plunet

I've had a look at the dashboard, and guide to earning, and I've probably missed it, and I know I've read the answer to this somewhere here before, and the forum search isn't coming up with anything useful.

What do BA Holiday bookings earn?

I'm considering a Flight + Car booking for a weekend away in Europe.

• I can get cheap HBO seats each way plus a separate non-BA car rental.
• Or I can get Flight + Car that gives me checked baggage for "free" and the car-rental for "free" against the current cost of the Plus fare.

I'm personally concerned about Tier points and qualifying flights. Due to indulging too much in QR travel festivals and choosing to credit my 3 long haul flights this year back to BAEC, I'm due to go from my current Blue to BAEC Gold by the end of the year, but I will need 4 qualifying flights to do that.

Information on what BA Holidays actually gives you in terms of Tier points is hard to find.

Thanks for the combined wisdom you can share.

MPH1980

It's the same as you'd earn if you booked the flights separately. There's no downrate because you've bought a holiday.

The way to find out what you're getting is to click on the flight number in the listing page and a little pop up will come up. There's a booking code in that pop-up and you can go to the avios calculator on BA.com and it'll tell you the TPs.

plunet

I kinda assumed that it would earn the same or more. I know the trick of clicking on the flight number to see the fare class on a Flight booking, but clicking on the flight number in the Flight + Car booking does yield a pop up but not with any information on the Fare Class.

The HBO fare I would buy separately if not doing Flight + Car is "O" fare bucket so earns virtually nothing.

KARFA

Interesting, just had a look myself and did a dummy holiday booking. I went all the way up to the payment page. I couldn't see any place where you could find out the selling class.

plunet

Well, at least I feel a bit better, I thought I was going mad when I couldn't find any useful info in the booking process, or indeed on the website.

KARFA

I am surprised too. Had I not looked due to your further comments I would have advised the same as MPH1980, I never knew they weren't shown on holiday bookings during the booking process.

Cymro

I'm currently "on holiday" in Frankfurt. (My employer gets my hotel for free compared to the flight only, and I have free seat selection (23A on an A321), Top Cashback, and bonus avios).

If you'd be a in a 5TP bucket anyway, there's no reason not to go for a holiday fare unless you need the same-day flexibility of a Plus fare.

To answer the OP's question, they do post as normal and would therefore be qualifying flights, but it is possible they would be in a lower category and could earn fewer TPs, though clearly if the comparable flight only deal is in O, the only way to earn less is to go for a non-earning avios or non-published fare.

Percy Pig

I booked a flight and car lgw-trn last week. It would have been O class had I booked flight only.

Ended up G class for the booking flight plus car

KeaneJohn

When you are selecting flights at the radio button stage if you click on the flight number there it says I class when booked in Business or A class when booked in First etc.

plunet

Thanks, that's a very useful data point.

I agree this is the case in a normal Flight only booking, but I really can't find this option in a BA Holiday Flight + Car booking.

Yes, the additional cashback on BA Holidays is worth looking at, a fixed rate of £18 on Quidco at the moment for any Flight + Hotel or Flight + Car booking under £500 is worth having.

Thanks for your input.

GLABA

It'll be selling class G.
so bottom of the pack for TPs and excluded from triple avios promotions but act as qualifying flights and still add some TPs.

ENTP

Selling class was irritatingly removed from the BA Holidays booking journey in towards the end of last year.
I guess to be super sure one has to call to book - bit of an own goal from an organisation looking to cut costs every single day.

Beaulieu

I think it was missing from at least July, as I had an F booking made then that I couldn't get the classes out of. A pleasant surprise once it was booked however, as all the BA/AA codeshared flights ended up in F bucket, which holidays bookings seemed to prefer, on that fare code at least...

FrancisA

If by "booking journey" you mean the booking process, then that is correct. Once booked, the fare bucket can be see in MMB by selecting a flight and then "more flight information".

For economy flights, the bucket will be G and will include luggage at plus fare allowances. However, as I understand it, neither HBO nor Plus fares are available for economy - instead there are separate BA Holiday terms. The G fare is a hybrid, with a variety of prices which vary with availability of discounted Y fare buckets, but remain within the G fare bucket.

If you were still able to see the fare bucket, in the case of discounted Y, it would show G but with apparently variable price, which may be unhelpful or confusing (hence I suspect this is one reason why it was removed).

For other cabins, I don't think there is a separate letter used, but I suspect all holiday bookings book into one fare bucket. As mention up thread for first this is the F bucket. However, that alone will not make the ticket fully flexible and refundable. Instead you will be bound by the BA Holiday fare T&C. In the case of first, these may well look similar to A bucket restrictions, even though the F bucket is used. The same will apply to Club and WTP.

I am not sure that any of this matters as long as you bear in mind that for Y it will be minimum earnings (5TPs etc.) and for other cabins the normal earnings for that cabin. Booking via BA Holidays does not therefore reduce earnings per se.

As this is the case, the fare restrictions, which are clearly shown before purchase, are what really matters - indeed it would be quite confusing to see the fare bucket as F (and assume F T&Cs applied) whereas for a BA Holiday booking the restrictions are more like the A bucket. There, I imagine, is another reason to suppress the display of the fare bucket.

MPH1980

That explains a lot. I was *sure* I'd seen it.