Do premium class fares seem really high right now?

Fly on a separate ticket to New York and then buy a business class ticket to your destination. Allow a LOT of time on your non-protected connection. For example I landed in NY at 1pm for an 11pm departure to Europe

I agree with Carol's suggestion. We used miles to fly Sea-Boston, stayed the night, and flew business class to Heathrow. Saved us money even considering hotel and meals, and we loved the shorter flight.

What is your departure airport? When is the trip?

Are you familiar with Google Flight Alerts? You can set up Searches from your home airport to "Europe" and see if another destination airport would be significantly cheaper. You can also look at an entire month and see if changing your dates by a few days would result in a better fare.

We are in San Diego but are now flying out of LAX because San Diego prices, for business class, have been so high post- COVID. We are also flying into Milan because flying into Venice has become so expensive for us. We use a British Airways visa for a 10% discount and stack it with the AARP discount. Perhaps it's time to get a new credit card? I know how frustrating higher prices are, especially when you are accustomed to paying less. Good luck!

NY to London is the busiest route across the Atlantic. Six airlines fly it. I find that it offers the cheapest business fares and the most options.

As an example, I returned to the UK a few days ago. I made the reservation for the flight about five weeks before the trip. I paid about the same as I did for the two previous flights this year on that route and not much more than the flights I took last year.

However, when I tried to fly from a different city that NY, the fares to London were about 2/3 more.

From London, you could either get a cheap flight up to Scotland or the train.

If you mainly fly to Europe and do multiple trips a year and plan ahead, try reversing the ticket. This assumes you are planning two trips at a time. i.e. instead of buying US-Europe-US, try Europe-US-Europe and use a positioning flight by making the first transatlantic crossing as a one way positioning flight.

I do this but use Tunis in N Africa as my starting point since I am targetting exploring Asia and Africa at this time. I've gotten RT business class fares as low as $1,500 v/s $6k + when originating from the US. Currently, I'm paying about $2.2k for a RT business class TUN-DEN-TUN v/s about 6.5K the other way.

This works well for folks who plan ahead and are generally retired or are willing to spend the time with not convenient connections. Since I'm traveling with my wife I end up saving about $7,000 - $9,000 by using this arbitrage.

Frankly, they’re always really high for some of us. We’re regular British Airways customers, and, inexplicably, my husband (flying home solo, while I stayed a bit longer in Europe) was once assigned a business class seat on a 747, rather than the seat in steerage that had been booked. It included lounge access at Heathrow, glasses of bubbly upon boarding, and a compartmented seat that he never lay flat, nor slept in. Food was nicer, metal eating utensils, and a bigger seat, but nothing he said he’d choose to splurge on again.

On a flight home together, earlier this year, we were (again, inexplicably) assigned upgraded coach seats, which gave us seats immediately in front of the curtain that was pulled between us and the couple with a crying child in the front row of coach, a curtain that also had to be passed through to get to the restrooms (no toilet access upgrade), food that was, arguably, a half-notch nicer than the regular coach food, and seats that were wider, albeit between narrower aisles. The footrests on the “upgraded” seats were useless, and actually uncomfortable.

For anyone with unlimited funds, perhaps any seat is better than coach, and upgrading is an easy decision. Then again, with unlimited funds, there would be private jets that would beat commercial flying without question. For the rest of us, coach gets you there, without costing an arm and both legs.

Good ideas thank you. I guess it’s time to think outside the box. I fly out of San Diego. I have been kinda hoping the prices will come down cause last year was such a good deal. At 2 times the price of comfort/premium select hard to believe those tickets will sell. I have been a delta customer for a long time and yes gets miles on a credit card. Started looking at British Air which is a little cheaper for similar seats but still too high for my budget.

In our last ten months we have made a number of local flights around 3 hours and have found them all to be more expensive -- almost double -- from what we were paying about three years ago. And the planes are absolutely packed so the incentive to discount surplus seats might not exist any more. I think everything is just more expensive. My $250 round trip to London in '78 is never coming back.

Does the journey include flying into Heathrow and then a connecting flight, business class, to Edinburgh? If so it may work out cheaper by booking a flight to LHR and then a separate, non business, flight to Edinburgh. There is no real benefit of a business flight from London to Edinburgh for the price that you'll pay.

I appreciate all the great feedback. Based on these tips I did look at separate flights to hopefully get the price down by flying from east coast to London and then also separate flight from London to Edinburgh. It didn't seem to make enough price difference for the possible problems flying on separate tickets. Although I've never done this, so may need to investigate this angle more. Choosing to fly business over and premium economy or premium select does make it more affordable and is actually a great idea.

Another question, I have never flown British Airways, and I can't tell by making a trial reservation, do you have to pay to reserve your seat? And if so, is that on all classes of travel? And what dollar amount?

Yes, you do have to pay to reserve a seat more than 24 hours before the flight. I believe it's all classes but first. (I know you do in business class.) The cost varies but could be up to $100 depending on the flight.

It's one of the reasons I switched from BA to AA.

BA seat-selection fees have been a good bit higher than those on other European airlines for several years--going back to pre-pandemic days. Once I saw that pattern, I immediately wrote BA off as a transatlantic option. I was already extremely irritated by the confiscatory fees you have to pay on mileage tickets.

Frankly, they’re always really high for some of us.

To be honest, this is me. We fly to Europe maybe a couple times a year, maybe only once. I generally start with Main Cabin (On Delta, but we never even consider Basic Economy) and we look at Comfort Plus, Delta One, and now Premium Select.

However, I can just never justify spending 2 or 3 times, or more, for a little comfort. I just think of all that several thousand can buy me once I have landed. Yep, I fit in a coach seat just fine, I also have gotten the occasional upgrade over the years. I on occasion can get a deal using points that seems attractive, but I usually pass.

BA pre-reserved seat prices are more then $100 even for many seats in the “World Traveler” (coach) section. Different locations, presumably more valued positions within the section, cost more than others, but even a middle seat in the middle section at the back of the plane costs something like $59, as I recall. “Premium” seats (such as exit row, and some supposedly advantageous aisle seats) go for $120 or more, again, as I recall. I don’t remember exactly, as I’ve never focused on the price for any of them, as I’m not paying it. Exactly 24 hours before the flight, countless times, I’ve been on the BA app, picking my/our seat/seats. We’ve almost always gotten a good location (for coach), for no additional cost, and with very little anxiety about getting stuck in a “bad” seat because we didn’t pay extra to guarantee what seat we’d get.

Our Denver>London direct flights, and what has been largely excellent flight experiences has kept us pretty loyal BA customers. And buy-one, get-one free Companion tickets (Spend $30k on the Chase BA VISA card in a year for a Companion ticket) and Avios points are bonuses.

In 25 years of BA flying, two not-so-nice flights come to mind, non-stop crying babies notwithstanding. Maybe a different seating section, a better class, would have made a difference, but likely not. On one, years and years ago, a British bloke sitting immediately behind us talked about planning to attend his first-ever baseball game, and how he was looking forward to seeing the “Colorado Rookies.” He was nice at first, but had too many unlimited alcoholic drinks as the flight progressed, and when the flight attendants tried to cut him off long after it should’ve already happened, it wasn’t pretty. The worst, though, was the guy behind us last October, just a year ago. He coughed the whole flight. We tested positive for Covid three days later, 3 1/2 years after never having gotten it. No mask, and he even slid his foot onto my armrest, poking my elbow with the toe of his sock. Paying to reserve a seat wouldn’t guarantee you wouldn’t get that guy behind you (unless you got a seat up against a wall). More expensive seating class doesn’t necessarily guarantee a better class of people.

Google Flights just alerted me to decent business class prices between LAX and Milan for May, 2025. Found business class seats for around $2600 RT on British Airways. Sometimes there are other cheap routes when this happens. Good luck!

Pat thanks for the alert to prices. I just checked my route and not decreased. I thought I had set up a google alert but have not received any messages at all so I will recheck.
The seat selection prices sound pretty grim. When I had done a trial booking it doesnt even say that there is a charge for selecting your seat.

I will keep on looking.

Premimum Maybe. Every destination is different so I just tested a flight I have taken at least 20 times over the years. Houston to Budapest with two checked bags. With seats in ecomony $827 RT in May of next year. Turkish Air doesnt really have a premium economy, but you can purchase better seats. The best would have been another $100 more or less. This is consistent with what I have paid in the past, to be honest, a bit cheaper.

If you're looking to fly business class with BA and are put off by the seat selection fees then it may be worth opting for a route that features aircraft with the new Club Suite. This refurb has replaced the old, much disliked ying-yang layout where you would often find yourself either climbing over someone or someone climbing over you to get out of their seat, this is no longer a problem with the Club Suite as all seats have direct aisle access and it means there really is no bad seat. I get free seat selection because of my loyalty status but I wouldn't worry about not pre-selecting a CS seat. Having flown London to Phoenix and back in the CS I can say it's up there with the current First Class offering and a lot better than most airline's business class.

Currently all BA flights to and from New York are fitted with the Club Suite. Only two flight numbers operating the San Diego route are equipped with CS so that would be a gamble. You can check what routes currently have CS seats fitted here: https://premium-flights.com/all-british-airways-club-world-suite-routes/

Here is a recent article https://www.cntraveller.com/article/airlines-with-premium-economy-cabins-worth-splurging-on?uID=7c410f027f87c20bc98af6219567d1e40ba4b2d84c89ac7381414d37bc095e5c&utm_campaign=newsletter_daily&utm_source=newsletter&utm_brand=cnt&utm_mailing=CNT_NEWS_Daily_301024&utm_medium=email&utm_term=CNT_DAILY_ACTIVE

I have noticed a huge jump in both purchased flights and mileage-based travel. I used to be able to book Condor Business Class for 70K miles plus $49 to FRA from PDX and now they wanted 260K miles per person. All of the mileage requirements for non-stop to Europe from here have surged unbelievably.

Unless we are staying in the UK, BA has been a bit of false economy for us when we are going to the continent as we end up spending a night or three in London, then ongoing transport to our end destination, plus their fees for landing at LHR are almost 2K for the two of us, which while a very good Bus Class “fare” is a lot if you’re planning to move on to points east and you have an additional expenses in layover stays and ongoing transport and time.

I am trying to find an alternative to Icelandair to get to London and home from Dublin in May. I bought refundable roundtrip Icelandair SAGA Premium tickets for $3600 per person which is almost 50% more than we paid for a one way flight home on Sunday from Rome to PDX on Icelandair. That flight, FCO-KEF-PDX, was not a good experience. We got bumped from SAGA Premium due to an equipment change. I suspect we were the bumpees because the tickets were probably the cheapest ones sold on that flight in that class of service.

I set a Google Flights search and am hoping for an alternative to pop up. Mileage plans are a joke now unless you have the appetite for multiple hops (what could go wrong?), overnight stays en route (extra expense), and 37 hour elapsed travel times (exhausting). We are at a point in life where we think about the quality of the transport on long hauls and the business class experience means we arrive less exhausted, less hassled. We save money in many other ways — not into 5 star hotels or gourmet dining — but transportation comfort is our luxury.

Thanks for the tip on the suites JC. It looks like the flight I am looking at due to the time it finally arrives in Edinburgh is not one of the two with the suites unfortunately.

Emirates premium looks pretty nice. Don't think they have my route though.
Yes the mileage flights are unbelievably high. I have used my delta miles during purchase as part of my payment and will do so again if I find a good price on a delta flight. It's funny cause you only get 100.00 per thousand miles in exchange but better than no dollars off.