Best/Most Efficent use of 2 4 1 & Avios Points from London
 

Good Morning,

I'm looking for some advice on what my best option would be to spend my 300k Avois points along with my 2 4 1 voucher for myself and partner.

I want to travel somewhere in First either with BA or a One World Partner but as I've no specific location requirements ( other than beginning from London ) where is the easiest, best value for the points, most availability location to travel too ?

For example it wants to be a long flight else it seems like a waste but the route has to have availability which I know a lot of routes don't plus it has to have a first class cabin which I know a lot don't.

The permutations are difficult for me to work out so I thought I'd reach out to this forum for help

Thanks in advance

Si

For a 241 your flight must be on a BA plane; usually referred to as BA metal on FT.

Longer the better for the F experience but pick somewhere you want to visit even if it is a short stay. And be as flexible as you can. Additional seats often appear close to the travel date which makes getting one easier but raises the stress levels!

Morning Si!

Have you considered SIN / KUL ? Quite often two seats in F as long as you're happy to start and end (open jaw) different locations? Can mix in Hong Kong also. I did this last summer and for £1,100ish + 2-4-1 + 238,000 Avios thought it outstanding for two in F

If you have time for a longish break 2-3 weeks an open jaw to the west coast of the States may be an option. Good road trip options down the coast and a choice of airports from YVR to SAN another option being LAS or PHX if you fancied Vegas/Grand Canyon.

The other question is when do you want to go: are you restricted by your own diary or the 241 expiry?

But really you need to narrow down where you'd like to go a little. A city, a beach? East or west? Please don't elevate your expectations of F too high: unless you really only have time to fly out and back your holiday preferences should come first.

F availability is a more more unpredictable than business, but with flexibility most destinations are possible.

Thanks for the info,

Can I clarify the Openjaw you refer to is flying to one location but flying back from a different on ? If so how do you go about finding those type of reward flights ?

SIN sounds good and certainly something we'd consider as we always travel West ( travel to the state 2 or 3 times a year ) but don't travel East so we'd like to do that

Si

Believe or not there’s some last-minute F availability to SYD this month. You’d need to buy a flight to SIN/KUL/HKG to make up the return leg though, and maybe slum it in J. If you book in J and F comes up a quick phone call and £70 will get yourselves upgraded.

Good questions, I have no restrictions really and the 2 4 1 has a 2 year expiry

I don't really have any requirements so beach or city are equally as tantalizing, we travel a lot in business ( mostly West ) so are really using this 2 4 1 & Points as a "cheap" break to try out first so it's all about the flight for us TBF

Si

I like the idea of this, are those flights direct to SIN and from BKK ? I assume another flight is required to get from Singapore to Bangkok ?

Si

Si, the benefit of Kuala Lumpur and Singapore is the newest / best F on board the aircraft- miss BKK for the long haul as no first and the oldest equipment

You've had some good answers, Hong Kong was my first thought as well, availability seems fairly decent on that route (it's one I've been tracking myself for use of a 2-4-1)

Open jaw is as you surmise - arriving to and leaving from different airports, with a "surface sector" in between which despite the name, you will almost certainly fly :) The distance between the 2 airports should be less than the distance from LHR - something that would seem to be a given in your case.

You can search for availability for each leg individually - if you have the BA app I find it really good for this. Select "Reward Flights" and "Reward Flight Finder", enter a destination city, dates, passengers, first class etc - you'll get a nice horizontal scrolling list of availability. For example, you could fly out to HKG on 28th Nov.

If doing an open jaw, simply change the city and only look at the return options for the second destination.

Other considerations beyond those already mentioned:

- is First a regular thing for you or a rare treat. If the latter, do you want to consider things like access to the Concorde Room, which means a destination that leaves from T5
- is the particular aircraft important? Many rate the A380 as the best, while others say 1A/K in a 747 is a unique experience (not one I've done yet myself)

I have not given it much thought to be honest. When we did our Vietnam trip we paid for flights from Singapore to Ho Chi Minh City and then joined an organised 10 day tour which finished in Hanoi and we then flew to Hong Kong. The 2 local flights were low cost carriers so not expensive.

If we were going to do this I would explore overland options between SIN and BKK, but I have not investigated this so don't know if it is what we would do, in fact looking again at the map as I reply to this I think we would fly to KL rather than SIN as we have seen Singapore and I would rather see somewhere new!

For us it ends up being roughly where we want to go and roughly when we want. We like open jaw, going out to one place and returning from another, and for a road trip can be fairly flexible on return airports but usually book well in advance due to availability not lasting long on popular destinations. If you are really flexible, seats do come up at short notice and you can get alerts from various sites about seat availability.

Depending on flight timings (day/night etc) we like first class outbound, to take advantage of all the LHR comforts and wine and dine on the aircraft during a day flight, and then collapse into a hotel at the other end. Not so bothered about first for the return, specially where there is less to be gained at the airport, probably want to sleep if it is a night flight and probably no drinking to be done because we have to drive home from LHR.

In terms of 'efficient use of avios', people will work out pence-per-avios, but if it is somewhere you want to go, and/or an experience you want to have, it will be great value anyway - even more so if you wouldn't have paid for it otherwise.

Edit: Good points Bertie - amazing how many other posts arrived during my snail-pace typing!

BKK doesn't have F, and HKG is a marginally better option to come home from in F as you get to use the Cathay F lounges.

How about a flight to SIN (or KUL), then a cheap flight to a beach (eg Phuket or Da Nang), from where you can use avios to get a Cathay Dragon flight up to HKG.