On BA’s A380, business class is an upstairs-downstairs affair (Photo: Chris McGinnis)
Planning to go to London for the year-end holidays? If you can act by May 12 (Thursday), you can score a real deal on British Airways premium seats. The three-day business class/first class sale also offers low prices for trips across the pond this summer.
Here are some sample prices: For Thanksgiving/Christmas trips (travel November 22-29 or December 18-January 2), roundtrip sale fares in Club World (business class) are $2,963 from Los Angeles, $2,964 from San Francisco and $2,995 from San Jose (where BA started service this week). Fares from other gateways include $2,038 from Boston, $2,202 from New York, $2,243 from Miami, $2,592 from Chicago and $2,595 from Dallas/Ft. Worth.
For travel this summer and beyond (June 20, 2016-March 31, 2017), Club World three-day roundtrip sale fares are $3,463 from LAX and SFO, $3,493 from San Jose, $2,338 from Boston, $2,502 from New York, $2,542 from Miami, $2,992 from Chicago and $2,993 from DFW.
First class sale fares range from $2,742 to $3,895 for holiday trips and from $3,042 to $4,393 for summer, depending on the gateway. All fares include taxes, fees and carrier charges. The airline is also offering hotel discounts.
For comparison’s sake, business class fares from US to London typically run in the $5,000 to $8,000 range, so these fares represent good value.
Sale fares are also available for travel beyond London to Athens, Barcelona, Birmingham, Madrid and Manchester, and for travel on BA partners American Airlines, Finnair and Iberia.
Now’s the time to keep an eye out for similar business class fare sales on other carriers-– as summer vacation season (and holidays) approaches and business travel demand declines, airlines freak out and lower prices for those big seats up front. Sometimes business class is not much more than overpriced economy class during peak season from mid June through mid-August, as well as winter holidays.
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Oh, one more thing.
Forget to thank TravelSkills for running the article that is going to save me money, time and I will get almost triple the additional frequent flyer miles in a time when it’s hard to accumulate frequent flyer miles flying coach.
I am so happy that you ran this story.
Last month I bought a United ticket to London. I wanted Business Class and the D.C. to London fare was $4,300. In a desperation move I booked the only possibility of going Business at a reasonable fare, a flight going from Dulles to Frankfurt to London and returning from London to Geneva to Dulles in coach and then with miles and more $$$ upgraded to business Class. It was absurd that I had to pay $2,300 total for that ticket, give them 40,000 miles and have to go out of my way and add six hours to both trips, just to get a business class fare at something I could afford.
That is the crap you have to go through with United these days since they have a big marketplace and no competition on most of these routes (yes they have competition in Dulles to London, but with Virgin and BA only on non-stop)
But thanks to your article I called United and even though I had a non-refund ticket, there is a stipulation rule that if the same ticket is available at a cheaper rate in the same class and the same flights they have to change your ticket at no charge. Amazing isn’t it, not only did the ticket cost me $54 more, I was able to save all of my miles (40,000 of them) plus instead of getting 6,825 frequent flyer miles, with the new ticket paying for a business class fares the miles went up to 13,345.
But the story gets better, I then asked them if it be possilbe to change my flight to a non-stop from Dulles to London and the bad news was the flight would cost me a $300 cancelation fee. My first thought was this isn’t bad, non-stop instead of flying all over Europe to get to London and when the agent looked into it she found another loop-hole. If you upgrade your ticket to first class United waives the $300 fee. Guess what, the difference between first class and business was a total of about $380 more, so with no $300 cancelation fee I was able to ungrade to not only a non-stop Dulles London, London back to Dulles for an additional $350 over the cost of my first crappy ticket. But now I didn’t have to pay the 40,000 frequent flyer miles, going to another location first, also get to fly in first class instead.
So for all of you that have done what I did in the last couple of weeks by getting a ticket, see if you can rebook the flights and get something better (more convenient) for more miles and save you big $$$ and Frequent flyer miles.