ReynoldsNumber

Dear all,

Is it me or do I keep missing the BA sales in Belgium? The recent world sale is an example, LHR <> BRU return was reduced to around £200 in CE while BRU<>LHR remained at the same price as always. I really want to go for gold next year but I will need 19 CE flights to make that happen, and ideally would like to wait for a sale and purchase all the tickets in one go. Any idea when the last sale was in Belgium?

Thanks in advance!

Cymro

19 CE tickets (actually 18.5 plus one flex economy leg) would mean that you would otherwise be earning...zero tier points.

Gold can make sense if you're essentially an LHR commuter but if you'd fly in CE anyway you're only getting the extra avios and Flounge access ex-LHR.

AAtticus

Having to do this route almost every two weeks CE on BRU-LHR or LHR-BRU is probably one of the worst routes to go for Gold or maximise TP/€ in a price conscious way.

Cymro

Also, given the lack of flexibility, if you really did want to do this somehow... you could just buy a one-way to LHR to start the sequence off and book LHR-BRU in a sale so that your 'return' to BRU was actually the outbound and vice versa.

Ned1968

I did this every week for a year - back then BRU-LHR return in CE was cheaper than LHR-BRU return

You could consider nesting your booking so that you buy pairs of LHR-BRU return and BRU-LHR return that overlap. That gets you Sat night stay fares as well

hugolover

I would be very tempted to look at SN, but I know the frequency is not as good but its not clear exactly why you are chasing BA Gold and what benefit it brings you?

You can easily get Star Gold status if you credit a b.pass to Aegean as they earn FULL Y mileage. 6 flex returns would set you back only €699 with Saturday night but that is the same as these CE fares and checking on ITA shows its wide open for short notice bookings which is far better than restricted I fares on BRU. If you can find a (temporary) status match you can solve your temporary status hiatus while you accrue Star Gold status with Aegean.

Lounges both sides are now vastly improved over BA now that SN have refurbished the B lounge and the connector is fully functioning. In LHR, probably UA lounge would be your best bet and is superior to GF with many of the offerings available only in CCR and in a few instances better quality.

I'm sure you could keep BA Silver and have Star Gold as well. This is far, far more useful than only BA Gold especially if you are BRU based!

Swanhunter

Excellent idea.

Or just take Eurostar which is significantly more civilised that flying on this route.

AAtticus

The good thing about SN on that route for me is that they have a 9.30pm flight, I believe the latest one from BA is 7.25 with an hour difference in the winter maybe?

hugolover

I figured the OP was committed to flying!

Just one more thing, the b.pass allow standby like the BA with bag fares, this is great on a route like GVA or MIL which has a great frequency but still useful on LHR if you are booked on the late flight and fancy your luck on the afternoon service. Again, CE is no good for that. BA decided "Business Class" fares should not be as flexible as Economy fares .

ReynoldsNumber

Thanks for the info everyone!

Hugolover, a very interesting proposition, once I get to silver this year I will seriously consider your proposition. I was a bit confused with the Aegean part, are you speaking generally about EU flights or something I can do for BRU LHR? Also, is there a similar offer for J instead of Y?

I've been attaining Silver for many years but would like to experience GF as my base on T5 outbounds. Also, the blocking of Silver in row one is getting to be a real pain in the backside! It seems this is not possible anymore based on my last three returns, even with empty seats.

You know I've never tried this route with SN, will give it a shot just to see the lounges on both sides!

Going a bit off topic, how likely is BA to status match the gold?

Thanks again

nux

Approximately 1 / (Graham's Number)

corporate-wage-slave

What I think hugolover is referring to there is the fact that Aegean has a particularly good Star Alliance scheme, at least in terms of earning status. It used to be silly easy to get Star Gold status with them, now it's merely quite easy. So you can fly Brussels Airline but credit to Aegean. Just as some people in the UK prefer to be on AA's frequent flyer scheme and credit all their BA travels to AA rather than BAEC. You could of course investigate SN's "own" scheme, but since Lufthansa is indirectly SN's largest shareholder, this mean's Lufthansa's Miles and More - rather tougher to get status there (some swings and roundabouts, however).

SN's shorthaul services aren't bad, they have a different approach to both cabins, in terms of service and ticketing, than BA/KLM/LH/AF/SAS, which may work for you. However their longhaul is somewhat restricted. It may be worth you buying a one off business class on SN to see how it works for you.

As with all of these things, it depends also what you will do with the status and benefits overall. BA Gold seems well known to you, for example. If you try to redeem on Aegean it can be quite a clunky/manual process, and may require a lot of flying to get the requisite miles. BA's RFS are rather easier to deploy, in my view.

ReynoldsNumber

Thanks for all the info CWS, it all makes sense. Looking at SN to London, they appear to run twice a day but far too early and late for my needs, I basically come to London on the Saturday at 13:55 and return on the last flight on Sunday. Also, their J fares are considerably more expensive than BA J, I wonder how that is possible?! Do they offer better champagne?!?

ReynoldsNumber

Finally a sale in Brussels! BRU > LHR > BRU is around 120 Euros discounted - bought 7 returns!!! I was going to buy all 19 but the discounted rate only covers flights up to March 2017.

corporate-wage-slave

Thanks for pointing that out since BRU is a good place for back to back transfers, nearly as good as AMS, so any other sale pricing may be interesting to non Belgian residents.