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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.

BA 100th birthday offer

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:

Nectar American Express

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

American Express Platinum card Amex

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 card

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.)

Comments (317)

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

  • Doug says:

    Any tips on Miami in spring break? Will spend 4 nights (arriving at 10pm and leaving 5pm), got a car and some reservations, but I guess I will keep first two night at the beach and next 2 nights with marriott points on W Miami, I don’t want to do 100% beach time. RC Coconut Grov. is about £450 a night, crazy! I was planning to burn on Hong Kong later in the year, but better pay cash there.

    • SimonW says:

      We have had similar thoughts for an April trip to Miami. Have ended up getting round the mad room rates by booking via airbnb. You can find apartments/studios in the Four Seasons, Mondrian or Fontainbleau hotels for around £200 a night or less. There were loads of flats in the W Miami too. Maybe save your points for another trip, and pay cash for airbnb in Miami.

      • Doug says:

        Yes, seen airbnb, for 2 night is not totally worth usually as people tend to add extra fees, guess i need to keep digging

    • Roberto says:

      Stay at miami airport on the first night? Its about £100 , pick the car up next morning and head for the beach then…

      Plus can drink on the plane.

    • Karen says:

      I’ve spent Spring Break in Miami for 4 nights for the last 4 years for work.
      I always book Air BnB, stayed in The Grand DoubleTree for £120/nt, and Uber’d everywhere.
      Stayed in 1 Bed private apartment for £90/nt, on 15th Street
      For £200/nt you could have beachfront condo and pool around Ocean Drive.
      Actually stayed in Courtyard Marriott South Beach last year, it’s ok, on the beach – but not worth the money compared to renting condo on Air BnB imo.
      If you want to burn your points, W Miami South Beach is a great spot, I’d stay there for 4 nights and travel from there. Avoid W Miami / JW Marriott etc in Brickell, pretty dull area
      My fave places are cocktails at Delano’s, Osteria Del Teatro for Italian on Washington Ave, Maccialina at 820 Alton Road. You MUST book ahead, like now! Enjoy

  • Dale says:

    o/t but down in London and BA have cancelled 6.20pm flight LHR to EDI tomorrow..huh? Having to reroute via gatwick at a later time – what compensation is due for this? BA make it sound like they are doing m a favour by not charging me to rebook…are you kidding me?

    • Rob says:

      Nothing unless you are 3 hours late. This discussion came up the other day with another reader, but I think technically all London airports are treated the same (hence the LON airport code) so BA doesn’t even need to pay to get you to Heathrow if your car is there.

      • Allan says:

        I thought that if the cancellation was less than a week before it’s rerouting and not more than a 2 hour delay before compensation is due? Anyway if you’re on the 19:15 from LGW, diddly squat.

      • Cam says:

        I concur with Rob’s statement. BA moved me from LGW-JFK to LHR-JFK a few days before departure (times within 30 min), and declined to pay compensation even after going to arbitration. Never mind that LGW had been much more convenient for my schedule that day.

    • Marcw says:

      Regulation is very messy in these situations. Essentially, if you arrive within 2 h from the scheduled arrival (original flight) you get nothing (as long as your departure is not more than 2 h before compared to original flight). If you arrive within a 2-3h “delay” you get 50% as compensation. If it’s longer than 3h, you get 100% comp.
      Once I had a London-Rome via Zurich flight, where the first sector was cancelled. I was rebooked into Lufthansa via MUC. Flight left 30 minutes earlier than my original flight, but got there only 45 minutes later than planned. I didn’t get anything.
      But it is worth checking the regulation.

  • LewisB says:

    I’m hoping today’s offer has alternative travel dates, zero annual leave left until the beginning of February!

    • Andrew says:

      You’re not the only one!

      Holiday year ends 31st March. I’m down to 4 days left.

    • Voyage says:

      Hi Lewis,

      So these promotional seats aren’t available for a year in advance?

      Do you recall what destinations were included yesterday?

      Thx

  • Pritesh says:

    OT – how long have people typically had to wait for their BA 241 voucher to be issued when upgrading from the blue to the black BA Amex cars having already spent over 10k on the blue Bala Amex card?

    • Pritesh says:

      *blue BA amex

    • FC99 says:

      Mine took at least two months of going back and forth between BA and Amex. I wasn’t planning on using it imminently and I ended up essentially getting two months of validity so it wasn’t really a big problem for me

  • James says:

    Is it possible to have already selected a route and dates and be just about to pay at ~11:59, then click through to get a revised £100 price? This seemed the only way to actually get a hotel in the recent 90% Expedia app discount free for all.

    I acknowledge the challenge of not knowing which city pair to have selected beforehand.

  • Keith says:

    O T :

    Does anybody know if there is an arrival lounge at Johannesburg Airport, will be arriving BA First Class early in the morning.

    Also has anyone got any experience of Comair business? Is it worth an extra 3,750 avios each?

    • James says:

      There is a paid for arrivals lounge, or one for South African airlines arrivals. Neither are much to write home about, as is the case for nearly all the lounges at JNB except perhaps the Slow lounge..

      Comair business is fine, better than CE. Whether it is worth it depends how far your flight is, how tired you’ll be, etc.

      • Keith says:

        Thanks very much. Am flying in BA First Class so had thought there might be something BA wise. Just have a few hours to kill before I travel on to Port Elizabeth. Looks like I’d get access to the SLOW lounge with a Comair business so think I’ll book that. Thanks for your help.

  • LewisB says:

    Neither destinations interest me today, but interesting to note the date difference for Abu Dhabi. Hopeful for a South American / Asia destination between September – October. Maybe too wishful 🙂

    • LewisB says:

      I managed to easily get flights in my basket by 12.02 for Abu Dhabi though, either BA have fixed their IT or the interest has dropped after yesterdays blunder.

    • marcw says:

      Wishful thinking. I expect all destinations will be feb-march. Middle east early super.

  • Boris says:

    Boston and Abu Dhabi today

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