Business Class Fares & Offers

[davidge]

6 hours ago, neilri2001 said:

Davidge,

If you are prepared to take a cheap positioning flight take a look at EVA from Vienna. Usually several hundred pounds cheaper than from Heathrow and around Easter / Songkran time savings of over £2k could be found.

In May i got a return on Etihad for either £2.3 or £2.4k. 1 2 1 seating on all four legs and the latest A350 - 1000 aircraft on the London / Abu Dhabi sectors. Lowest prices were for travel on Sun to Tuesday

Thanks for the suggestion but, as I’ve said before, I’m afraid a positioning flight isn’t an option for me. I fly Biz because of back and mobility problems so an extra airport defeats the object. I won’t even fly with a European airline because the London legs aren’t proper Biz but ‘European biz’.

I noticed that Etihad had competitive fares a couple of months back but they seem to have gone. I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet and book Gulf before those fares go as well. Unless I decide to fly late December then Asiana are the only option.

[Hamchang]

Good idea that - and Vienna is an outstanding whoring location as well for a stop over. 

[kd_traveller]

On 12/06/2023 at 03:22, davidge said:

I noticed that Etihad had competitive fares a couple of months back but they seem to have gone

Etihad have a 20% off sale ending on 14th June (two days only) and from what I can see it is actually a genuine sale unlike some of their sales!

[davidge]

3 hours ago, kd_traveller said:

Etihad have a 20% off sale ending on 14th June (two days only) and from what I can see it is actually a genuine sale unlike some of their sales!

Thanks, but I took the plunge and booked Gulf yesterday for £2234.

For a number of reasons - lousy website, flight availability, my own stupidity - I’ve ended up being in Bahrain for 15 hours! They have said I can get a free hotel and visa, which I’ve requested, and a friend works there so I might be able to catch up with him.

I’m still bloody annoyed with myself though, and probably will be all the way through to November.

[Hamchang]

Just booked Etihad for £2050 flying LHR - BKK - LHR 13 Sept returning 28th Sept. Could have got it for 1980 with GotoGate but my last experience of them were a bit of a nightmare. This was on expedia via google flights. More than happy with that price. 

[davidge]

On 14/06/2023 at 09:42, davidge said:

Thanks, but I took the plunge and booked Gulf yesterday for £2234.

For a number of reasons - lousy website, flight availability, my own stupidity - I’ve ended up being in Bahrain for 15 hours! They have said I can get a free hotel and visa, which I’ve requested, and a friend works there so I might be able to catch up with him.

I’m still bloody annoyed with myself though, and probably will be all the way through to November.

To be fair to Gulf they’ve stepped up and confirmed the freebie. Free visa, transport to and from hotel, room and meals at a 5 star hotel with private beach. Should ease the pain of a 15 hour transit and almost makes up for my stupidity. 

[mercmanrob]

 

• 2 weeks later...

• 

mercmanrob

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Just checked for late october , Etihad have lhr-bkk, £600 economy,  £2k business 

Edited June 25, 2023 by mercmanrob

[docbunsen]

Air France from Manchester in Dec direct with the airline is about 4k just under. 

If you go on cheapflights.co.uk  APP you will see prices 2200 - 2800 depending on ticket type. You are re-directed to Air Frances website not a third party agent. These deals are only on the app the desktop site doesn't show them. I know Air France gets slated but business deals out of Manchester are hard to find.

 

 

Edited July 16, 2023 by docbunsen

[davidge]

I’ve been looking at changing my flight back to the U.K. as I have some appointments to make etc and need to go back a little earlier than planned. My original booking with EVA is the lowest category of fare ‘Business Basic’ so I need a flight with that available to avoid extra fare charges. There are very, very few days in the next 3 weeks where that isn’t available. It’s clear that flights are far from full and yet fares are still going up rather than coming down. When I decided on a new flight there were 9 seats (out of the 38 in Biz) available for me to choose.

I’m hoping that eventually they might start reducing fares but it might be they’ve just decided that they’re happy operating with fewer passengers but making more money from each one. 
 

 

[fun125]

yes eva air pricing is very difficult to navigate . as you are aware depending on which class you book gives you different options funnily enough i was looking to change my return flight in october from economy to premium economy . i,m flying out business back economy. eva air still are very expensive not too long ago i was paying £1600 return business

[Yogi007]

On 18/06/2023 at 10:18, davidge said:

To be fair to Gulf they’ve stepped up and confirmed the freebie. Free visa, transport to and from hotel, room and meals at a 5 star hotel with private beach. Should ease the pain of a 15 hour transit and almost makes up for my stupidity. 

For around the same price I did ARN (stockholm) to Bkk and bkk to LHR, business class on Thai airways. Cheap economy from lhr to arn going out. Sept 20th. Booked as “multi city” on skyscanner. Then the economy flight as a one way. 

 

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by Yogi007

[gmoule]

Booked etihad for end of Sept fly to manila and back from Bangkok £2080 best price I've seen for a while return to Bangkok was 2040

[dontpanic]

Priced have to come down. When I flew from Istanbul to Dublin there was 5/16 seats occupied in business. Usually that's the busiest leg of the trip.

[fun125]

i expect greed is the problem . with everything in the uk tight at the moment perhaps the prices will drop a little 

[davidge]

6 hours ago, gmoule said:

Booked etihad for end of Sept fly to manila and back from Bangkok £2080 best price I've seen for a while return to Bangkok was 2040

Etihad are starting to undercut everyone. They are much cheaper than other airlines for a number of dates now. I just checked for my November-January dates and they’re now at least £400 cheaper than anyone else and £1000 cheaper than Qatar. Emirates are much much higher. I don’t know how many seats are available at the lower fares but, hopefully, it might get others to start lowering fares as well. 

[docbunsen]

6 hours ago, davidge said:

Etihad are starting to undercut everyone. They are much cheaper than other airlines for a number of dates now. I just checked for my November-January dates and they’re now at least £400 cheaper than anyone else and £1000 cheaper than Qatar. Emirates are much much higher. I don’t know how many seats are available at the lower fares but, hopefully, it might get others to start lowering fares as well. 

This must be Heathrow you are talking about ? Out of Manchester they are the same as Emirates for my dates., nigh on 4k. 

[davidge]

9 hours ago, docbunsen said:

This must be Heathrow you are talking about ? Out of Manchester they are the same as Emirates for my dates., nigh on 4k. 

Yes, sorry, Heathrow. It’s my only option as Qatar haven’t restarted from Cardiff yet. Etihad under £2k on some dates out of LHR.

[Just Browsing]

11 hours ago, docbunsen said:

This must be Heathrow you are talking about ? Out of Manchester they are the same as Emirates for my dates., nigh on 4k. 

Turkish Air are a good option from Manchester (much better option than AF/KLM IMHO).

Finnair used to be a good option but their connecting flights from Helsinki no longer align well with the flight from BKK so it can take 30+ hours 😔  Am assuming this is because of the war in Ukraine so hopefully things will get back to 15-16hour trips when it’s over  

 

 

[docbunsen]

2 hours ago, Just Browsing said:

Turkish Air are a good option from Manchester (much better option than AF/KLM IMHO).

Finnair used to be a good option but their connecting flights from Helsinki no longer align well with the flight from BKK so it can take 30+ hours 😔  Am assuming this is because of the war in Ukraine so hopefully things will get back to 15-16hour trips when it’s over  

 

 

The 2-3-2 on return leg put me off AF, KLM are the same if I recall correctly. Ive not tried Turkish, Finnair were ok but as you say not working out now.

I ended up booking with Emirates but you pay a premium for that service now, I've not been over for a while though so just paid it.

[Just Browsing]

43 minutes ago, docbunsen said:

The 2-3-2 on return leg put me off AF, KLM are the same if I recall correctly. Ive not tried Turkish, Finnair were ok but as you say not working out now.

I ended up booking with Emirates but you pay a premium for that service now, I've not been over for a while though so just paid it.

Turkish Air are a solid choice for future flights... Lounge in Istanbul is great + they have "Chef on Board" so the inflight food is really good as well (especially the breads, I love Arabic breads). 

I'd put Qatar in a different league but I don't fly Emirates anymore after a fall out with them about me being 24 hours late getting to Singapore (& missing F1 final day) & them compensating me by upgrading me to Business class on the final leg... Problem was I upgraded me & used 25K airmiles to do so as I needed to be in the Office 1 hour after landing... which they refused to give back.

Great Airline in the past, turn to sh1t when they started partnering with Qantas IMHO.

 

Edit: Should add I was Gold on Emirates at the time & flew long haul Business Class with them for work almost every other weekend... but the 1 time I was flying economy (paying myself & travelling alone) they even refused to let me leave the gate with the Business Class passengers to go to the lounge (this after 5 hours on the Tarmac) & 4.5 hours later we continued our Journey. 

 

Edited July 19, 2023 by Just Browsing

[davidge]

In case this is of use to anyone:

Qatar Airways has launched a new coupon discount valid on select economy and business class fare classes for travel through January 14, 2023.

You can save `10% of your base fare by using a coupon code QVERSE or QV3RSE and book by August 15.

Qatar’s coupon discounts are usually market-specific and have various blackout dates that don’t appear to be the case here. You can also use this discount on one-way travel.

Discounted Fare Classes:

Economy: N, Q, T, O, K, M, L, V, S

Business: R, D, I

Conclusion

A friend of mine alerted me about this offer they had been able to use between Europe and Asia on a one-way trip on Qatar Airways.

The rules of this campaign appear to be relatively relaxed compared to various other coupon discounts that we have covered,

Terms and conditions of this offer:

• Offer period: valid until 15 August 2023.
• Travel period: for travel until 14 January 2024.
• Offer valid for travel on all Qatar Airways operated flights network-wide (not applicable on any interline or codeshare flights)
• Saving applies to base airfare fare only and does not apply to taxes, surcharges and all other standard market surcharges.,z
  • Savings of 10% on base fare amount in Economy Class will apply to booking classes: N,Q,T,O (Classic)
  • Savings of 10% on base fare amount in Economy Class will apply to booking classes: K,M,L,V,S (Convenience)
  • Savings of 10% on base fare amount in Business Class will apply to booking classes: R (Classic)
  • Savings of 10% on base fare amount in Business Class will apply to booking classes: D,I (Comfort)
• Valid for return and one way itineraries.
• Qatar Airways will not be responsible for any fare differences if customers fail insert the promo code prior to initiating a flight search which will activate the special discount.
• Flights eligible for the saving are clearly marked with a sales tag beside them. Please ensure only flights eligible for the saving are selected when booking.
• Fares displayed will already include the applicable savings.
• Customers who did not receive a saving, cannot be credited retrospectively.
• The following booking classes are excluded from this offer: W (Lite).
• Not valid in combination with any other promotion or any other market fares.
• Changes and cancellation: see detailed fare rules at the time of booking.
• Seats are limited and might not be available on all flights, and are subject to availability in the respective booking class at the time of booking.
• Customers may use this offer more than once during the offer period.
• Minimum Stay / Maximum Stay – Depends on the class booked. Please review at the time of booking.
• For full terms and conditions, please review detailed fare rules at the time of booking.

[smiler]

On 19/07/2023 at 04:34, davidge said:

Yes, sorry, Heathrow. It’s my only option as Qatar haven’t restarted from Cardiff yet. Etihad under £2k on some dates out of LHR.

Rumour has it that Qatar will restart Cardiff flights in December:

https://www.headforpoints.com/2023/07/21/qatar-airways-returning-to-cardiff-in-december/

[davidge]

I was just checking again today out of interest and Etihad are still much cheaper than anyone out of LHR. The Gulf fare I booked isn’t showing and Eva is still ridiculously high. I was looking at November to January so don’t know if Etihad are offering this on every date but closer to £1800 than £2000.

[neilri2001]

Etihad are now using their A380's rather than the A350 -1000 on the Heathrow to Abu Dhabi sectors which will have significantly increased their business class capacity. One thing to bear in mind is that their lounge in Abu Dhabi is very poor so you might want to avoid any lengthy connections. Lounge at Heathrow is very good with on demand at seat dining and they use the Miracle lounge at Bangkok which isn't too bad

[kd_traveller]

1 hour ago, neilri2001 said:

One thing to bear in mind is that their lounge in Abu Dhabi is very poor so you might want to avoid any lengthy connections. Lounge at Heathrow is very good with on demand at seat dining and they use the Miracle lounge at Bangkok which isn't too bad

The lounge that Etihad use in Dublin is also now very good as they now offer hot food again after they stopped for a long time during and after COVID. 

I have never found the main Business Lounge in Abu Dhabi to be very poor, I have found it busy at times but have always been able to have a shower, get a seat and have as much food as I wanted.  The last time I visited they told me it was going to be busy and offered me the alternative to use the First Class Lounge with I took up.  My normal lay-over has been around 3-4 hours.  The lounge in the old terminal is not great, so I am not sure if that is the one you are are referring to.  One the other hand, I have only found the Miracle lounge in Bangkok to be average!

In any case the new mid-runway terminal is finally due to open in December 2023 after a delay of many years and this should help alleviate the Business Lounge getting over busy at least until numbers build up again.  I remember when there was only what I think is now called the The Al Dhabi Lounge and this got very busy and then the new Business Lounge opened in Terminal 2 (now the First Class Lounge) and was great for a while and then it got very busy and seating was hard to find and finally the new bigger Business Lounge, which can get busy at times, but I have always got a seat.

However, I will add a caveat that may mean that you have a different experience of the Etihad lounge in Abu Dhabi is that the time you arrive there at. My flights seem to arrive before the main rush which means I have had my shower and I am seated before it is at it busiest!