BA Holidays in First?
 

Hi,

I'm well aware that there are often bargains to be had with flight+hotel bookings in CW / CE - sometimes these are part of publicised promotions ("Luxury Sale" or whatever), but often they just happen on certain routes at certain times. They are fairly easy to find using the 'holiday finder' tool on the BA web site. I have fun finding these and book a few from time to time.

Wondering if there are ever any bargains to be had via flight+hotel in F? It isn't obvious how you would even find them as the holiday finder tool doesn't have an option to select First.

So the questions are: Do such bargains ever exist? and how would anyone find them unless there is a prominent promotion?

Many thanks.

Some here would suggest that F is not worth the extra money but it is worth paying for a luxury holiday (CW) and then using AVIOS to upgrade. We've upgraded via BA holidays before (but generally from WT+ to CW), if you check on reward availability then do your booking by phone, BAH can process the upgrade for you. F availability for reward flights is a bit patchy though

I suspect if you phone up and ask BAH for a quote on a paid for F upgrade they will happily provide you one.

Thanks for the idea. Not quite what I had in mind but might be a handy idea for a special occasion.

Thanks again - I'm sure BA Hols could quote for a holiday including F flights for specific dates and destinations - but I'm bargain hunting - keen to know where and when good deals are (if they exist in F).

You could look for F availability in reward flights. If there is a lot of F reward availability then you might be more likely to get a cheaper deal as BA is indicating difficulty selling its F seats for revenue. Another idea is to look for weekend flights to business destinations.

As you say there are quiet often some bargains to be had on the CW+hotel option but there are some bargains to be had in first as well.
I have now done 2 BA holidays in first,both were booked during sale periods.
First one was last July LHR-NYC 4 nights in 5* hotel,cost i can't quite remember but i think it was around the £1700 each.
Just came back a few weeks ago from the latest one, LHR -AUH,flights alone were £1600 but we got flights and 5* hotel with breakfast for 5 nights for £1650.
I think it all depends were you want to go and when,are abu dhabi trip was so cheap because it was the end of ramadam.

That's decent pricing tia2013, did you book the holiday in CW and then upgrade or was it an F option on the website?

It was a F option.

Thanks for the replies - So it looks like the answers to my questions are
(1) Yes F flights + hotel bargains do exist
(2) There is no easy way to spot which destinations and dates might have good prices except maybe if there is a publicised 'Luxury' promotion or by trying a bit of educated guesswork of where there might be flight capacity in excess of demand.

I would still be grateful if anyone has a better answer to how to find F flight+hotel bargains for someone who is flexible about dates and destinations.

I just returned from a fabulous BA First package and highly recommend it. What I did when scheduling this last summer was to watch Google Flights and ITA Matrix for bargain First fares. This gave me an idea of what dates, times, and destinations would provide the best bargains. Then I searched BA for those dates, finding wildly fluctuating prices over the few weeks I did this. Eventually I found a package that was a LOT cheaper than even a bargain first class fare. The hotels were excellent too.

It took a lot of diligence (fun, since I consider hardcore bargain hunting a sport) and patience, since BA kept changing the prices.

Now I'm a BA Silver, thanks to this flight's 4 segments, plus a few AA flights earlier this year to boost my TPs well above 600. The cost of the vacation also allowed me to reach my $20k spend last year to get my bonus Avios for the BA Chase Visa.

I really enjoyed my BA First experience but don't feel the need to do it again any time soon. Premium or Biz class is plenty for me. Just don't send me to steerage :p

I've had a couple of excellent BA holidays in F (revenue fares rather than Avios), usually over the New Year period to East Coast USA (lack of business travellers - and cold weather - seems to mean good deals can be had). I've found them by finding good value F flights then adding a hotel for the entire period turns them into a BA Holiday.