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British Airways selling long haul Economy seats at £100 each way for its 100th birthday

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If you were wondering why Virgin Atlantic brought back its £1 ‘Golden Tickets’ game on Monday (see this article), it seems to be a spoiler for a new British Airways offer.

As part of its 100th birthday celebrations, British Airways will be selling 100 long-haul Economy seats each day for £200 return, ie £100 each way.

Different routes will be offered each day between Monday and Thursday at noon.

There will be two different destinations each day, to include the USA, Africa and South America over the course of the week.

Tickets will be made available at noon exactly.  ba.com will collapse at around 12.00:05 ….

Destinations will be listed on this special page of ba.com.

On Monday the destinations were New York and Cape Town.  On Tuesday it was Abu Dhabi and Boston.  On Wednesday it was Pittsburgh and Rio.

Travel dates have varied by destination so it is impossible to predict what will be offered on Thursday.  The window is generally about four weeks.

These tickets have booked into ‘M’ class in general but this is not guaranteed.  This means that you can upgrade them later to World Traveller Plus if Avios reward seats open up.  Do note, however, that this will trigger the higher rate of Air Passenger Duty plus additional BA surcharges so it won’t be cheap.

As an Avios earning opportunity, this is surprisingly good.  A BA Blue member would earn 6,020 Avios and 80 tier points return from the Cape Town offer.  A BA Gold would have earned a whopping 18,060 Avios return plus 80 tier points for their £200 outlay – and they got to visit Cape Town.  Although 2 x 12-hour overnight flights in Economy is not exactly an easy way of earning cheap Avios ….

The promo page for BA’s 100th birthday sale offer is here.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

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Capital on Tap Pro Visa

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There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year 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.

Comments (308)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Calz says:

    As you predicted Rob, website failed to load after 12. Ah well, back to work.

  • David says:

    Crashed again!

    • Catalan says:

      Worked for me. Went through the motions and priced up a return LHR-AUH in May for £200 return. Admittedly I didn’t go right through to the booking stage but at least I know it does work.

      • AS says:

        I did the same for Boston

      • Krishan says:

        got all the way to making payment only to be presented with a message saying is was sold out when trying to process payment.

        • mart says:

          noticed you can also use 4000 avios to lower it to £360 for 2 people when doing the same for boston

  • Ant says:

    Abu Dhabi or Boston. Travel dates for AD are outbound 24 Apr – 22 May, return by 2 June. For Boston similar to yesterday

  • BSI1978 says:

    Just bagged a couple of seats to Boston last week of March – boom!

  • SMokie says:

    Scored!!! Managed to get 2 tickets to Boston – flying out Friday 8th March, returning Monday. Yay!

  • LewisB says:

    Has anybody else noticed the city picture change each day for when the promotion ends? Should we believe this is some sort of hint…

  • SR says:

    Thanks for the heads up on the deal – refreshed a few times before it loaded, then got through to the booking pages. We decided to twist rather than stick and see what comes up tomorrow/Thursday/Friday. Hoping (optimistically) for Rio or Hong Kong. Think I need to calm down for tomorrow, the adrenaline rush to not actually book any flights was too much!

  • _nate says:

    I, too, hope for Rio, or SF, or somewhere entirely random. I found no problem getting through to the payment pages but I don’t want to go either of today’s destinations at that time. Back tomorrow, I shall be!

    • LewisB says:

      “Two exciting destinations in the USA and beyond will be on offer at 12 midday every day from 21-24 January.”

      San Fran is out of the question, no more US destinations in this promotion after New York and Boston.

      • _nate says:

        Ah! In my excitement I misinterpreted that part. Well, then, that just makes Wednesday and Thursday even more interesting..!

      • Lewis King says:

        I think this means two destinations every day, not two from the US in total.

        • _nate says:

          I’m inclined to agree now I’ve re-read it. Notice the picture this time, though? 😉

        • LewisB says:

          @Lewis King, I think you are correct actually. In that case I expected LA or SF to turn up. I would jump at either, dated pending.

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