British Airways launches flights to Antalya

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British Airways has announced a new holiday route for Summer 2020 – Antalya in Turkey.

The route will operate from London Gatwick. There will be up to six flights per week – frequency increases as we get into the Summer – with the first flight departing on 30th April. It is scheduled to run until 29th October although there is always the possibility that it will become a year-round route if successful.

British Airways already runs a Summer-only service to Dalaman from Gatwick and, of course, there are daily flights to Istanbul from Heathrow.

Tickets are bookable now, for both cash and Avios. A standard redemption is 17,000 Avios off-peak / 20,000 peak + £35 in Euro Traveller and 34,000 Avios off-peak / 40,000 peak + £50 in Club Europe. Under the current variable pricing trial, you can choose to pay as little as £1 in tax by using more Avios, although this option is not available if using a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher.

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.

I don’t know anything about Antalya, although British Airways says:

“Antalya is often described as the gateway to the Turquoise Coast with some of the most stunning landscapes in Turkey. The beaches and crystal-clear Mediterranean Sea are perfect for sunbathing, swimming and water sports. As well as the rolling landscapes and beaches, the region has two-thousand years of history with a range of spectacular temples and Greco-Roman ruins close by, as well as a bustling food and cultural scene.”

The hotel scene looks a bit desperate, to be honest. The best option appears to be the four star Crowne Plaza – website here and photo above – which is handy for anyone with IHG Rewards Club status or with IHG points to redeem.

PS. BA giveth and BA taketh away. This announcement came in parallel with the dropping of Summer services from Gatwick to Gibraltar and Limoges. The Heathrow service to Gibraltar will continue.

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.

Qwertyknowsbest says:

10 Oct10 October 14:55

BTW can anyone advise best BA Amex offer/referral?

Thanks
Julian says:

10 Oct10 October 15:00

BA IT has never been any good (witness eg the two day long total shutdown of all flights) since my friend lost his job 18 months ago after 30 years of loyal BA IT service because it was outsourced to some much cheaper but less competent third party contractor in India by Cruz The Slasher.
Nathan says:

10 Oct10 October 16:36

Genuine LOL at the BA 🤡s. Highlight of my afternoon 🙂
- Julian says:
  
  10 Oct10 October 16:52
  
  I wish I knew exactly which post or comment you were laughing out loud at?……..
  - Lady London says:
    
    11 Oct11 October 09:37
    
    Er…think he meant Rob’s very funny text in the article.
BJ says:

10 Oct10 October 16:49

O/T: Anybody with BA tickets exINV or considering them should check your plans as BA has changed the schedules again. Don’t know when or how wide-ranging the changes are, I just have the notification for my flight. The Saturday lunchtime flight is brought forward from 12.05 to 11.30 which will help with LHR connections.
TripRep says:

10 Oct10 October 17:14

Is this an Op Up?
https://mobile.twitter.com/jonmew/status/1182267315859144709
- Don says:
  
  10 Oct10 October 17:27
  
  What a hero. I have tears in my ears. Fighting the climate emergency.
- Julian says:
  
  10 Oct10 October 17:47
  
  I just wanted to point out this is Page 2 of the thread but that all the many interesting comments today are on Page 1 accessible via the Older Comments button.
  - Julian says:
    
    10 Oct10 October 20:28
    
    Turns out there are actually 5 pages of comments responding to this article and the several interesting exchanges I got in to were actually on page 4 out of 5.
    
    Its a good job I only bother looking at the articles and comments when the basic subject line interests me as otherwise posting here could become a full time occupation that gets in the way of normal life.
    
    Number of comments on this article do seem to be remarkably high but I suppose most people who are subscribed to this site are interested in any further public demonstration of BA’s extremely shaky and extensively outsourced IT systems. However hopefully the systems that fly the planes are only under the control of Airbus, Boeing or Embraer and not BA’s very dodgy outsourced Indian IT operation.
    
    This is all a bit unlike further review articles on the world’s most luxurious and expensive hotels, which only those with the largest stashes of Avios can hope to have enough to do a redemption for in terms of both the hotel miles cost and the more or less compulsory associated club or first class long haul redemption.
    - Julia says:
      
      10 Oct10 October 22:14
      
      Julian! You should start your own blog with all those words! Instead of clogging up this one…
      - Julian says:
        
        11 Oct11 October 00:43
        
        But I only have flurries of posting now and again with somewhat longish posts on topics I feel relatively strongly about (I don’t feel strongly about the same old card application bonuses or repeat discounts promotions to buy hotel rooms etc)
        
        Certain other forum members make shorter posts but day after day in response to almost every single HfP article…………
- BJ says:
  
  10 Oct10 October 18:03
  
  No, he was looking for Upper Class.
  - TripRep says:
    
    10 Oct10 October 18:14
    
    Boom boom.
    
    🙂
    - Anna says:
      
      10 Oct10 October 18:16
      
      Love the comment that the plane should have just taken off!
Gorm says:

10 Oct10 October 20:08

Has someone gone on a keyboard rampage – 198 posts of irrelevance. Can’t talk about c@shbk but can talk drivel deary me
- Anna says:
  
  10 Oct10 October 20:46
  
  199 now.
- Lady London says:
  
  11 Oct11 October 09:38
  
  And you c o u n t e d them?
Julian says:

10 Oct10 October 20:53

ok no one apparently reading or posting further on this article now so it looks like everyone here posts on HfP during work hours on their employer’s time when the drudgery of the job seemingly means that that would much rather be thinking about their next exciting leisure escape…………….
Shoestring says:

10 Oct10 October 21:11

Don’t miss this one! https://priority.o2.co.uk/offers/5d931b70d60180002f9306c1/smartdelay-flying-register-your-flight-for-lounge-access-if-delayed —> FREE LOUNGE ACCESS FOR 02 PRIORITY CUSTOMERS (IF DELAYED)

Flying? Register your flight for lounge access if delayed
Taking you and three friends from frowns to lounge

What’s Priority?
Priority is our way of saying thanks. It’s exclusive to O2 customers and brings you great offers from high street brands, tickets and experiences, as well as access to the best in entertainment.

—> credit so ANOther (John?)
—> I think it’s meant to be easy to get O2 Priority, is it enough just to get a free SIM and activate it?
- BJ says:
  
  10 Oct10 October 21:25
  
  Or this for those that don’t squeak oxygen bubbles:
  https://flightdelaypass.mastercard.com/?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
  - Shoestring says:
    
    10 Oct10 October 21:30
    
    OK provided you have Mastercard Prepaid Platinum Travel
    
    whereas getting O2 Priority is meant to be free and a doddle
- Sloth says:
  
  10 Oct10 October 21:29
  
  Yes just get a payg sim, stick in your phone, activate it and download the priority app
  - BJ says:
    
    10 Oct10 October 21:45
    
    Ok, thanks to both you and Harry. I need a hew backup sim anyway and Priority has some useful offers so I’ll go for it.
- Julian says:
  
  10 Oct10 October 21:42
  
  I suppose that we Plebeian GiffGaff customers won’t have access to this lounge access on flight delay benefit despite GiffGaff being a wholly owned subsidiary of O2, rather than just an external and separately owned MVNO that uses the O2 network.
  
  Anyway how long does the delay have to be as I was too lazy to research this further. I presume its got to be at least an hour’s delay…………
  - Sloth says:
    
    10 Oct10 October 21:56
    
    No, because it’s not an o2 sim…
    - Julian says:
      
      11 Oct11 October 00:39
      
      No its a GiffGaff SIM. But GiffGaff are directly owned by precisely the same Telefonica of Spain as O2 and for that reason their HQ in Slough is now largely branded as Telefonica rather than as O2 as it used to be three or four years ago.
      
      See this thread of nine years ago on the GiffGaff forum that categorically resolved this issue at https://community.giffgaff.com/d/21662-is-giffgaff-owned-by-telefonica and see the current company information for GiffGaff at https://suite.endole.co.uk/insight/company/04196996-giffgaff-limited revealing the company is based in the same building in Bath Road Slough as O2 UK and Telefonica UK. Two of GiffGaff’s three current directors are also main board directors of O2.
      
      So GiffGaff is just another PayAsYouGo brand of Telefonica UK in addition to O2 Pay As YouGo products but with no telephone based support (all support is only via its online community forum or online support tickets)
      
      So on that basis I can see no reason for GiffGaff not to get the flight delay lounge benefits other than its products are slightly cheaper than equivalent O2 Pay As You Go bundled packages.
      - Lost+confused says:
        
        11 Oct11 October 11:35
        
        Different brand, different marketing, different customer service, different price, different target demographic (perhaps) and so different product advantages in the bundle. In short, more brands give them greater market coverage and the chance that people will switch to another telefonica brand at the end of a deal. As an ex customer of both brands the only real difference I noticed was customer services and O2 priority which I didn’t find useful.
        Now I’m using ID mobile who provide such poor customer service that the GiffGaff model looks appealing!
- ADS says:
  
  11 Oct11 October 11:39
  
  thanks Shoestring – just registered by flights for this weekend.
  
  word of warning – although not mentioned in the o2 T&Cs – there’s a limit of two flights that you can register – so need to choose carefully !