In this post:
BA A380 routes
British Airways have been updating their timetables for summer 2o23. This takes effect from 26 March until 28 October 2023. I really enjoyed my First class experience on the BA A380 recently which has unique individual wardrobes big enough for your wheelie bag.
London Heathrow – Boston 1 daily
London Heathrow – Chicago O’Hare 1 daily
London Heathrow – Dallas/Ft. Worth 1 daily
London Heathrow – Dubai 3 weekly
London Heathrow – Johannesburg 2 daily
London Heathrow – Miami 7 weekly (selected weeks in April/May 2023: 10 weekly)
London Heathrow – San Francisco 1 daily
London Heathrow – Washington Dulles 1 daily
HT: Aeroroutes.com
Cathay adds extra UK flights and first class
While entering Hong Kong is probably not high on most people’s lists still, you can transit at Hong Kong fairly easily without much hassle providing you can check your luggage all the way through. Cathay may not have the bling of Qatar, for example, but I have always found them one of the most consistent airlines for food and service. They were also great when things went wrong. I remember being greeted at the jetty at Sydney with a sign for someone to tell us the bags hadn’t made it, but they would be there in a few hours. Sure enough, they arrived at the hotel later that day.
Cathay Pacific is now bringing back it’s first class cabin and also adding extra UK flights as well as reinstating other destinations. Of course, you can use Avios on Cathay flights so if you have been struggling to find seats on other airlines going east, it could be worth checking Cathay. If you search the route as usual on ba.com it should show you any Cathay flights available. If you are going to Australia or New Zealand, don’t forget the special rates for partner airlines that can work out much cheaper on long routes.
The airline are also resuming a large number of routes such as Osaka, Seoul and Bangkok
A Cathay spokesman said
“London Heathrow will see a substantial increase in passenger flights in November and December.
“An additional 31,500 seats will be offered over the two months and on certain days in December we will be operating four flights a day.
“Customers can also look forward to the return of our First class offering on our prime London Heathrow flight, CX251/CX252, starting 5/6 December respectively.”
You can read about my experience in Cathay Pacific First class here.
New American Express offers
I often say that your Amex card will probably end up making you a profit if you make use of the discount and money back offers. I’m pretty sure I make a profit on all of mine since I’m pretty religious about checking the offers and saving them.
Two more travel-related offers have appeared in addition to the ones I mentioned recently. Both of these were on the Marriott Bonvoy Amex.
£200 off KLM flights when you spend £1200 or more
With the ability to already credit to Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club and Virgin due to join Skyteam in 2023, KLM and Air France are worth considering, particularly if you live near a regional airport they serve. As I mentioned Amsterdam has some long queues at times still, but generally, transfers are not too bad, particularly if you are going from the UK to outside the Shenghen area.
Save to your card to get a £200 statement credit when you spend £1200 or more online at KLM in Premium Economy or Business by 29 November 2022. Valid for flights departing from the UK, once per Card for the first 20,000 Cardmembers. KLM has regular sales so you may want to wait a little to see when the next one is.
Qantas save £200 when you spend £1000 or more
Get a £200 Statement Credit when you spend £1,000 or more cumulatively on flights from the UK with Qantas by 30 November 2022. Valid once per Card for the first 20,000 Cardmembers to save the Offer. You need to book online directly with Qantas at www.qantas.com/UK until 30 November 2022. It must be for direct Qantas flights with a QF number that depart from London Heathrow (only UK airport Qantas departs from).
11 comments
I don’t want to put a downer on the Cathay love-fest but they are on my ????list now for the foreseeable. The whole point of an alliance is that there should be interoperability between them. CX cancelled both legs of my trip to New Zealand and havjng sourced alternative routes to get there through QS and QR, I was given a flat “no can do” – apparently Cathay have no interline agreements with ANY oneWorld alliance partner so any cancelled legs must be rebooked on CX metal. But of course there are none before 2023 now. This has ruined my Xmas plans (again). This is a disgrace and I’d have them made to change this or be chucked out of OW
EU261 rerouting rights should have seen you right. Am I missing something? Are you not departing from the UK/EU?
Yes i am departing from LHR. On 2 separate occasions , BA flatly refused to re-route. I guess with Xmas schedules being so full. They did offer to put me on a BA flight 2 days earlier on the return leg which meant being dumped in HK for 2 days at my own expense, but they couldn’t do anything with the outbound leg as no availability at all except with QS & QR which had the aforementioned interline issues. I think BA or OW should publish these interline agreements so people know what metal to avoid
EU261 rerouting is an inalienable right. You can record their refusal to reroute, book a cash ticket yourself with another airline, then take them through MCOL to secure your refund of the new ticket’s cost. It does mean being out of pocket during that period though.
BA can reroute on LH and LX so they are fibbing.
A formal complaint has gone in to Sean Doyle. There is no way customers should have to know the ins and outs of what interline agreements each partner has. OW is OW . They refused all other routing. Said BA or CX only, due to CXs interline agreements. ????
Certainly DFW is already an A380 on 8th March LHR to DFW on BA193……..
Yes it is currently an A380. That’s just the list for summer. A lot carry on to the same destinations
General comment I suppose, but what has happened to First class Avios availability these days?
I know the new Club Suite is a massive improvement on the old ying-yang, but even so, I’, struggling to find any F availability lately.
Anyone else struggling?
I’m sitting on 8 x 241’s between me and the other half- they’re the old ones. Availability generally is awful and pretty much non existent. Last week, suddenly, MIA, SFO, and a host of US cities opened up. Like many other departments, I think BA are struggling with their Revenue Management piece. I don’t get the impression space is loaded automatically, rather they ‘work’ routes and dates after the initial availability has gone before adding more. I’m retired and travel a lot so I spend a great deal of time checking and things are very different since before the pandemic. India had a stack of availability on all 5 routes and now there’s none. Remember that BA have no First now to India. Good luck- you’ll need it.
Personally I try to avoid the A380’s as, for many operators, they’re invariably late. The increased number of passengers increases the risk of medical emergencies, no shows at the gate with baggage offload etc. etc. Currently sat in SIN waiting for the evening SQ26 A380 flight to FRA with a one hour onward connection to MAN (not my idea). Despite the A380 sitting on the ground for several hours prior to operating the flight each day, SQ26 has been significantly delayed for the last ten so I don’t hold out much hope of it being any different this evening.
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