Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

British Airways launches Centenary flight offers, including New York from £1326 in Club World

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British Airways has just launched a Centenary flight and holidays promotionclick here for details.

The “official” centenary weekend isn’t until August – although, of course, it takes some interesting accounting to get to a centenary for British Airways at all.  And, slightly oddly, the majority of these fares are not available this centenary year but in 2020!

Travel dates vary although, on the whole, there is some excellent availability.  North American fares appear to be available from December until May 2020, whilst some of the destinations in the Caribbean, Africa and beyond are available for travel later this year.

Here are some of the ‘lead-in’ prices British Airways is offering in business class and that seemed like good deals. I have highlighted ones that appear to be especially interesting:

British Airways Centenary sale

Club World deals to North America

Austin £1589 (December-May)

Nashville ⁠— £1539 (August, December-May, pictured below)

New York ⁠— £1326 (December-May)

Philadelphia ⁠— £1443 (December-May)

San Francisco ⁠— £1553 (December-March)

Seattle ⁠— £1569 (December-May)

Toronto ⁠— £1500 (December-May, includes A350 flights with new Club Suite!)

Washington DC ⁠— £1433 (December-May)

Club World deals to the rest of the world

Abu Dhabi ⁠— £1350 (July-December)

Buenos Aires ⁠— £1995 (July)

Grand Cayman  ⁠— £1745 (August-October)

Rio ⁠— £1795 (July-November)

Mexico City ⁠— £1557 (December-March)

Nairobi ⁠— £1599 (August-October)

Nassau £1755 (August-October)

Sao Paulo ⁠— £1795 (August and October, picture below)

There are also some good Club Europe deals.  Helsinki is £248 in 2020 which is a 160 tier point route.

You can also get £150-ish return fares to quite a few places (Amsterdam, Bordeaux, Cologne, Genoa, Luxembourg, Milan, Nuremberg, Venice) which are a good way to pick up 80 tier points and get a weekend break.

You can book the Centenary fares until 16th July.

We haven’t covered every destination here.  It’s best to take a look at the ‘low fare finder’ tool on the BA website which shows you the lowest fare available each month for every route in every class.

Don’t forget BA Holidays

As usual, don’t book a Club World flight before pricing it up via BA Holidays – see here.  Adding a hotel or car can often cost little more, and sometimes less, than the flight itself.  BA Holidays also lets you lock in your trip now by only paying a small deposit, with the balance only due five weeks before travel.

Don’t forget ‘part pay with Avios’

Sale flights are still valid for ‘part pay with Avios’.  How much you save now varies by route and by class, and the value per point tends to get worse the more you try to discount, but it is always worth taking a look at what is on offer for your particular ticket.

A Nassau Club World booking offered me:

  • £50 off for 5,600 Avios (0.89p per Avios)
  • £80 off for 10,000 Avios (0.8p)
  • £130 off for 19,000 Avios (0.68p)
  • £190 off for 32,400 Avios (0.58p)
  • £280 off for 51,000 Avios (0.54p)

You can see all the discounted fares on the special centenary offers page here.  Remember to book by the 16th July.

To maximise your miles when paying, your best bet is the British Airways American Express Premium Plus card which earns double Avios (3 per £1) when you book at ba.com or via BA Holidays.  You do not get double Avios if you book with the free British Airways American Express card

Another option is American Express Preferred Rewards Gold which offers double points – 2 per £1 – when you book flight tickets directly with an airline.


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 (22)

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

  • Janie says:

    Is this going to be instead of any summer sale? It looks pretty rubbish if so! Been waiting for the next sale now since April.

  • Journeying John says:

    This “sale” brings their prices closer to being competitive but they’re still overpriced and deliver a sub par experience for what they charge. Almost any other European flag carrier is better quality experience and all deliver better value for money.

    • David says:

      Sounds like an easy decision for you then: fly with someone else!

    • Catalan says:

      Which European flag carriers are those then? Please advise!

      • Charlieface says:

        No not AF, KL, LH etc but try Aegean, TAP or LOT

        • The Original David says:

          LOT delivers a better experience?!

          • Charlieface says:

            “For what they charge” is what he said. Anyway I was talking about biz class

    • Tim says:

      Having recently flown Iberia business class (MAD-MIA) I would respectfully disagree; truly awful food combined with woeful cabin crew.

  • Boi says:

    Saw business DUB-LAS for around £1350 for August 2019. Is this standard or good fare?
    Also does book with money upgrade with Avios only for UK departures? I was trying to do that with a Dublin departure but it didn’t work. Or does it need Avios availability in the higher class?

    • Anna says:

      You need award availability in the class you want to travel in.

    • Alex W says:

      Don’t know if you can UUA connecting flights online? Might need to call BA to do it.

    • Andrew porwol says:

      I’m in Vegas now having just flown dub to ls. Dublin preclearance was fantastic, as was the AA flight to phl, but the phl to las plane seat left a lot to be desired for a 6hr flight

  • luckyjim says:

    OT but BA: There is an article in the Guardian today about BA and others refusal to drop the clauses which penalise passengers for missing one leg of a multi-leg trip. ‘Which?’ say the clauses may be illegal and the CAA has also weighed in to the argument. Obvious game changer for the points game if they did back down.

    • luckyjim says:

      *Grauniad

    • John says:

      Link? Lufthansa’s response was simply to introduce new expensive fares where you are allowed to miss legs and continue to disallow it on the rest of their fares. Not sure how this would change the “points game” as it doesn’t really relate to redemption tickets.

      • luckyjim says:

        I think its a bit rude to include links to other sites. Easy enough to google.

        Redemptions from mainland Europe to the US with a stopover in London, for example, pay much lower fees than a redemption directly from London on the very same plane. If you could simply skip the first leg and pick up from London you could dodge the higher fees with little inconvenience and a handful of extra miles.

        Granted the airlines would look other ways of stopping this.

        • TGLoyalty says:

          Some of the the fees c£172 is APD tax which would be legally payable if you started your journey in the UK

  • Holly says:

    Good luck with the flights to Abu Dhabi – I was booked to fly on Monday and have just been informed BA have cancelled all their flights there from 4-9th July and then potentially onwards too.

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