One of the upsides of being a teacher is that I know when my holidays will be, and they are plentiful (although don’t get me started on those ‘hilarious’ people who think that we are always on holiday and don’t work hard…!) which means that I can book in advance. I like to have something to look forward to in the dark winter months, and the planning is part of the fun.
Following my trip to Las Vegas this summer, I was keen to see other parts of the West Coast, and we had talked about San Francisco. This conversation was precipitated by the recent part-pay offer from British Airways. Whilst you can always do this, their special offer of saving £500 for 30,000 Avios was very good. A quick search on ITA Matrix showed that we could fly CPH-LHR-SFO for about £1250 in Club Europe and Club World.
The £500 saving for my 30,000 Avios brings this down to about £750 each. As a Silver Card holder, I will get back about 25,000 miles and my wife will get about 19,000. I was able to select our seats for free, so I chose the small upstairs forward cabin on the A380 outbound, and seats on the upper deck of the 747 on the way home.
Positioning flights to Copenhagen were easy to get as Reward Flight Saver for 9,000 Avios and £35, and a hotel booked with IHG reward points.
Deals like this do throw into question the value of the BA AmEx 241 voucher – we could have used that for three times as many miles, and a £500 cash saving but the availability was poor and not there on the days we wanted. It remains to be seen how this will play out.
In the mean time, I have a holiday to plan…!
Mister Airmiles 
[…] December 2016. But we decided that we didn’t want to do long haul at Christmas, especially as we have a trip to SFO in the summer. With holidays already planned out (as I like to do when school’s calendar is issued!) there […]
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[…] booked our summer holiday to the west coast of the USA and have tried to maximise points and miles where I can. This includes a night at the SFO Crowne […]
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[…] I love reading and writing about it. We both have trips to America in the summer booked under the Avios part-pay offer which will earn us 360 tier points – 240TP short of Silver. As she is retired and I have long […]
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[…] My upcoming year looks, at the moment, less busy. I have a few days booked to Nice, a TP run with my mum and an ex-CPH to SFO. […]
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[…] to Dublin, 18,000 for return flights for 2 to Belfast, 15,000 for part pay on flights to Nice, 60,000 for part pay on flights to San Francisco, 18,000 for Club Europe seats to Nice, and 25500 for my last-minute day trip to Rome to collect my […]
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[…] had booked them for our outbound to Copenhagen to start our trip to San Francisco in the summer. We decided that we would spend some more time there before we flew to America and, as the […]
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[…] also worked with sale fares and exEU tickets. I was able to combine all of these for 2 returns CPH-LHR-SFO in the summer for £750 each. These tickets earn normal Tier Points and Avios so, as a Silver member, I will get back about […]
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[…] On my upcoming trip to California, I have 8 separate hotel bookings, three flight bookings, a car hire, ESTAs, 4 restaurant reservations and at least 3 sightseeing or activity bookings. […]
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[…] part-pay with Avios deal, I was able to secure 2 Club World seats from Copenhagen via LHR to San Francisco for £750 and 30,000 Avios each. Economy LHR-SFO fares were £900 at the time, and I will earn over 25,000 Avios so it was a […]
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