British Airways First Class, Seattle or New York to Anywhere in Europe for $120!

by Gary Leff

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen amistake fare as good as this.

And while British Airways has pushed back on honoring these sorts of things in the past it seems pretty clear that under new FTC guidelines they’ll really have no choice.

Your trip has to be entirely on British Airways, and originate in Seattle or New York (please add a comment here if you find it from other British Airways cities, but I haven’t seen it work from anywhere else yet) but apparently you can fly from those cities to anywhere in Europe for about $120 all-in.

The exact price will vary just a bit based on the airport taxes of your destination, and I haven’t been able to get it to work for just London (you need to connect beyond London to somewhere else in Europe).

This fare seems to be bookable only on Expedia.de (Expedia’s Germany site).

It prices out at full fare at first when you select flights — it isn’t going to show up right away for just taxes — but on the final purchase screen the price drops. Make sure to take a screenshot. And of course make sure you see the correct lower mistake price before entering payment details.

Seems available through end of schedule, and at this price I think I’m willing to make a bunch of speculative bookings. While I’d still wait to see that it’s honored before making other non-refundable travel plans, I have to imagine that BA will let you cancel if you wish. (The fare should be refundable but since I’m not getting fare rules through Expedia, and don’t see this as a published mistake – it’s probably an Expedia mistake – I cannot guarantee that, still it’s hard to imagine they won’t just let you cancel).

It only seems to work about half the time, so if it doesn’t go through correctly on your first attempt try again!

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. kinda mean, people are gonna spend, or shall we say waste time on this. These are a lot of work.

  3. I got it to work on a double open-jaw SEA-LHR-BOM//DEL-LHR-JFK for just €149.38. The transatlantic must be booked on AA metal codeshare for the price to work. Books into “A” Class (fare basis APLF0L). It doesn’t work if you want to stopover in LHR though.

  4. I have to ask whether it’s an April Fool’s also. If not, does the German Expedia site have an English language option? And if so, how would I switch to that?

  5. I’ve tried numerous combinations and British Airways is not even showing up anymore. 🙁

  6. It has been a long time since a mistake fare as good as this, almost a year I think 🙂

  10. I just hope no one accidentally buys a non-refundable first class ticket out of this. But good post, keep up the good work.

  13. It seems dishonest to take advantage of another’s mistake like this, and to publicize it. I have lost respect for you.

  15. Googled how to translate German to English before I realized what day it is.

    You got me!

  19. Nicely done…still written in the regular Leff style with the appropriate details!

  20. Really? April fools on a mistake fare? I had already told myself to avoid Flyertalk and Milepoint today because of April Fools lameness but I guess it’ll now include the blogs. I’m all good with a little April’s Fool’s fun but mistake fares take is no joking matter

  23. Great joke!

    tried it but the website said no more seats available. they must be filled with lots of your your readers.

    and a happy first of april to you too!

  29. Come on! You have to at least say April Fools at the end of the post. Lots of people are probably wasting their time searching now.

  31. glad i read comments before attempting. frequent miler’s joke was much more appropriate and witty

  38. This is funny, but also not very funny. As you are widely considered an expert in travel advice (plenty of followers, many articles substantiating this claim etc), this post is clearly misleading your readers. A WSJ reporter might as well report that Dow was down 2000 points, and its a massive buying opportunity. You owe your readers, most of who, are loyal, a duty to report what is accurate and factual. Or at least state clearly that it is a joke.

  39. We’re all busy and not humored and NOT a good way to build goodwill and web traffic………….

  41. Not funny! Yday, spent 30 minutes looking before realizing what was going on. I’m boycotting your blog for the rest of the month – and that’s no joke.

  42. Just to let you know, I have held you in high regard and have followed your posts religiously. You are one of the very few bloggers that I follow because of the past quality of your work. Trusting you, I spent significant time trying to get this posted deal to work. Upon realizing this was a joke, I lost quite a bit of respect for you for posting this nonsense. Shame.

  43. This is great. Anybody who couldn’t laugh at this needs to reevaluate their sense of humor. This is what April Fools Day is for, people!

    Well played. 🙂

Comments are closed.