BA: Club & First Sale Fares Loaded

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  • Anonymous
    Guest

    continentalclub
    Participant

    As referenced in yesterday’s news article on BT, but ahead of the official start of the sale tomorrow, BA’s Club and First sale fares are now loaded:

    http://bit.ly/c6bxXp

    Overall, the fares are competitive, though not really comparable to some of the exceptional deals that we saw last year.

    Most notable is probably a c£1000 saving on the London to Sydney route in Club World, which now prices (subject to the booking conditions being met) at £2796.

    As always, the best availability is showing now, ahead of the campaign banners appearing on the site and promotional activity beginning tomorrow.


    VintageKrug
    Participant

    Not a bad deal; how does SYD price up when you add shareholder discount?


    continentalclub
    Participant

    By calculation only (reducing the base fare by 10% and adding TFCs), the shareholder discount fare to SYD should come out at c£2558.60.

    Note that the QF A380 is available in F, non-shareholder, for £4295 return when booked under the BA codeshare at:

    http://bit.ly/9x4jWp


    continentalclub
    Participant

    The promotional landing page is now live on the BA website:

    http://bit.ly/aAqNkP?


    VintageKrug
    Participant

    The stand our bargain is the Sharm El Sheikh route from Gatwick.

    Club World return from just £849, and that’s not including a shareholder’s 10% discount which would bring it down to about £780 rtn.

    Add an extra £300 for seven nights in a hotel, and it’s a great deal for a week of sun.


    Potakas
    Participant

    Do you know if those fare classes are ok with the spring bargain that ends at 30 june?


    continentalclub
    Participant

    From a fare class point of view, yes, but only to the Carribbean, Orlando, Sharm el Sheikh and Club Europe destinations, as all of the other fare offers don’t begin until after the Spring promotion for European EC members ends on the 30 June.


    Potakas
    Participant

    Thanks Continental.

    Best Regards,

    Potakas


    Senator
    Participant

    Hi,

    Question to the BA experts and fans in the UK 🙂 How good are these fares? When I look at the CW fares, my “usual” fare with BA ex.ARN to for example NYC for a none-flex ticket comes in around £1550 with today’s exchange rate. The none-flex weekend CE fares are around £350 return. From the list I saw I was wondering if you think these are good fares or not?

    The First fares to a destination like NYC however, is stellar from my point of view. Booking two separate tickets ARN-LHR in CE and LHR-JFK in First is probably about 60% off a normal roundtrip fare originating at ARN. Some of this is clearly the dearer sterling, but prices still are good in First on the Westbound flights. For flights to Asia and down-under, there is not a great savings to be had for me. But I am wondering about booking a US trip for the summer holiday. Anyone know if you can use an open-jaw; outbound LAX and return JFK for example?

    What do the rest of you think about the sale? Good deal, or underwhelmed?


    PaulJennings
    Participant

    Definitely underwhelmed. Most destinations seem to have fares that I would consider to be so-so discounted fares. Nothing to compare to the sale fares of 2008 and 2009 (happy days); if you are after saving money it will almost certainly still be slightly cheaper to fly indirect to Asia / Oz and this is certainly not the ‘mother of all sales’ that was hinted at. Minor disruption from future strikes can’t be ruled out at the moment, and given the general economic pessimism I honestly can’t see these fares causing a stampede.

    However, the miles for upgrade from WT+ to CW, very good on NA routes, now also looks interesting on some key Asia routes, especially used in combination with the ‘25% extra’ promotion for purchasing miles. Example London – Tokyo return: £1188 for WT+, 40,000 miles to upgrade to CW, but 18,666 miles back for the journey, not including tier bonuses. Another 1,188 miles back if you book using the BA Amex card. (I await any corrections on my mileage maths.)


    Potakas
    Participant

    As far as i know for my usual CE flight LHR-ATH i can find it almost at half price 399 pounds instead of 640 pounds where is the cheapest return including taxes, etc.


    Senator
    Participant

    Hi again,

    I used Orbitz and quickly discovered that AA, LH, and UA are matching many of the US destination fares in First Class. The idea of ARN-LHR-FRA-JFK is not appealing, but I’ve never seen the FCT in FRA so perhaps I will test this out instead.


    Binman62
    Participant

    I am a huge BA fan and have F seats booked from a non UK point of origin via LHR in F in early August. The hassle and additional travel time that gets a family of 4 in F to/from the Far East for less than £9k is well worth it and this is significantly less than the BA deals in club originating here. Moreover these tickets are flexible and carry no penalties. Everyone will obtain/retain silver membership and the miles gained will pay for 2 to travel F to LAX next year using an amex 2-4-1 voucher.

    Even with shareholder discount these fares are hugely disappointing and in my view not what BA needed to be offering to win back the very many customers they have lost due strikes and serious deterioration in service in recent times.

    BA pricing policy is a major deterrent to travelling with them when originating in the UK while the weakening of the Euro is making the option of originating in Europe increasingly attractive.


    VintageKrug
    Participant

    Of course BA is constrained to some extent by high charges at LHR levied by BAA, and also by punitive APD taxes levied by the previous government, which rise further in November.

    But I agree this is not a stellar sale; it does however mean that BA is able to maintain its chosen price points (assuming it meets its preferred capacity objectives).

    I think in fact that there will be a wider “rebuilding the brand” programme once the strikes have been sorted out.

    This should include things like better training for those cabin crew staff who remain, as well as the introduction of an improved catering/wine offer, the start of the new IFE system and brand new hard product in the shape of a revised WT and WT+, not to mention the beginning of the new longhaul fleet deliveries (which are already underway) but start in earnest this autumn with the 777ER deliveries.

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