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BA Flash offer: Save up to an extra £300 on holidays
BA currently have a sale on with some decent deals on BA Holidays. You can also earn double tier points on holidays, which include five days or more hotel room or car hire within the flight dates, which applies to UK departures.
There is also now a flash sale for up to another £300 off when you book by midnight on 9 January. The discount will be automatically applied.
Here are the levels of discounts available:
New IHG Sale with up to 25% off
IHG has launched a new winter sale for bookings made from 4 January 2024 to 18 January 2024 for stays at participating IHG® branded hotels in Europe between 7 January 2024 and 28 March 2024 (except IHG One Rewards members booking via ihg.com who can book stays until 31 December 2024).
Direct bookings at participating hotels get up to 15% off the Best Flex Rate, when using the Book Early and Save rate and an additional of 5% off the public rate for IHG One Rewards members booking on the web and 10% off the public rate for IHG One Rewards members booking via the IHG One Rewards App when using the Book Early and Save rate.
Bookings on the Book Early and Save rate must be made at least three days in advance of arrival. The usual downside applies in that the Book Early and Save rate is non-refundable, with full payment for the full stay due at time of booking. No changes or cancellations can be made.
The offer is valid at participating InterContinental Hotels and Resorts, Regent Hotels and Resorts, Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, Crowne Plaza, Vignette Collection, Hotel Indigo, voco, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites hotels and resorts, located in Europe. Six Senses Hotels, and Iberostar Beachfront Resorts are not included in this Offer.
You can find the offer page here.
Turkish Airlines confirms Melbourne route
Turkish Airlines has confirmed a new route to Australia. The airline has been talking about starting flights from Australia for some months now. However, it was not clear whether they would start from Sydney or Melbourne. Any new airline operating to Australia has to be a start in driving down prices, which are still extremely high post-Covid. I would estimate that business class is around £700-1000 more return than pre-pandemic.
After a few false starts, the airline has now confirmed that they plan to start flights from Melbourne in 2024. No further details have been released, but it is expected that the flights will route from Istanbul via Singapore to Melbourne. Turkish has been granted the right to fly 21 times per week to Australia by the government there. I suspect they may not have announced it before as they were only approved for seven flights per week previous to this. This limit will rise further to 28 flights per week from mid-2024 and to 35 from mid-2025.
6 comments
How can we find lower fares to Australia this year? Multiple different airline segments? Buy Avios?Give more time for some competition to kick in? Start outside UK?
Will Turkish Airlines have an opening offer or some sales? All advice welcome.
I will be publishing a good deal today! Starting out the UK does help but we will be publishing any good deals that crop up on a regular basis.
Hopefully good business class seats last time I flew it was with China Eastern was a bit worried but fantastic flight got home before lockdown .
Trouble is Quanta’s rules the waves with Aussie government there was a furore when emirates tried to get more flights
Fingers crossed
Agreed flight costs to Aus are currently way out of wack compared to pre COVID . I managed to get a very reasonable deal with OmanAir thanks to the good offices of this site.
Whilst our antipodean cousins need as much help as possible when it comes to competition to help drive down prices ( not to mention insanely corrupt and overtly over-protectionist, imho, politicians who seem to think using QF heads statement of “AHH we don’t even others giving flight options and we don’t want other carriers to be an option as we can’t charge what we feel like” as totally legitimate and in no way basis & self-serving)
However in this case I think everyone needs to temper their excitement and expectations. TQ keep flirting with their plans for Australia and the amount 9f routes they plan for the next couple of years. Repeatedly announcing “Australia has approved us for X!”. Which is all well and good aside from the fact these will all be “5th Freedom Flights” via SIN. Where they haven’t even filed the paperwork for clearance, much to the Singaporean authorities chargrin annoyance and repeated ‘hints’, to operate them. Let alone been granted AOL’s , CAA-approval, Air and Landing Rights or slots for SIN.
The authorities are on record of voicing their frustrations and back in December went further in making official statements that even if TQ were submit the paperwork there & then that they would not be be granted as needed by TQs repeated ‘hints/leaks/ suggestions’ about a March ’24 commencement. There’s since been numerous articles/posts etc that whilst they’re engaged & have always looked at TQs plans positively there’s gossip that at least some level of ‘lesson teaching’ grows more likely by the day. Water cooler chat aside & from a purely legislative and administrative TQ won’t be flying anywhere in Australia in the timeframe’s they’ve long been boasting about.
Imho, early, Q4 ’24 looks a lot more likely than Q3 presently unless TQ intend to drop a bombshell and announce direct IST-PER but I’m not sure they’ve got anything in the fleet that could manage it as it’d have to be very J heavy to work commercially and said hard products would have a marked impact on fuel burn ( possibly negating route viability tbh) and range. Yes there’s aircraft which fly longer and in Hi-J configs but I don’t think Turkish have any such planes in service [ though I admit I haven’t bothered checking so am open to correction])
Interesting insight thanks Clayton
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