Flying business class

[manlyago]

Off to Australia at Christmas and I’m thinking about flying business class. As a treat for a big birthday.

Any smart ways of doing this? Using credit card/points /cash back to reduce the cost?

Thanks!

Have you got any airmiles. You can book direct with the airline and join their loyalty scheme at the same time, sometimes you get special offers or a few extras thrown in. Christmas is the most expensive time to go so look at different days and flight times, longer flights are cheaper.

If you want to book flights with reward points you will probably not manage it for this Christmas - the airlines don't have many seats available and it's also the most popular time of year to fly to Australia.

Sorry!

If you fly Singapore Airlines, they sometimes auction off seats in premium cabins - you put a bid in for how much you're prepared to pay. There's no guarantee you'll be successful though.

The other trick I read about on The Points Guy was to book your flight to Australia from a European capital, say Paris, as flights can be cheaper from there. Means you have to build in two short-haul flights, but you can easily get cheap flights to places like Paris - and could just add that to your holiday.

You may be able to book economy and upgrade with points

Thanks! Yes I don’t think there’s any points seats (I don’t have any points anyway haha!)

I don’t know why I mentioned points! As I don’t have any

This might be helpful:

cheaper business class flights

Have you looked at prices yet to see if remotely feasible?

Just shop around for the cheapest deal really if you don’t have any point/airmiles.

I’ve just done business class to Australia and I went with Etihad through Abu Dhabi and it was approx £4k. I have managed to get it for around £3k in the past.

Also, check out Scoot new 'economy' airline from Singapore Airlines. They're supposed to be really good.

thanks! Yes coming out at £8-£10k yikes. That’s for a short flight/good airline Ba/Emirates etc…

What about premium economy? It does vary between airlines though. But will certainly be a little more comfortable than economy!

I would look at Emirates via Dubai. Any change of aircraft abroad takes a lot of time. Going through with one airline is less disruptive. You won’t get cheap prices in December though. Just play around on the flight finder web sites.

Business is really worth it on that length of flight! Prices have gone up a lot though. Choose an airline with lie flat beds.

I know. I am looking for next February london to melboure, its doubled since 2 years ago. Dont use BA. Emirates, Quatar, Singapore are much better. Look at the flight times and stopovers. Where are you flying to, you can go direct to Perth and Sydney now I think.

Yes we’re in Edinburgh so can fly Edinburgh, Glasgow or Newcastle. Emirates coming up pricey but I’ll keep looking. I was a bit unsure about the third party sites. I’ve used Opodo but there are some I’ve never heard of Gotogate etc…

Into Sydney, out Brisbane. Staying with family in each place.

You can convert nectar points and other loyalty points to avios points. If you get an Amex card you can rack them up.

I found Etihad to be cheaper than Emirates. Or Quatar or BA

There's no cheap way of doing this, especially not over the Christmas period.

Premium cabins are full (even with the high current prices), there are less seats / flights than there used to be pre-Covid (especially as people don't want to fly via HK etc due to their quarantine policy) and 2 years of pent-up demand (with a lot of people who have vouchers they need to use before the expire) means huge demand and full business cabins.

Even the old trick of flying ex-EU (i.e. from Dublin, Copenhagen, Oslo etc) creates minimal savings right now. Demand is just too high and airlines aren't selling discounted business fares as there's just no need for them to discount.

Even if the OP had points, it would be far too late to try and book one as very few points seats are being released anyway and they go within seconds approx 12 months in advance of the flight.

All you can do is look at Google Flights to find the least extortionate price for your dates, and hopefully have a little flexibility.

Try using cashback sites too. Topcashback is very good. I got almost £400 for a £12k package to Singapore via Expedia. Airtimes reward is another one to look at dependant on who you book with. Sign up for the airlines loyalty card for points towards another trip, and do the same for the hotel. Everything is expensive ATM. That £12k trip I mentioned above would now cost us almost £20k. It’s ridiculous, and before anyone comments it was a long saved for once in a lifetime trip for a Milestone birthday.

Dont use gotogate.

Search from London for now as that should bring up loads more options. You can sort the UK flight once you get the longhaul one.

Emirates/Qatar/Etihad used to do 2-4-1 but I think those days are gone...that's not helpful, is it? We've been to Oz twice with kids in BC and I'd say it's definitely worth it.

Amex card. Probably too late to sort now but their cards with yearly fees allow you to build up companion vouchers.

They will match whatever seat you select, however has to be through their points system booking. Plus miles to reduce the cost on top.

We easily rack up a couple of companion vouchers by diverting our household spend to Amex until we hit the reward. We both have cards each so end up with two vouchers. This only works if you either have some high spends planned or are high earners though.

www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/offers/terms-and-conditions/amex-companion

Our air miles didn't work fir our Australian trip. You'll have to be flexible with your dates! I tend to book with a combo of both cash and miles. I'm saving Tesco vouchers to bump us up to premium economy to the States. Sometimes it's better to buy one class down then use vouchers to upgrade.