Black Friday (& other) sales - how to find non-London fares?
 

I must be having a brain malfunction, but I couldn't figure out how to access Black Friday sale fares with GLA as the departure point yesterday, and I can't for the life of me remember how we've done sales fares in the past.

Do the fare sale sectors and domestic sectors have to be booked separately? And if so, does that mean we'll have to do baggage claim / recheck at LHR since they won't be on the same PNR?

You can phone up but don't expect a bargain. The london fare + hotel this morning was £1534. The GLA-SIN+Hotel was £1950. I said. Hold on. It is and extra £400 for an economy return? Yes said the BA staff, we can't give you a cheap add on. I said. No thanks I can fly club for £200 and get 80TP's instead of 20.

It appears yet another sale where those from regions are unable to benefit. Poor show.

Exactly. Also you need to compromise on the hotel as well. Buying an ex Lon and a CE from GLA-LHR would save £130 mx. However, I can get a hotel I use in SIN that is better than the BA offering for £120 cheaper. So why would I do BA holiday sale? extra 60TP's and risk a £2.5K business trip and extra hassle for saving pennies. No chance. :-)

Lufthansa came back to Glasgow recently after a very long hiatus flying to a hub with MUC service. It’s 4x weekly this winter and goes daily in the Summer.

MUC is a very easy airport to transfer with very good lounges. 30 min connections are possible.

I have been able to work the service into my trips but only on the return.
I can imagine some favourable F fares from there down the line.
GLA is getting more choice. Thankfully.

This could put a serious damper on my plans for retaining Gold next year. I have until July to pick up another 170 TP, and was hoping to do it via this sale.

Two UK CE e.g. GLA-london will give you 160TPs. This year I'm only doing BA to get to 2,500 and GUF2 so I can book WT+ and upgrade to CW to san diego next christmas.

If other airlines offered the same prices for WT+ I'd consider them but they all seem to be WT or CW (EG Qatar from EDI, which is easily doable from GLA by car/bus)

If you have until July, what would be wrong with the Christmas sale? That is usually a much wider and deeper sale, when compared to this contrived Americanised event.

It is indeed fantastic to resume this service, but unfortunately the timings of MUC-GLA are not friendly for connections from other parts of Europe.

Is this usually good for a March booking? Or is it just for bookings further into the future?

As always, it depends. But in the past, I have sometimes picked up cheap tickets in that sale for travel in January, let alone March. (The best, I think, was LHR-SYD-LHR in WT+ for almost exactly £1,000.)

Nothing would be wrong with the Christmas sale, assuming there is availability there for folks departing from other UK destinations.

Btw, I know you're trying to be helpful, but as an American (dual US/UK citizenship) who's lived in the UK for almost 20 years, it really pisses me off when people use "Americanised" in a derogatory manner when they would never speak that way about any other nationality for fear of being accused of discrimination or bigotry.

Just sayin.

If it helps, may I make clear that I was not being derogatory about the USA or about Americans. I did, however, intend to be derogatory about the concept of a "Black Friday sale", for which I make no apologies.

Thank you.

I agree completely about "Black Friday" sales, FWIW.

If you are just looking for the cheapest way to get these ex-GLA, then this year I've had decent value from Luxembourg (GLA-LHR-LUX), which can be picked up for under £300 in CE pretty much throughout the year and nets 160 TP. You could make up the final 10 TP with the cheapest possible HBO fare to London and back? If doing LUX, due to the T5-T3 transfer, we found it worked really well to get the last flight out of Glasgow in the evening, get a cheap room in the Hilton Garden Inn Hatton Cross(*), then get the early flight to LUX.

If you prefer a single flight, maybe Reykjavik (GLA-LHR-KEF). Might be a somewhat roundabout way to get there admittedly, but Mrs BertieB and I got that in CE for around £360, and that nets 240TP from Glasgow. Don't see it quite that low at the moment but a quick look on ITA Matrix suggests there are options around £400.

Just a couple of thoughts, in case they help.

* And another tip of the hat to the forum for that one! A few minutes on the underground vs 30 mins on the rather horrible Hoppa buses.