Well, if folks don't care for the Seattle-Geneva trip for $288, with free stopovers in London, how about San Francisco to Paris --- during peak season --- for $316, also with two free stopovers in London?

You aren't likely to find any peak-season revenue fares for anything close to 2 or 3 times that amount, I suspect.

Not everyone has the same travel plans, but folks are sometimes overstating the impact of BA's tax/fee surcharge. For west-coasters travelling during peak season, for example, BAEC is a very attractive option.

Of course, if you folks want to leave all of those BA seats empty for me ....

I would never suggest that anyone on this board would even think about taking advantage of "a flaw in the system." Book a trip to London, get a free weekend in Paris (paid for by your savings in APD), that just wouldn't be right.

Yes, be sure to spend all of your BA miles on partner airlines, so that you do not have to suffer the indignities of this "flaw in the system."

Actually Paris is cheaper than London in both lodging and dining, at least that is how we feel.

Decades ago London was a cheap destination. Not sure when that changed. We were really surprised last 2 times we found Paris could be considered cheap when comparing to both London and Barcelona which used to be dirt cheap.

In 2007 we had a choice to fly PDX-IAD-LHR // CDG-IAD-PDX on UA for the SAME price of $460xx as FLL-IAD-LHR // CDG-IAD-PDX in early August - the height of the peak season. We could nest this trip in an already booked FLL-DFW-PDX-DFW-FLL trip on AA as that trip was a 2 weeks long. At the end we axed the nesting trip idea because after all we were not doing mileage run and we did not want to disrupt our original plan for visiting national parks in the Northwest. So we wound up have the European trip in early Sept from FLL after our return from PDX. That year we were in California in January, went to Hawaii between May and June, then to Pacific Northwest in August, Europe in September. Finally we did a short cruise in December because spouse complained about we haven't done a cruise that year ... :rolleyes:

But yes, some times even during peak season the fares to Europe can be below $800 even from West Coast and the above fares were available to book in May or June, forgot exactly when but it was around that time frame.

The Air Passenger Duty is, indeed, hideous. But it is not an airport tax and it is not a Heathrow-specific tax.

I know that sounds hideously pedantic, especially to visitors who get caught out by it, but it is important to understand that no airport benefits one iota from APD: it is a very useful revenue-earner for the UK exchequer as a tax on air passengers using UK airports.

The current government has attempted to dress it up as a "green tax", but the revenue generated is in no way dedicated or hypothecated to environmental ends.

taxes high on all sectors on BA metal
 

I know I can check this myself ..... but in the interest of learning from the very learned, would a SIN - SYD or HKG - SYD award flight on BA metal also incur these insane taxes? Trying to figure out if I will ever use the 2 for 1 voucher for 30K spend. Thanks!!!

Thanks for provide a more in-depty information on this steep tax which sounds like just a convenient way to tax people without representation.

Yes.

Why not fly QF on SIN-SYD route? (if QF still flies the 3 class 747 as 2 class, get the nose section the single seat on each side - we were very happy with our choices. They were the old F seat configuration and you got the F amenity kit as well.)

Both QF and CX fly the route HKG-SYD.

Thanks!
 

QF and CX, in particular, are great options. Thanks for your input on QF, might go that route. Love CX, probably because I love HK :-)

Just wondering how to use 2 2 for 1 vouchers that can only be used on BA metal. More precisely, how to use them without incurring outrageous taxes :confused:

Unfortunately, the 2 4 1 vouchers can only be used on BA metal, and if you're on BA metal you pay BA fuel surcharges, which are the biggest component of the taxes/fees that people are seeing. Here's a chart of the BA's YQ: http://www.britishairways.com/travel...e/public/en_us.

what the heck is a BA sector? Is this a segment? Say I flew from SF to Cape Town what would that be? I can't check as the miles haven't hit my account yet.

You can do a revenue booking - the taxes and fees are the same whether it is a pay ticket or an award booking.

new to FT
 

First of all I want to thank FT for informing me of the BA 100K bonus!!
I have read everything in this post and am still unsure of best way to get from NY (JFK) to Greece next year (BA surcharge is showing $371 for round trip in Club World/Euro class) with plane change in London Heathrow. That doesn't seem like alot to me for the class of travel, especially with the searches I did on Iberia and Malev - their charges are about the same as BA. Would not mind a stopover anywhere but London - any ideas? How can I find out what type of seating is available in Club World?

ba.com?

mareye, welcome to FT! If you are asking about a schematic of CW seating you can check that out on seatguru.com along with ratings of which seats are considered the best and worst. If you are asking about the availability of specific seats on specific flights I'm not sure you can check that out at ba.com until you are ready for online check-in (OLCI) or actually showing up to check-in at the airport. (Help me out here, BA flyers. Can mareye check out seat availability at KVS or anywhere else?) Sorry I can't provide more complete responses but I've never flown BA even though I now have a very large bunch of miles thanks to the recent promos. Good luck.