The Hoover Free Flights Fiasco
 

I know not technically a BA related, but I'm sure many older BA FT members took up this insane offer in the early 90's - its an incredible fiasco with the US flights. Spend £100 and get 2 Return flights to NYC or Florida. The deal of the decade. Did anyone get one of these free flights? How many hoovers did you buy?

A clip from a BBC doc below goes into some more detail.


Would love an offer like this to happen in 2020. ;)

Before this gets padlocked, I'll say that yes - I remember this and it was an absolute fiasco. There were flights offered but they were on strange days and even stranger times - and yes, I know someone who did manage to go on one. I'd forgotten that it was Hover. However, this has absolutely nothing to do with BA as you say.

A friend managed to get one. He had to jump through all sorts of hoops, but was very persistent and just accepted the flights he was given. ISTR he flew with Virgin.

They did Charter entire aircraft - maybe they chartered from BA ? - did anyone get Avios did they provide full BA service. ;) Trying to find a BA connection.

Such an amusing story.

Was the offer for economy flights only? If so, it would probably have been of no interest to BAEC FT, either! ;)

Watchdog's Anne Robinson would be spinning in her... oh wait...

I believe the Hoover flights fiasco was in 1992. Avios had yet to be created. It was Air Miles in the 1990s.

Doc Copper

Back then, only full fare tickets earned points (or AirMiles as they called at the time). Good question though :)

It also has its own Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover...ghts_promotion

In marketing circles it is a classic case study of “when things go wrong” so unlikely anything similar would happen.

Anyhow, who wants to fly Y to the US 😉

Back then, my Love, no one thought that J would be as affordable as it is and upgrading was unheard of in Europe.

You just say, "and its effect on BA". :p

So, if you wanted to talk about Ancient Greece, you would say Icarus and his effect on BA - then off you go.

Check out the Citi AA thread....

Well I guess there is a hint of BA relevance, with the difficulty even seasoned travellers here have with cashing in Avios or Amex 2-4-1 vouchers.

Watch this space? Especially if there are any majorly disadvantageous changes made to those programs.

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