - Jack says:
    
    21 Jan21 January 11:58
    
    mmm, a lot?
    - Curious says:
      
      21 Jan21 January 12:06
      
      Mmmm, lets see
  - LewisB says:
    
    21 Jan21 January 11:58
    
    If the flight time is no more than around 8hrs I wouldn’t mind at £200pp.
- Jam says:
  
  21 Jan21 January 12:01
  
  Flights include 23kg of checked baggage allowance per person.
- Lady London says:
  
  21 Jan21 January 12:10
  
  Plus many ways of getting to NY on other legacy airlines and even BA, for sub-£200
- Andrew says:
  
  21 Jan21 January 12:15
  
  “Flights include 23kg of checked baggage allowance per person.”
  
  For today’s flights anyway.
Jacques Ferreira says:

21 Jan21 January 11:59

then a Avios upgrade?
- Jon says:
  
  21 Jan21 January 12:03
  
  are they upgradeable?
  - Rob says:
    
    21 Jan21 January 12:06
    
    Economy tickets on BA are never upgradable unless your ticket is flexible.
    
    (EDIT: apparently these are booking into ‘M’ which is semi flex and so you CAN upgrade them to World Traveller Plus if Avios availability comes up.)
    - Ryan Forster says:
      
      21 Jan21 January 12:10
      
      Hi Rob,
      
      These actually book into ‘M’ class, which IIRC can be upgraded with Avios.
      - Rob says:
        
        21 Jan21 January 12:10
        
        Thanks, spooky.
LewisB says:

21 Jan21 January 12:02

New York and Cape Town, restricted on flight numbers and travelling periods (ends March 29). Luggage inc.
Ryanfozzie says:

21 Jan21 January 12:03

How to book

Click ‘Book now’ below on chosen route
Enter London (Heathrow) as departure airport and either New York (JFK) or Cape Town as destination
Enter dates within the travel periods and click ‘Get Flights’
Look for New York on the following flights BA0179 and BA0176 or Cape Town on BA43 and BA42
Choose Outbound travel then scroll down to choose inbound travel
Click ‘Continue’ and enter details to book flights
- Ryan Forster says:
  
  21 Jan21 January 12:04
  
  Outbound travel between 25 Feb – 22 March 2019. Return by 29 March
  - Ryanfozzie says:
    
    21 Jan21 January 12:08
    
    Some great options to NYC for a weekend getaway!
    
    March 1st – March 3rd, a good 48 hours there, and £20 off with 2000 avios. Bargain!
joe green says:

21 Jan21 January 12:04

Pathetic offer absolute waste of time basically only helpful for travel in March.
- ankomonkey says:
  
  21 Jan21 January 16:20
  
  agreed. A few more routes and a longer travel period could have made this a decent promotion. Instead they’ve restricted it to the point of making it seem like they thought how could they run a promotion that costs them next to nothing – ah, a few tickets on a few select routes during low-season.
  - Rob says:
    
    21 Jan21 January 16:33
    
    But this is peak season for Cape Town …. February is the warmest month of the year.
Michael says:

21 Jan21 January 12:08

website crashed…..
Phil Taylor says:

21 Jan21 January 12:08

Error
We’re sorry, but ba.com is very busy at the moment, and couldn’t deal with your request. Please do try again – if it still doesn’t work, it may be better to try again at another time.