No better start to a family holiday than taking long haul BA flight from Heathrow, but I'm finding long haul BA flights for the family in the school holidays are now prohibitively expensive.

The APD hurts when you are paying it four times over for the family, and the economic trouble in the southern states of the Eurozone means the flights starting in Spain or Italy with open jaws back into LHR are often a lot cheaper. OK, not as convenient, but with easy savings of a minimum of £1k+ across the family it buys a lot of inconvenience (plus the overnight in Europe on the way out is enjoyable).

This must be a big headache for BA. Whereas once they could have relied on my hard earned cash at holiday time, all they now get is a family Avios one way reward saver to Europe for our long haul connection.