Hi all. I saw that British Airways Holidays is offering a promotion for double tier points for travel before September 30 2023. If I fly business round trip from DC to Athens, it looks like I could get BA silver in one trip. But I know not to book with shonky third party travel agents. Since this is through BA, can I assume they are trustworthy and will be there for me with IROPs or rebooking canceled flights? Many thanks.

Yes they're legit in as much as they're fully bonded and protected by all the consumer protection bodies and as the name suggests part of British Airways (airline).

Double check the terms and conditions regarding the offer. My understanding is trips need to start and finish in the UK in order to be eligible for the double avios offer.

Yes, BA Holidays is a real travel agency.

But to be a qualifying holiday for 2x points the flights booking must originate in the UK.

You also need to book in the hotel a certain number of nights, more than four I think but do check.

Thank you all so much. I did miss that very important rule about starting in the UK.

BA holidays are great, never had a problem wuth them, they have done things like move us to first class on another airline when our original flight was delayed 3 hours and we woul miss a connection. The double tier points offer works well now although lots of people had to wait a long time for the bonus. Yes the holiday has to start in the UK but there's nothing stopping you book a cheapish return flight to London, spend a couple of nights and the take a longer club europe holiday to a European city like Athens or a Greek island destination like Santorini to get 320+ points. Quite a few flyertslkers have got gold in one trip and a very few have done even better.

its at least 5 nights you have to stay not 4.

You can probably squeeze about 480-500 or so out of this trip anyway, then it's just a quick cheap couple of small runs in US to get the 600 points required

It can be Flight & Hotel or Flight & Car (For the minimum 5 night period)

Isn't this academic now? Hasn't the purchase window closed ?

Double tier points offer was extended for travel before 30th Sept 2023

I just returned from a trip from London to Washington DC that I booked through BA Holidays. BA Hoiidays are a legitimate, ATOL-protected travel agent. I got a great deal and was very pleased. I got a return flight (in WTP) and 10 nights in a hotel for less than the hotel would have cost had I booked direct with Marriott. The additional TP were posted 6 days after my return flight. I'd done a return flight from London to Frankfurt earlier this year. The Washington DC trip took me straight from Blue to Silver.

There were some drawbacks, which I think were very small in the overall scheme of things:
1. You can't upgrade a BA Holidays flight via MMB. I had to phone BA Holidays to upgrade the inbound flight to CW using Avios.
2. Even though it was a business trip, I couldn't collect OnBusiness points on my 'holiday',
3. I wasn't able to collect Marriot Bonvoy points for my stay. I did get free fast Internet as a Marriott Gold.
4. I assume that had there been any delays or cancellations, I'd have needed to phone BA Holidays rather than BA. Since that means calling one BA number rather than another, I'm not sure what difference, if any, it would have made.

One other potential drawback to be aware of, if booking on-line, there is no 24-hour cooling-off period as I discovered last week.....

Also another drawback is the cancellation penalties that apply to bookings. Book carefully!

I first travelled by BA Holidays in 1979.