Category Archives: Booking Tips

New – Free Automated Online Checkin

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It’s always been another task to do. Now, Lufthansa Innovation Hub have created a process that automates the checkin procedure across approximately 100 airlines!

Check-in online opens at different times, sometimes 24 hours or 36 hours before departure. You no longer need to schedule this task. Forward your confirmation emails to AirlineCheckins.com and they will automatically check-you in as soon as checkin opens. You can lodge your seating preference with them and they’ll assign the seats you prefer.

There are just three problems I see with this ….

  1. From a security point of view, you will no longer be asked to confirm, or told about the baggage restrictions and dangerous articles etc. You are advised about dangerous and prohibited goods when you first register though.
  2. You will not be forced to familiarise yourself with check-in times, terminals etc.,
  3. You’ll miss out on airline offers to upgrade and additional purchases

Currently, only the German language version accepts your passport details so you will need to ensure that your booking contains this information for the check-in process to work.

If you’re content with these issues, it’s a fabulous idea and should prove to be very popular with frequent travellers

Visit airlinecheckins.com here to register.

Which airline frequent flyer schemes work with British Airways?

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British Airways has a loyalty scheme, the “British Airways Executive Club” Membership earns you points, called Avios, and Tier Points, providing status, lounge access, free advance seating etc.

Avios can be used to discount future ticket purchases via the airline website or they can be transferred to Avios.com where you can spend them on hotel bookings and other services.

If you’re a frequent traveller with another airline, and only foresee the occasional trip on BA, here is a list of other airline frequent flyer schemes that work with British Airways.

You can provide membership numbers to BA online via manage-my-booking, or give to your travel agent, to earn points on their respective schemes:

British Airways – BA Executive Club
Iberia – Iberia Plus
Avios
Aer Lingus – Gold Circle
airberlin – Topbonus
Alaska Airlines – Mileage Plan
American Airlines – AAdvantage
Avianca – LifeMiles
Binter Canaries – BinterMas
Cathay Pacific – Marco Polo / Asia Miles
Finnair – Finnair Plus
Japan Airlines – JAL Mileage Bank
LAN – LAN Pass
Malaysia Airlines – Enrich
Meridiana – Meridiana Club
Qantas – Qantas Frequent Flyer
Qatar Airways – Qatar Privilege Club
Royal Air Maroc – Safar Flyer
Royal Jordanian – Royal Plus
S7 Airlines – S7 Priority
SriLankan Airlines – FlySmiles
Taca – Life Miles
TAM – Fidelidade

British Airways Sale

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Many of you have been waiting for the Boxing Day and January Sales to see if prices drop.

Well, here you are – Christmas has arrived early!

Book between 17th December 2015 and midnight 2nd February 2016!

Most economy fares are valid for departures through to 8th or 15th December 2016

Most Premium and Club World Business Class are through to January 2017!

For the complete list of destinations visit the official BA Sale Page

Where to find cheapest flights to Bangkok with EVA Air

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You’d be forgiven for thinking that the lowest fares may be on the EVA website and they would be, except that their website technology is limited in that you can only request an economy return fare or a premium economy return fare but not economy in one direction and premium in the other.

EVA Air call their Premium Economy class “Elite Class” but we’ll stick with the generic name even though that was invented originally by Virgin Atlantic.

We looked for specific dates around half term holidays so seats were quite limited. We wanted the cheapest fare and obviously Premium Economy, would be nice if cheap….

Asking EVA Air for economy return and the site said no availability. Asking for Premium Economy, the site offered a return fare of £1,638

Expedia however, when asking for economy return flights, offered Premium Economy outbound and economy back at £1,019 Expedia didn’t even highlight the fact that the flight was Premium but it was in small print!

There is a way around this … On the EVA Air Website, instead of choosing a normal return availability search, choose the “More Destinations / Stopovers” option. This would normally be your choice if you were looking for multiple flights or a more complex itinerary. Then, when you search for economy and choose specific flights, the next page will tell you what’s available and it offered a price of £1,036 So Expedia was still the cheapest

If you choose Expedia and appreciate this advice then please click through from my Expedia Page Here (and above), Thanks!

Neither of these websites charge for credit card but note that with EVA, there is this warning.

“You are required to present the credit card used to purchase the ticket during check-in at the airport. If you will not be among the travel party, you must go to any EVA Air office and sign an Indemnity of Payment form during business hours and at least 48 hours before the passenger’s scheduled departure. Passengers who fail to do so will be denied boarding unless they purchase a full-fare ticket. I agree to the above terms and conditions for using a credit card.”

No Seat Choice on British Airways Hand Baggage Fares

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For frequent travellers and business travellers the choice of seat is usually quite important.

Whilst we may suffer a middle seat on an occasional leisure trip, for business travellers it can be quite an annoyance.

Save on average £30, or £15 each way for a “no-bag fare” and you will not be allowed to choose a seat.

Even at check-in. The specific seat is allocated randomly.

We’ve seen the very last row at the back of the plane next to the toilet allocated on no-bag fares.

A seat at the back means the passenger is likely to be the last off the plane and at the back of the arriving security queues etc.

Not very good for business travellers who have tight schedules and appointments to reach.

Even Silver executive members do not have the option of choosing a seat on British Airways Hand Baggage Fares

So, our recommendation is to choose the higher with-bag fare.

Why do we recommend Hotels.com for Business Travel?

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There are many choices available when you need to book a hotel.

COMPARISON SITES

Sites like Hotels Combined, who we feature on our hotel page, will provide you with an overview of availability from a large number of online travel agents and hotel booking companies.

Hotels Combined is great for research and also finding availability from suppliers that you wouldn’t have otherwise thought of.

DIRECT FROM HOTEL SITES

If the price is the same, then you may prefer booking direct for the following reasons:You can rely 100% on the reservations
Better selection of specific room types, bedding etc
Instant confirmation
Additional options, early check-in or late check-out etc

HOTELS.COM

The alternative to the above, especially useful if you book a variety of hotels frequently
The hotels.com website is one of the most user-friendly sites that we’ve encountered
View all your bookings in one place and with a simple log-in
Reputable company, hotels.com is part of Expedia
A very generous reward scheme, collect “nights” after your stay and for every 10 nights collected,
Hotels.com will give you 1 free night to redeem on future bookings!

Take a look at the Hotels.com site now or come back to our Useful Sites Page next time


Important new rule regarding car hire

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Some of our clients occasionally rent a car and our useful sites page includes links to the best companies to use.

We now include a link to the DVLA under this car hire section.

Within 72 hours of picking up a vehicle, you must now register your driving licence number and National Insurance number together with your postcode

on this official DVLA page

The resulting code will be used by the car rental company to check that you have no disqualifying driving convictions

 

Virgin company rewards programme

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Virgin offers their reward programme for your company in addition to the traveller individual frequent traveller memberships.

If your company has at least 2 employees you are eligible to join the scheme, but it requires that you book frequently with Virgin:
At least 3 Upper Class trips a year in Upper Class or 5 trips in Premium Economy

The name of Virgin’s company scheme is Flying Co. Not to be confused with Flying Club, which is the individual travellers’ scheme.

Before you register, you will need the membership details of the minimum of two travellers.

The points will automatically accrue from the passengers flying club membership number. Unlike the BA On Business scheme, there is no need to add the flying co membership number in addition to the individual travellers number.
But each traveller must be pre-registered or linked in your Virgin flying co membership account details.

Can I upgrade using Avios after buying my ticket?

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Yes you can, providing that there is availability in the limited upgrade “class”.

  • Upgrading economy class to premium economy class

    You can only upgrade more expensive tickets, NOT the cheapest fares.
    The more expensive BA fare classes that you can upgrade from, are described
    as Y, B and H class and these are the highest economy fares.
    Example, Boston return, H class is £996. B class is £1,146 and Y class is £1,646!
    The lowest fares of say £446 at the moment cannot be upgraded.
    Example, Cancun return fares, currently only £1,281 to £1,936 fares can be upgraded

  • Upgrade from premium economy to first class
    This is a better option as British Airways will allow upgrades from all the lowest fares
    (these are W, E and T class) The same applies for upgrade from Business to First;
    All fare levels: J, C, D, R, I class are included

As one sale ends, another BA sale begins

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The economy class sale ended just a couple of days ago but British Airways has today announced a first and business class sale

Key Points

  • Book by Tuesday 9th June (inclusive) – You have until 23:59 to complete the transaction online!
  • Many destinations include travel up until May 2016
  • Long-haul flights from Heathrow and Gatwick require a Saturday night stay, to deter booking business travel
  • Flight only fares to USA & Canada, Middle East, Africa, Europe, Asia, South-east Asia and South America
  • Caribbean is excluded. However, fares are currently quite low if you book by Tuesday 26th May
  • Turn your flight-only booking into a fly + car booking for as little as £1 extra, based on an intermediate vehicle

Especially interesting fares are listed noted below

Dubai £1,598 return
Toronto, Montreal, £1,812 return
Orlando, Tampa, £1,698 return
Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo, £2,137

I would not normally highlight business class within Europe , especially for the shortest flights, e.g. London-Amsterdam but for any flight over 1 ½ hours, you will enjoy a hot meal and the trimmings!

The following cities are available for under £200 return!

Angers, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Rome, Genoa, Turin, Alicante, Zurich.

Departures from Gatwick require a Saturday night stay and from City airport, a 3 night stay away.

Again, this is to deter booking business travel at these prices.

But Heathrow departures do not have these restrictions. And, whilst most long-haul flights need to be booked in advance, these fares can be booked last-minute. Ideal for business travellers.

For more information, visit the BA Website or click on our British Airways Page.

British Airways Sale – Book before Tuesday 19 May.

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The current sale from British Airways is targeted at leisure travellers.

Most business-related travel is excluded by the fare rules.

For example, with a few exceptions, reservations require a Saturday-night stay, a minim three night stay and advance booking of up to 1, 2 or even 3 weeks. And fares are not refundable once purchased (although changes may be allowed for a fee)

Fares are valid for travel throughout the summer and autumn. Some destinations, through to January 2016.

The prices are genuine reductions and are good value.

Unfortunately, travellers will now only receive 25% of the Avios that they would have before the recent devaluation.

For more information, visit ba.com here

Avios Devaluation – should you spend your Avios before 28th April?

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On Tuesday, 28th April, the Avios reward programme is changing.

EARNING AVIOS:

Rewards, for travel with British Airways are to be reduced significantly, for those clients that choose the lowest priced fares. The new rewards for the lowest fares will be just 25% of current levels!

If you’re buying a low-priced fare, you should no longer let Avios rewards influence your choice of airline.

If you buy full-fare business class tickets you will receive bonus rewards. Example, the Business J class fare to Los Angeles, at £10,231 return.

SPENDING AVIOS:

EUROPE FLIGHTS

Short-haul economy and business class prices are not set to increase. In fact, an off-peak season fare is to be introduced which will cost less Avios than the current

LONG-HAUL FLIGHTS – ECONOMY

I have never recommended using Avios for long haul redemptions.
This is because the bulk of the “fare” consists of airport tax, fuel surcharge and fees which you still have to pay. The savings are minimal and a waste of Avios

LONG HAUL FLIGHTS – BUSINESS & FIRST CLASS

If you have a substantial Avios balance of over 100,000 and if you intend buying a business class ticket then you should be booking now!

A return flight to Los Angeles, Club World (Business), currently costs 100,000 Avios plus tax/airport fees/fuel surcharges. The new cost will be from 125,000 for off-peak and 150,000 for peak dates

Dubai, costs 80,000 Avios at the moment. That’s the business class return fare. The new price from Tuesday 28th April is 100,000 off-peak and 120,000 peak

And the definition of peak dates generally includes the UK school holidays, so, Dubai in July is considered peak season!

SUMMARY

If you have over 100,000 Avios and if you intend to use them for long-haul business/first class tickets, you need to book before Tuesday 28th April.

If you intend to spend your Avios on short-haul economy/business class flights you should wait until Tuesday .

Free car hire for up to 2 weeks with British Airways

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Using economy flights to the US as an example, the return airfare for 2 adults and 3 children, flight only, was costing a total of approximately £4,700

Choosing a Flight + Car option and the price was practically identical, depending on the vehicle choice.

The inclusive rate included a People Carrier such as a Dodge Grand Caravan.

In addition, you’ll be rewarded a bonus 9,400 Avios on the booking. That’s in addition to points gained via your credit card.

This deal is only available by booking directly via the genuine British Airways Website.

Remember to choose Flight + Car before you search

What is the best flight search engine?

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There are many flight search companies available online so it’s essential to understand the reasons for using one company in preference to another, especially if you research and book travel frequently. And especially if you’re arranging travel for business.

There are several factors to be considered when choosing the best flight search engine:

  1. Accuracy. Does the search engine use authorised exchange of XML data with the airlines? Or does it simply “screen scrape” And is the information up-to-date or does it rely on old cache memory? After all, you don’t want to offer fares and availability that is unreliable. You’ll waste your time – and look stupid in front of your boss – and important appointments may have been made based on incorrect travel information.
  2. Speed. We all love the look and feel of an instant website response but it can be to the detriment of accuracy as detailed above. Better to wait a few seconds rather than waste an hour later!
  3. Suppliers. It’s essential that the search results include information from, not only online travel agents, who may need to mark-up the fares, but also, direct from airlines. For example, some search engines offer the no-frills airlines such as easyJet via a travel agent in Spain, but the lowest easyJet fares are always direct from the airline website.
    So why not just go direct to easyJet via a Google Search for easyJet? Well, there might just be an alternative route or airline that you may not have thought of.
  4. Where is the search engine company based? If it is a US company, the information is likely to be more US centric. A company based in the UK is likely to concentrate on information relevant to UK customers.
  5. Are the results impartial? Or are they based on the highest payer to the search engine company?

After considering the above, my recommendation, for every search, is Skyscanner. The company is based in Edinburgh and is hugely successful. The results are reasonably quick and you can update the fares with one easy click.
Practically all airlines are offered – and direct with authorised fares and availability.
In addition, you can narrow down the results to non-stop, specific airline, departure/arrival time and overall journey time.

Skyscanner is perfect for business travel and leisure travel alike.

Just ensure that you follow our Skyscanner booking tips as listed on my Flight Search Page  

Marriott Hotels – another reason why to book direct

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We’ve always recommended that you book Marriott hotels directly on the Marriott website because their rates match the online travel agents. And booking direct has other advantages:

  • The hotel will have the guest name immediately
  • Additional flexibility if there’s a problem as you’ll be able to deal direct with the hotel rather than via an intermediary
  • More tailored booking options such as specific room types etc

But now there’s an additional reason;

Marriott is offering free WI-FI but only to Rewards members to who book directly on the Marriott website, its mobile app, via a call center or through a particular property. –

Travel Management Companies have complained to Marriott as this policy means that their bookings will not include the free WI-FI

For now however, we continue to recommend booking direct at the official Marriott website

Eurostar Sale for travel 5 January – 12 February 2015

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January is traditionally a quiet month for Eurostar for leisure traffic so the train operator is offering return fares from London to Paris and to Brussels for just £59 return!

That’s just £29.50 each direction!

We’ve checked and seen good availability except for evening departures. Especially Friday evenings

For just £10 more you can travel onwards to any Belgium station, for example, Bruges, Antwerp, Ghent

Standard Premier is just £140 return. Enjoy the extra comfort and complimentary (but cold!) refreshments

Book by Monday 24 November 2014,

The cheapest Eurostar Fares are always direct on www.eurostar.com website and the French partner website www.voyages-sncf.com

Fares are identical on both sites but it may be that availability is sometimes different

Eurostar charge a one-off fee of £4 for credit cards and SNCF charge 2.5% so for tickets costing less than £160, you are better off booking at SNCF

But, the Eurostar site is more user-friendly and after buying your ticket, you can select your seats

How to book completely free domestic flights on British Airways

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If you are redeeming Avios flights within Europe, you can include domestic flights within the UK for free!

Routes that apply to this include

Edinburgh-London-Edinburgh
Glasgow-London-Glasgow
Manchester-London-Manchester
Belfast-London-Belfast

Example: Redeeming Avios for a flight London-Geneva-London and include free flights Edinburgh-London-Edinburgh.

When on the British Airways site, find the flights you need for London-Geneva-London and the price will be 9,000 Avios plus £35

Then search again but from another UK domestic airport

(Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester or Belfast), for the dates required. You’ll be offered “You can break your journey with stopovers”
Choose, I want to break my journey and you can select different dates for each flight.

Please note that you must use the ticket in its entirety, as booked, in the same date sequence. If you don’t turn up for the first flight, BA will cancel the onward flights.

If you wanted a London-Edinburgh-London ticket, you cannot book it as above. BUT, you could book

London-Geneva-London-Edinburgh

To do this, you have to book separate tickets: London-Geneva one way, (cost 4,500 Avios + £17.50)

And another, Geneva-Edinburgh, choose a stopover in London (cost as above, 4,500 + £17.50)

This will provide you with a one way ticket London to Edinburgh, for free!

You can either buy a cheap one-way Edinburgh back to London or if you can plan in advance, another Avios ticket, this time starting in Edinburgh, to complete the journey.

 

BA Business Sale – Book by midnight Wednesday 12 November 2014

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This sale is for Business and First Class travel but will not apply to people booking business travel, unless they can comply with the following general restrictions:

  • The sale is for “selected travel dates” only.
  • Most fares require that you stay a Saturday night, except flights city airport. And many fares require that you book and pay at least 28 days in advance, except Club Europe tickets.
  • The fares do not allow refunds and do not allow refunds.

We believe that these rules are intended to restrict the travel to the leisure market rather than corporate business travel. But there may be some trips that can be arranged in advance, and where the traveller may want to extend to include a Saturday night / weekend away.

Unusually, this sale is available for travel from as far in advance as October 2015!

Antigua, Barbados, Grenada, Kingston, Port of Spain, Punta Cana, St Kitts, Tobago, St Lucia, Cancun, Providenciales, Las Vegas, Orlando and Tampa.
Travel from Gatwick: 22 November – 13 October 2015

Mauritius
Travel from Gatwick: 24 February – 13 October 2015

Providenciales, Mexico City, Grand Cayman and Nassau
Travel from London Heathrow 22 November – 5 September 2015

Palma Mallorca, Granada, Ibiza, Madrid, Rotterdam, Zurich, Dusseldorf, Geneva, Amsterdam
Travel from London City 1 December 2014 and 31 March 2015.

USA and Canada
Travel from Heathrow 22 November 2014 – 5 September 2015.

All other destinations available between 19 December 2014 and 5 September 2015.

Most of these fares will not include free seat assignment, unless the traveller is a Silver or Gold executive member. Bronze members can choose seats 7 days in advance, but for other travellers it has to be at check-in (online from 24 hours before departure) or at a cost of up to £65 per person per flight

Remember that the lowest online British Airways fares are only available directly from the British Airways Website.

Why travel agent e-dreams shares suspended on Spanish stock market

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It comes as no surprise that on Friday 24th October, shares in e-dreams were suspended after British Airways and Iberia said they would no longer supply their fares and availability to the agency

All the links to travel suppliers on our site are genuine and are intended to save you time and money.

We vet each site and will warn you of any advantages or disadvantages.

Some sites for example, hide the total cost until you have taken several steps through the booking process.

Example. British Airways.

I Googled British Airways and the response provided links that looked a little like British Airways own address but it is from a Spanish company, e-dreams

A price quoted on a search for Cape Town was priced at £975 compared to the official ba.com fare of £980 so you’d think you had a deal

but only after completing all the passenger information and submitted to the next page, amongst the total is a £19.99 “service charge” and, for example a Visa credit card charge labelled as £2.50 but actually totalled at £5.00, Total £1,000.25

Thus British Airways and Iberia decided to stop supplying fares to the agency.

e-dreams may continue to offer fares by “screen-scraping” the airline website – time will tell. They used to do this with Ryanair

flights and the airline took legal action over it for similar reasons.

We recommend you book British Airways via the direct links on our site to ensure the best fares.

 

 

 

An easy way to spend Avios to save up to £300 on British Airways flights

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I often hear complaints regarding availability of flights using Avios.

It can be impossible for the dates required, and you need to be quite flexible – and book far in advance or last-minute, and you may end up having to buy a ticket for cash

For those with a large bank of unspent Avios, British Airways now offer up to £300 off normal paid-for tickets.

This applies to long-haul flights only and from Heathrow or City airports only.

In World Traveller (Economy class) or World Traveller Plus (Premium), save up to £100 using 15,000 Avios in part payment.

In Club World (Business class) or First, save up to £300 for 45,000 Avios

This values Avios at only 0.66p each which isn’t particularly good value but at least you will get rid of Avios for real cash savings.

Visit this British Airways page for further information or simply search via our BA page above, and you’ll be given the opportunity to reduce the fare with Avios during the booking process.

NB Part pay with Avios is not available via Travel Agents and is not available via any other online site.

British Airways New Route London to Split, Croatia

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Split is fast gaining popularity.

During summer 2015 it will be served by easyJet, Norwegian and Croatia Airlines from Gatwick.

WIZZ from Luton and now British Airways from Heathrow Terminal 5!

Outward flights begin:

Sunday                3rd May Heathrow to Split departing 13:15 arriving 16:50
Wednesday         6th May Heathrow to Split departing 07:30 arriving 11:05

Return schedules:

Sunday                 Split – Heathrow Depart 17:35 arriving 19:15
Wednesday         Split – Heathrow Depart 11:55 arriving 13:35

Aircraft used: Airbus A319

One way fares begin at £79 and return fares from £127

Remember that you will not find cheaper fares anywhere other than on the official BA website.

Please visit our British Airways page for more information and bookings

British Airways Company Reward Scheme

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British Airways Company Reward Scheme

Most travellers are familiar with individual frequent flyer schemes but there are additional company reward programmes that are less publicised but that can be equally rewarding!

There are four programmes relevant to companies based in the UK:

British Airways “On Business”

Star Alliance “Partner Plus”

Virgin Atlantic “Flying Co”

Air France KLM “Blue Biz”

British Airways On Business

OVERVIEW

The programme is simple to manage and collection of points is fully automated. Simply enter the On Business membership number when prompted towards the end of the online booking process. Provide the number to your IATA travel agency and bookings made via them will also automatically accrue.

If you or your colleagues forget, you can manually retro-claim if you have BA ticket numbers up to four months prior. Ticket numbers for BA always begin with 125

You can earn points from BA codeshare flights as long as the flight number begins with the BA prefix.

REGISTRATION

Online enrolment takes just a few minutes.

You need your company registration number.

This is essential for BA to verify your application. You can look up your company number via Companies House.
The scheme is targeted at commercial enterprises that are registered but I know of registered charities and even a European Institution who did not have a UK Company registration number but we used a Regulation (EU) number of the European Parliament and of the Council of Europe which seemed to be acceptable.

You should nominate a travel agency and enter their IATA number

If you normally book online at ba.com, and avoid agency fees, you may be missing out on the On Business member discounts which are unavailable online but can be accessed via participating travel agencies. Contact me for more information.

You must register before booking a British Airways Flight

You cannot claim points for tickets if you were not a member when you booked your travel

Spending On Business Points

Points can be used to buy tickets on British Airways services or to arrange upgrades. The availability of seats is much better than that of the air miles scheme of the BA executive club, “Avios”

For more information and to register, please visit my British Airways Page

When do airlines announce sales?

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The title of this post could also be, “When is it best to book flights?”

If you are intending to book travel in say 10 months’ time, it is very difficult to judge when is the cheapest time to book your flight?

This article applies to long-haul flight-only travel and not to short-haul or “low-cost” airlines.

If you book as soon as the flights are “loaded” in computer systems you may pay too much as the airlines are likely to reduce fares once they have monitored demand.

There are two or three things that you have to consider when trying to work out when is best to book flights in advance.

Demand for seats

Is there an event going on at the time you wish to travel?
A trade show or something similar?
If that’s the case then seats will be taken irrespective of the fare and the cheapest prices will not reappear.
In which case, book immediately!

Flexibility 

If the dates or timings are fixed and of importance then it may be safer to book immediately.

British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Historic Sale Dates

We have monitored the sales of both airlines over several years and the following pattern has emerged. NB Both BA and Virgin have a tendency to match fares and sale dates….

SPRING SALE

From mid to late February to early March

WINTER – CHRISTMAS/NEW YEAR SALE

Around 20 December to 3rd January but often extended to mid to late January

SUMMER BUSINESS CLASS SALE

During the first week to 10 days of June, to encourage you to fly business class during the low (corporate travel) summer season

SUMMER SALE

1st week or 10 days of July.

(Far too late for summer bookings of course, but is an enticement to forward book)

AUTUMN SALE

Early September to the 23rd or 24th September

Also the 1st week November. This year, (2014) British Airways started their Business Class sale a little earlier, from 23 October to Wednesday 12 November

How to extend the British Airways Sale Deadline

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I recently posted an article about the new function on the BA website where you can hold a seat for £5 short-haul and £10 long-haul.

I waited until today to check if this facility can be used in effect to extend the payment deadline during a sale period. Normally, when an end-of-sale deadline is given, it applies to reservation and ticket issue by a certain date. And ticket issue of course implies full payment too.

The British Airways Sale ends Tuesday 22nd September 2014 and if you are booking via a travel agency, that is still the very latest booking, ticket issue and payment date.

However, the online function mentioned above can still be used to gain up to an additional 72 hours before having to commit to a booking (with full non-refundable payment)

Changes to the booking cannot be made during this hold period however. Any change would require a new booking – and at new prices.

The £5 or £10 hold fee is deducted from your balance payment.

For the guaranteed lowest fares, book directly at the British Airways website here.

British Airways Upgrade Offer 2014

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British Airways is offering a free upgrade from Business Class to First Class. It’s not what we’d normally think of in terms of an “upgrade”. For that, you’d normally buy a cheaper ticket and afterwards be rewarded with the upgrade.

The current offer is in reality a lower price for first class at the point of sale. I have seen examples where to fly in first class in one direction and business in the other, can be as much as £300 cheaper than buying a business class return fare.

The upgrade offer is for reservations booked on or before September 30th 2014 and for travel – departures up to 31st December 2014

If you are a member of the British Airways On Business Scheme you may also qualify for a 5% discount off the air fare and additional flexibility (refundable and changeable without charge)

This offer is not available online and if you need assistance do use the contact us form and we’ll recommend a company to you that can facilitate this for you.