Johnnieboy

NCL is £84 return this Sunday

EDIT - was also offered an upgrade online for both sectors @ £59 each way

mmxbreaks

HBO or Plus?

Keep it Riel

I did GVA last Saturday for about £86 - out at 9:30, 7 hours on the ground. Very easy and quick transfer from airport to city. Not super cheap when you get there but a very pleasant day out. GVA and MAD are almost always available for <£90.

Johnnieboy

HBO. Plus £10 more each way on the £84

bisonrav

Settled for an £82 HBO fare from LGW to AMS on a Friday afternoon/evening which unlocks the additional 12,000 Avios without needing me to take any holiday.

mmxbreaks

Mainly asking because of the optional upgrade at £59.

I'm contemplating booking and cancelling within the 24hr window (I think I can do that on a HBO booking?) if there's no upgrade offer...

corporate-wage-slave

Because people were doing exactly this (thanks it has to be said some threads in FT), BA stopped this and generally only allows POUGs to come through once the ticket cannot be cancelled gratis, so 48 to 72 hours after ticketing. There are some longhaul exceptions, and if the aircraft is very overbooked they will also do it (but those on direct bookings are probably going to get a free upgrade anyway).

Wanderlust888

Finding these - is it as simple as subscribing to Expertflyer and looking for availability in the G bucket? eg if it says G5 in each direction can I be sure of a sub-£100 fare?

corporate-wage-slave

More or less, yes, I don't think "sure" is the word I would use, maybe "invariably". But to be honest a quick BA.com dummy fare check on the usual destinations will probably be just as easy, bearing in mind you can press the Change button and swap in another destination for the same date.

Wanderlust888

Thank you. Unfortunately I find myself having to identify bridges, signs and store fronts when I do too many searches on ba.com...

Also is G a fixed fare per destination, or is it a range? eg. HAJ always seems to be about a £20 fare + tax.

Also if I have identified G availability, is it necessarily the case that this bucket can be booked as a BA Holiday with car hire / hotel, or does BA Holidays pick from a subset of the G availability?

corporate-wage-slave

For reCaptcha process you may want to review your cookie management. Once you've completed the photo exam reCaptcha is supposed to deposit an encrypted cookie on your device to prevent further resits. It isn't something I see very often.

The G bucket is indeed a range, though quite a small one as far as I can tell. LIS only seems to have 4 in all and 2 for the awaydays, £44 and £76, but you have to add taxes and PSC on to that.

For BA Holidays, access to G allows their cheapest internal fares as add-ons to their equally internal calculation, leading to a final package price. If anyone had the patience (not me!) it would perhaps be possible to deconstruct this more precisely. However if G isn't available they keeping going up the buckets until there is one that is open, and they calculate the add-ons off that. G isn't normally available as a fare, the weekend day trip fares are an exception, so while the fare bucket is shared, the fares for the two channels are not necessarily linked.

Woodbinerich

Wanderlust888

Nowhere in particular, would like to visit different places, especially as there is a bonus 16,000 Avios to be earned.

I'm not familiar with google flights, only skyscanner; but will have a play around with it. Thank you

Having skimmed this thread, it seems there are few common possibilities like Geneva, Madrid, Milan, most of the German airports. They seem to be mostly business destinations. No chance of Dubrovnik or Ibiza I guess.

Keep it Riel

You're looking at destinations with multiple BA service on a day to create a long enough time on the ground to make it out of the airport. Which biases the potential outcomes to larger, businessey cities and rules out Dubrovnik. My shortlist is DUB, ARN, CPH, HAM, MAD, BCN, LIS, NCE & GVA. ABZ is often available and I have seen Rome on occasion. MUC can work although I've never done it as its quite a hike to the city from the airport (or so I am told...)

I've also had occasions when the HBO fares don't show up on google flights (or Matrix) as I believe its a fare class that doesn't always fully disseminate into these systems. FIx the cookie problem and its quite quick to run them through the BA booking pages in my experience.

Woodbinerich