Deals

Under $1k r/t Premium Econ London to many US Cities

a close-up of a plane seats

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British Airways has been rattling out some really solid fare deals, and to land Premium Economy out of London to a ton of US cities for under $1k ( 770 pounds ) is pretty awesome. What’s even better is that the deals are available across a huge portion of the calendar on many different date ranges. If you’re interested in any of the deals I would cross check your dates with BA’s business class availability…booking Premium Economy and upgrading into Biz is a great way to utilize Avios and fly in better cabins.

Here’s Google flights for LA and SFO

And then London to Boston, Chicago, NYC

I haven’t personally flown on BA’s premium economy, but it’s a big step up from Econ. And on short flights like LHR to JFK/BOS/IAD this is a solid way to do it.

It looks very comparable to what you’d have on a US domestic first class experience.

You’ll get a wider seat with lumbar and a foot rest. An improved IFE with noise cancelling headphones, blanket, amenity kit, power supply, pre-take off drink, new menus, two meals, and comped bar service.

a seat in an airplane with windows
image provided by BA.com

Remember, if your Premium Economy ticket is sold by BA with BA flight numbers then you can use Avios to upgrade as long as there is Biz award space.

In this example it’d require 30k Avios each way to upgrade from Premium Econ to Business Class. What’s even crazier is if you had a Business Class ticket purchased, the difference, off peak, from Biz to First is just 22,500 miles. Crazy this random date had 4 First Class seats avail.

Remember, Chase is running a 30% bonus on Avios transfers until June 16th so those 30k you need are really just 24k Ultimate Rewards

The easiest place to check BA award space in large chunks is AA.com

Pretty much every day in November has at least one flight, nonstop, with Biz avail between LHR and LA. You’ll need to select a day to see if it’s BA or AA, but odds are it’s BA.

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Here’s a quick look at British Airways Club World.

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Happy Hunting

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

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We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.

Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.

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Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.

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Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on. 

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3 Comments

  • StarlessnBB May 27, 2019

    What about the UK’s crazy taxes? No mention how much it will actually cost to fly out of LHR…

    • Miles May 27, 2019

      only applies to award tickets…these are paid fares – all bundled in the prices you see

  • Christopher May 25, 2019

    A good way to collect tier points. I noticed other European cities are even cheaper (still on BA) ex. replacing London with Stockholm yielded fares of $775 USD

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