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Lowest ever BA Club Europe fares? Sale flights now from £119 return (tier points from 91p)

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British Airways has decided to make deeper fare cuts as its September sale comes towards its end.

The headline deal is in Euro Traveller, where BA is promoting fares for under £35 each way. Last week I actually saw a one-way flight from Gibraltar to Heathrow for £14 which may be some sort of record.

These additional Euro Traveller discounts are available until 22nd September for travel up to 31st March. Your ticket can be turned into a Future Travel Voucher if you later decide not to travel.

Club Europe British Airways sale cheap tier points

Our real focus, however, is Club Europe.

There are some genuinely crazy Club Europe fares currently available. These are worth 80 British Airways Executive Club tier points return – and in some cases 160 tier points return.

Given that the requirements for status are currently reduced by a quarter (Bronze requires 225 tier points, Silver requires 450 tier points, Gold requires 1,125 tier points) you could earn status for very little money indeed. You would also get a few short breaks in the New Year too.

How cheap are the new Club Europe deals?

These are the examples given in the BA media release:

  • Dublin £119 return
  • Krakow £129 return
  • Luxembourg £129 return
  • Prague £149 return
  • Vienna £149 return
  • Nice £169 return

Here is a longer list which I have drawn from BA’s Low Fare Finder tool. I got these prices by doubling the one-way fares shown, although this often underestimates the cost of a return by £10 or so as one leg is often cheaper than the other.

These are destinations available for under £200 return. Historically, finding a Club Europe fare for under £200 was exceedingly rare.

  • Aberdeen £164
  • Alicante £142
  • Amsterdam £160
  • Athens £196
  • Barcelona £144
  • Bari £186
  • Basel £136
  • Belfast £188
  • Berlin £156
  • Bilbao £146
  • Billund £122
  • Bologna £148
  • Bordeaux £170
  • Brussels £152
  • Bucharest £172
  • Budapest £162
  • Cologne £196
  • Copenhagen £158
  • Corfu £176
  • Dubrovnik £190
  • Dusseldorf £156
  • Edinburgh £176
  • Faro £154
  • Florence £200
  • Frankfurt £176
  • Geneva £146
  • Genoa £156
  • Gibraltar £138
  • Glasgow £152
  • Gothenburg £142
  • Hamburg £140
  • Hannover £158
  • Ibiza £182
  • Innsbruck £162
  • Inverness £122
  • Istanbul £182
  • Jersey £170
  • Lanzarote £184
  • Larnaca £192
  • Lisbon £166
  • Lyon £160
  • Madrid £152
  • Malaga £144
  • Malta £164
  • Manchester £180
  • Marseille £154
  • Milan £162
  • Munich £160
  • Naples £144
  • Newcastle £170
  • Nice £142
  • Olbia £176
  • Oslo £160
  • Palma £140
  • Paphos £198
  • Paris £180
  • Pisa £132
  • Porto £142
  • Prague £144
  • Pula £194
  • Reykjavik £154
  • Rome £166
  • Rotterdam £198
  • Salzburg £144
  • Sardinia £186
  • Seville £144
  • Sofia £146
  • Stockholm £158
  • Stuttgart £150
  • Tirana £166
  • Toulouse £154
  • Turin £144
  • Valencia £130
  • Venice £144
  • Verona £142
  • Warsaw £136
  • Zagreb £142
  • Zurich £146

Remember that actual fares may be £10 or so higher, because the ‘low fare finder’ only shows the cheapest fare in either direction. Some routes have higher fares in one direction than the other.

Sofia

What about 160 tier point routes?

Here are the cheapest routes which earn 160 tier points:

  • Algiers £242
  • Bucharest £172
  • Catania £228
  • Funchal £208
  • Gran Canaria £204
  • Istanbul £182
  • Kalamata £274
  • Lanzarote £184
  • Malta £164
  • Marrakech £205
  • Paphos £198
  • Preveza Lefkada £246
  • Reykjavik £154
  • Sofia £146
  • Tenerife £204
  • Thessaloniki £222
  • Tirana £176

This Head for Points article lists all Club Europe routes which earn 160 tier points for a return flight.  Some routes on that last are currently suspended, however.

Can you really get 160 tier points for £146 via Sofia?

Out Saturday, back Sunday in late March. 24 hours on the ground to see the city. £144 return in Club Europe, earning 160 tier points. That is 91p per tier point. You’d also earn 3,800 Avios return as a Blue member. Tempting ….

If you want to travel sooner, Istanbul looks VERY interesting. There is no quarantine requirement, in either direction, when visiting Turkey and you will pick up tier points for under £1.20 each. You do NOT need to show proof of a negative covid test.

Club Europe sale fares are bookable until 30th September (eight days later than the economy deals) for travel, in most cases, up to the end of March. Saturday night or minimum stay requirements will apply.

Booking the majority of these routes clearly means taking a gamble that any particular route will open up and not require quarantine. If you’re prepared to take the risk, however, there are some very cheap tier points to be had here.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (99)

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

  • Adam says:
    20 Sep20 September 10:35

    Athens not on the 160TP list in the article, but just booked £197rtn CE for October.

  • Wally1976 says:
    20 Sep20 September 10:41

    I was booking February trip to Gibraltar a couple of weeks ago and was about to use Avios until I realised the return flight was only 20 quid each!

  • Nick says:
    20 Sep20 September 10:52

    Spare a thought for BA and question WHY these flights are so cheap… practically no one is booking, and they’re trying to stimulate what demand they can. Will be interesting to see if it works outside of the small HfP and FT bubbles.

    • Alan says:
      20 Sep20 September 14:15

      Even within the bubble it’s not really working! For me I wouldn’t risk it even for a free flight as would feel bad for colleagues if I had to self isolate for 14 days upon return if it went onto the naughty list.

      • Freddy says:
        20 Sep20 September 17:50

        I’ve given up also for this reason aswell. Even my backup holiday to Scotland looks iffy in October half term!

  • Qrfan says:
    20 Sep20 September 11:06

    £200 for 160tp is not “exceedingly rare”. I clocked up 2500 tier points last year and had several CE returns for under £200. Helsinki, Sofia, Amsterdam, Glasgow etc. Folks on here are also over over valuing status for the foreseeable future. Outstation lounges are still often closed despite busy flights (including Rome today), priority boarding is suspended, free seat selection much less valuable with hardly any long haul possibilities, 747 retired, club suite coming in etc. I would really struggle to justify an unnecessary cash outlay for ba status for the next few years.

    • ChrisW says:
      20 Sep20 September 11:15

      I agree elite status is significantly less valuable than it was last year.

      Priority boarding for example is completely pointless. People want to board last, not first.

      • TGLoyalty says:
        20 Sep20 September 11:20

        Why would you want to board first or last?

        You should want to board in relation to where your seat is on the plane so you passed by or mix with as few people as possible.

        • ChrisW says:
          20 Sep20 September 11:56

          Because people now want to spend the least amount of time on a plane possible.

          • Sandra says:
            20 Sep20 September 12:03

            Unless I’ve needed a large amount of overhead locker space last on has always been my choice, it’s not like you haven’t got a seat so why spend longer than necessary in a metal tube?!

          • TGLoyalty says:
            20 Sep20 September 14:07

            But happy to slowly walk past a full plane of people

      • Matty says:
        20 Sep20 September 12:35

        On my last BA flight, a few weeks ago, there was no priority boarding. Boarding was called Rows 31 to 25 – from the rear to the front etc.

        Those who arrived at the gate after boarding had commenced hadn’t heard that boarding was starting at the rear and was working forward. They got turned back at the boarding pass scan but then just stood in groups directly in front of the desks making it impossible for those legitimately boarding to do so safely. I was Row 1 and the last person to board, having remained seated, as directed, until called. CE was full when I boarded, including my row. No idea when everyone else in CE had boarded but it was before it was called, so I guess the staff had just given up turning people away.

  • ChrisBCN says:
    20 Sep20 September 12:38

    Let me position this differently. Suppose you were looking to buy something. Everything on the page says it costs £5. Over and over, this costs a fiver. Abundantly clear.

    The button you have to click says ‘buy now £10’.

    You click and are charged £10. But everything on the page said £5! Under your logic where the page makes everything clear, you’ve been ripped off, despite clicking the £10 button.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      20 Sep20 September 12:44

      I believe consumer law is clear on this and you would be being ripped off.

      • ChrisBCN says:
        20 Sep20 September 13:51

        Well you should have read the page then, it was clear it only cost a fiver!

        You get my point?

      • Lady London says:
        20 Sep20 September 16:00

        I consider our regulators are sleeping because it’s so clear no way is British Airways meeting the clear requirements of EC261 as regards making customers’ rights to a cash refund as clear and equally easy to access as other options.

        To give the CAA and other consumer regulators the benefit of the doubt, they may be waiting till airlines have some positive cashflow before pursuing them.

        But if British Airways is not prosecuted and fined (not just admonished) for this, it will be a travesty.

        Ditto certain other sneaky behaviour and non- compliance of other airlines.

  • david says:
    20 Sep20 September 13:55

    Has this ever happened to anyone ? I booked 2 first tickets with Alaskan Airways with an OLTA because it was £30 cheaper. The booking reference the agent gave me at the time didn’t work with the airline but I though it was just a delay. 3 weeks after booking and the money being taken off my AMEX – the booking reference still didn’t work. I contacted the airline direct and neither me or my partner are booked on that flight! I have started a charge back with AMEX and now rebook direct with the airline.

    • marcw says:
      20 Sep20 September 15:44

      You should ask the OTA for your actual airline booking reference (some OTA´s have their one booking reference which is not the same for the airline one).
      Most airlines will refuse to tell you whether X, Y or Z passengers are on board.

      Do not asume you will get your cash back from your first booking, unless, it´s fraudulent.

      • david says:
        20 Sep20 September 20:35

        They gave me both their own booking reference and a PNR neither of which work on the agents website or the airlines website.

    • Lady London says:
      20 Sep20 September 15:53

      Which OLTA? so we can avoid.

      • ChrisC says:
        20 Sep20 September 16:47

        I wouldn’t want to tar an agency on the basis of this post where the poster themselves hasn’t apparently contacted the agency to try and get the correct reference from them.

        • Lady London says:
          20 Sep20 September 17:45

          I’ve had that experience myself and had to chase the ota for nearly three weeks getting multiple versions of explanation of ‘it’s in our queue to be processed and no one here today has access to get your booking reference”… until after nearly three weeks told the fare I’d booked wasnt available any more and no way could they honour what they’d sold (in other words it never existed) so they would refund me. Even then it was 7 more days to refund.

          For £30 not worth it.

    • ChrisC says:
      20 Sep20 September 16:44

      You booked with an Agency so you need to contact and deal with them and not the airline for any issues with the flight such as getting booking references or cancellations / flight changes.

      Charge back may will be refused if the TA can show that you didn’t contact them to discuss ot that they otherwise did give you to booking ref such as via email or your account with them.

      • david says:
        20 Sep20 September 20:32

        OK spent 2 hours on the phone to said agency couldn’t get through and they don’t reply to emails or chat. Alaskan airlines have definitely confirmed we are not booked on that flight. If I look at seat availability in First they all still available.

  • Steve says:
    20 Sep20 September 14:25

    Swapped my Economy LHR-MAD booking at Christmas for CE, pretty much same price. Thanks!

  • Makrxx says:
    20 Sep20 September 18:40

    Can we use more than 1 BA voucher towards a booking?

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

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