British Airways

[sonicdragon]

We will be flying to the UK from BKK next year in June, returning in August, with BA for the first time (normally we fly with Cathay Pacific from HK).

Can anyone with experience of BA advise on when is the best time to buy tickets to get the best deal ?

[Robbie Dye]

Experience tells me that BA seldom make the special offers from BKK that they do ex LHR, occasionall in Premium Economy they will drop the price a bit, but the specials at the mo run out in April. You would be wsie to book as soon as possible to get their lowest fare BUT you also have to pay within 5 days

[wileycoyote]

BA are efficient and helpful.

However,to be honest,the cheapest way may be either:

a)Unusually booking thru their One World Partner Qantas,their web site allows BA flights but at a cheaper rate than BA's own site.

b)Booking an IT package thru a travel agent ,on the proviso that you book a minimum of 4 nights accommodation .

Try & get a minimum of 3 quotes and try to ensure that they price is guaranteed against surcharges.With the travel agent you will have to pay a deposit,but may be able to defer the balnce until 10 weeks prior to departure.

Good Luck

Wiley Coyote

[game4shame]

Can anyone with experience of BA advise on when is the best time to buy tickets to get the best deal ?

IMO BA don't do good deals.

I have no problem with BA flights - flown with them a number of times and I was satisfied with the sevice.

but taking price, flexibility etc into account they are pretty ordinary.

[ClaytonSeymour]

We will be flying to the UK from BKK next year in June, returning in August, with BA for the first time (normally we fly with Cathay Pacific from HK).

Can anyone with experience of BA advise on when is the best time to buy tickets to get the best deal ?

What class do you want to fly? If economy then choose another (non-european) carrier; Business or First then go ahead. Flew with them 6 years ago (LHR-BKK & return Y class) & certainly wouldn't go out of my way to do so again. Very poor seat pitch. Lufthansa even worse, though the short haul flights from UK to Germany are quite good.

[rgs2001uk]

sonic

i have flown this route many times, i always found the flights to be full in both directions.

dont know if this is still ba 009/qf 002 or not, but it used to be full of people either going to or coming from australia.

in the end i decided to fly down to singapore and pick up the singapore airlines flight to the uk and back, many times this flight has been half full and therefore a more pleasant flying experience.

dont know whether cost or time is a consideration for you or not, i personally will never fly ba again, the last time i flew it was with emirates via dubai.

good luck, there are in my opinion better choices.

[chiang mai]

sonic

i have flown this route many times, i always found the flights to be full in both directions.

dont know if this is still ba 009/qf 002 or not, but it used to be full of people either going to or coming from australia.

in the end i decided to fly down to singapore and pick up the singapore airlines flight to the uk and back, many times this flight has been half full and therefore a more pleasant flying experience.

dont know whether cost or time is a consideration for you or not, i personally will never fly ba again, the last time i flew it was with emirates via dubai.

good luck, there are in my opinion better choices.

Agreed, there are many much better options - BA, cabin crew with attitudes.

Edited October 12, 2007 by chiang mai

[mart29]

THey dont do special offers that im aware for that but ive flown london to bangkok with BA a couple of times and its the smoothest flight, the make a real effort to avoid turbulence. also if you book through their website you can reserve your seat 24 hours in advance which is quite nice. non stop is the way to go, ive flown with emirates before and although it was cool to see dubai airport its just so LONGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

[sonicdragon]

Thanks for the replies.

I have gazillions of asiamiles so our adult tickets will be free (plus taxes) and BA/Quantas is the only airline that flies BKK-LON in the asiamiles group.

I will also need 1 infant ticket and 1 child ticket, and those are not available for redemption with miles. The cost of the infant ticket was quoted as 9700 baht and the child ticket at 41300 baht. For the child ticket I'm guessing that it will be cheaper to buy an adult ticket from an agent instead (or maybe I can use miles, but at the moment no more seats are available for redemption with miles)

[samtam]

I have found BA to be unhelpful and unresponsive to questions regarding their ever changing luggage policy. (I wanted to through book luggage from Edinburgh to Bangkok - BA then TG - but because I booked both online at their respective websites, I could not do this. Also the different baggage allowances from TG and BA are problematical, and no one was able to answer the questions I posed on this subject, despite several attempts.) I note they have had a bad rap for the c--k-ups at Heathrow in the summer, but their attitude towards customers really leaves something to be desired. Their local office is equally unhelpful, and if there was a better alternative, I would certainly use it every time. It's a great pity CX don't fly through Bangkok to UK, as they would certainly be a preferred choice. Ditto Singapore Airlines.

[chiang mai]

Do the extra miles via HK and go with Cathay, altogether a much better alternative, the Asia miles involved are negligible.

[sonicdragon]

Do the extra miles via HK and go with Cathay, altogether a much better alternative, the Asia miles involved are negligible.

I don't care about the asiamiles. I have more than I'll probably ever use in a lifetime and that's even with donating them to my family in the UK to visit us every year and using them myself every few weeks to fly to HK. The reason for flying from BKK is to avoid having to change - travelling with 2 young children is hard enough already....