Monthly Archives: February 2013

Double Avios flying with BA to selected destinations

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British Airways and American airlines are offering double reward Avios points for return bookings and travel before 30th April 2013

But the offer only applies to “premium classes” i.e. First and Business Class. And the double points only apply to the higher fare types, for example, with British Airways, in F, A, J, C, D class

You need to register here, before making your booking.

The offer applies to the following destinations:

USA

Chicago O’Hare
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
Philadelphia
San Diego
Seattle

OTHER

Bangkok
Beijing
Cairo
Delhi
Dubai
Hong Kong
Johannesburg
Rio de Janeiro
Sao Paulo
Sydney
Tel Aviv

British Airways to charge for check-in baggage?

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Within a week of KLM announcing that customers are to be given “more choice”, by charging separately for check-in bags, British Airways launches “hand baggage only” fares.

This is a different way of introducing a charge for baggage. It’s promoted as a saving, because hand baggage only fare is lower than their normal price by approximately £10 to £12

So we now have two-tier pricing, ‘with bags’ and ‘without bags’ which, after the introductory period amounts to paying more for taking baggage on your trip.

Which we think is a shame. Up to now, you could trust the BA fare to include everything whilst you knew that the easyJet and other no-frills airlines would charge extra fees.

The BA hand baggage fares apply only to Gatwick departures, for departures from 26th February.

To begin with, baggage only fares are available to the following destinations: Amsterdam, Dubrovnik, Jersey, Tunis and Turin.

The carry on allowance on BA is relatively generous: 56cm x 45cm x 25cm plus a handbag or laptop bag

Remember that the lowest BA fares are only available directly from ba.com

Please visit the British Airways tab above.

How to avoid KLM new baggage fees

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How to avoid KLM new baggage fees

The airline has just announced, as an enhancement, “providing more choice to passengers”, “the option to travel with just carry-on baggage or to check in baggage at a fee”

This applies to KLM European flights from 22nd April 2013

Of course, passengers have always had the choice! It’s just that they’ll now be charged for check-in bags, following the low cost or no frills airline model.

The charge is €15 each way – that’s around £26 extra per person per return journey for the first checked in baggage.

However, the following passengers will be exempt

NGO’s
All Flying Blue & BlueBiz members
Sky Team Elite Plus members
Corporate Contract holders

Simply become a Flying Blue member and avoid the baggage fees altogether. A one-page form asks for minimal information, takes just a minute to complete, and you’ll be instantly given a Flying Blue membership number. Apply via the KLM registration page here

And remember to use our flight search page to ensure that find the lowest KLM fares

Why do we recommend Skyscanner?

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Our recommended search engine has today been featured by the BBC due to the phenomenal growth of the company.

Skyscanner, a company based in Edinburgh, receives 30 million visitors per month and the search engine facilitates £2.3 billion annual air travel.

But, our reason for hosting Skyscanner is that for booking and researching business travel, the company provides the most accurate fares and schedules of all comparison sites.

This is due to the use of information provided directly from, for example, Ryanair, easyJet and British Airways. Many other comparison sites provide information from third party travel agents with hidden mark-ups and inaccurate information. They do this by “screen-scraping” the airline websites. But Skyscanner receives live flight and price information via XML and is one of very few companies authorised to do so.

Visit our Flight Search Page to use Skyscanner, or try our “Who flies Where” widget to the right of this article.