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What I’m not covering in my recommendations for finding cheap business class flights
Thjis isn’t meant to be a one-stop shop on how to snag good value business class flights. There’s a tonne of sites that do that already on the internet – google is your friend.
That said, here’s a couple of things before we start:
- I’m not looking at error fares on airline websites. These are getting more difficult to find, as airlines increasingly get more sophisticated trapping pricing errors. You’ll also need to spend hours watching specialist accounts on Discord or Telegram for instance, as they’re usually only around for a few minutes until the airline spots and cancels them. And eventually, even once you’ve found one, the airline might just cancel that first class LHR-SYD flight you managed to snag for £39 at 2am because they can.
- I’m not going to recommend using airline loyalty points to blag a flat bed to Singapore. Or anywhere else for that matter. Trying to redeem airline loyalty points can restrict the time and route you can fly as many airlines only have a handful of points-only seats on each plane, and these can go quickly. There’s the hidden costs too – because with every ticket you’ll still need to pay cash for any government-imposed airport or departure taxes, and they can be restricted. This means often they won’t come with automatic lounge access (unless you have status) so you’ll need to pay extra if you want a pre-departure martini and changes/refunds may be challenging. Additionally, many airlines have an all-or-nothing approach to redeeming points, meaning they won’t allow you to part-pay a flight or upgrade using points.
- If you’re not in the US, ignore any YouTube airline reviewer who claims to have booked their business class flight on a 5 star airline for $350 plus a bunch of credit card points. Few credit cards in the UK will give you that enough points (even as joining bonuses) to make it worthwhile. And in the long term, you’ll note than likely end up paying more in interest to the credit card company than the value of the ticket you’re getting “for free”. British Airways AMEX credit card and it’s nearly 135% representative APR is a case in point.
There are a couple of exceptions (“of course there are. Colour me shooketh”):
- Sometimes it’s cheaper to buy points on an airline website and then redeeming them for all/part of your flight rather than paying in cash for the whole flight
- It’s worth shopping around for points on partner airlines or code-shares for a flight. For example, booking a flight from London to Doha operated by BA, you might get a better deal booking that flight with Qatar Airlines (who codeshare on the flight because they are both One World airlines). And if you do so on the Qatar website, you can using BA Avios miles, which usually have a better redemption value than on the BA website. But be warned – you can spend hours doing this. Hours and hours and hours. And you’ll probably need pivot tables in Excel. (“You have, haven’t you? Go on, tell the class…”)
The tools I use most often: Skyscanner and Google Flights
Many people open the airline website, or visit just one flight search site, wince at the price, and close the tab. That’s not researching a flight, that’s messing about. And it shows a complete lack of dedication to the avgeek cause, and our lives have no space in them for people like that. Block and unfriend those people immediately.
For the rest of us normal people (“normal? NORMAL???) here’s my favourite places for finding those bargains in the pointy end.
Skyscanner
This is my go-to if I’m bored, or if I’m having a general potter about. For me, it’s more of a research tool that gives me an indication of costs & possible routings, rather than the place I actual book my flights. I can waste hours and hours on here.
If you’re flying like a regular person in economy, and your plans are flexible, Skyscanner has options for “everywhere” and “whole month”, so you can search for routes all over the place, or with no fixed dates. For premium economy and business class tickets though, you need to be much more exact.
Setting up alerts so you can keep an eye on a route/airline is also really easy. Just clicking on the little heart icon in the flight details screen will do it.
I also find that Skyscanner aggregates a really good spread of booking agents and airline websites, so it’s worth treating as a first pass to spot which airlines and routings are even in the right ballpark before you go anywhere near an actual booking.
But the thing I love most of all about Skyscanner is
Drumroll please (“honestly, you are SUCH a drama queen!”)
Price Drops
What are Price Drops on Skyscanner?
Skyscanner aggregates flights where there has been a recent price drop, and then presents them for you in one place in their app. You can then search and sort through what is basically the middle aisle at Lidl, but for flights. There are some gems in here! And if your itinerary is flexible, and you don’t mind going small-cabin baggage only with a budget airline (yes, many of the flights are with Ryanair, Easyjet and the like), you’re certain to find sone absolute bargains here.
Google Flights
This is my primary flight planning tool when I’ve got my ass in gear and pretty much know where/when I’m going.
This is because
- The date selector tool has really good indication of the cost of the flight, on each day (irrespective of the class of flight you’ve chosen)
- The results screen shows you the length of your layovers (Skyscanner just shows if it’s a long wait, not the actual hours. You need to click into the flight deets to see that. Ugh)
- Price tracking/alerts, Much like Skyscanner, you can set a route and cabin class, and it’ll email you when the price moves meaningfully in either direction.
- Price history graphs. Google shows you how the fare price on your selected route/airline has changed on a given route over recent months, with a rough “typical price” indicator. Will it tell you the future price? No, it won’t. But it will show whether today’s price is a bargain, and whether the route has particularly volatile pricing (and so help you decide when to buy your ticket).
One feature I do love about Google Flights is their Explore section. Explore is an interactive, map-based feature that will help you find flights and travel ideas when you do not have a specific destination (but a rough date) in mind. Including business class tix! There’s even a new AI-driven feature (currently in BETA and on mobile only, from what I can see) where you can pop in an idea (like “I want to do a return trip to the Far East in February, business class. Stopovers in the middle east only. Duration can be 7-10 days”)
Set the alert, then go and live your life
The trick with alerts isn’t checking them obsessively (this can fill your life with angst). Rather, set them early and specifically enough that you can keep an eye on them from time to time. For a long-haul business class trip, that means:
- Setting the alert as soon as you have a rough idea of when you want to go, ideally months out
- Being specific about the cabin class
- Setting more than one alert for a route, using multiple airlines/stopovers.
Business class fares don’t move in a smooth, predictable way. This is because of the economics of your route and airline (for instance, those with a lot of business travellers tend to start high and will usually just get higher as time goes by). And because many of these seats are sold on a changeable fare basis, they can spike and dip based on booking cancellations. Settting an alert can help your pick up any price drops.
Be willing to take connecting business class flights
Taking a flight with stop-overs can put people off, but not me. The best value in long-haul business class is almost never on the direct flight. There’s a couple of reasons for this:
- Point to point flights tend to have less competition so airlines can price accordingly
- They are often flown by national carriers, which if you’re going from say the UK to the Far East, pushes you towards 5-star, ultra-lux carriers
- They are used very heavily by business travellers, and are priced accordingly
- Airlines running large hub-and-spoke operations (eg Etihad, or nowadays Air India, or many airlines in China) often discount flights to encourage travellers to fill empty seats on their expensive London/Paris/Frankfurt/New York etc routes.
I have a few ground rules for this approach, so that my trip is sensible rather than masochistic:
- One stop, not two. A second connection rarely saves enough to be worth the extra 3+ hours sitting in an airport, however nice the lounge.
- Check the connection time properly. Anything under 90 minutes on an international transfer is asking for trouble. Delays on your first leg can mean you miss your connection, with knock-on impacts to your destination hotel or car hire plans. My upper limit is usually around four hours if I’m staying in-terminal.And if you’re layover is over-night, the yee-watering cost of that basic transit hotel/sleeping pod can make your flight choice less sensible
- A long layover isn’t always a loss. Some hub airports (Dubai or Abu Dhabi for instance) will allow you to break your journey and have a free/discounted night in a hotel, so you can make your stay over part of your holiday. But book early, because the hotel choices can be limited the later you leave this
- Check that the all sectors of your trip are actually in business class. Some airlines will put you on a sub-premium carrier for one leg, meaning you’ll inherit the restrictions (and lack of decent seating & hot nuts) of that carrier. (Yes, Air India. You! You and your sneaking Indigo internal connecting flights!)
Always watch the airline review videos before you book cheap business class flight
I always do this (“obsessively, some would say”). This is the step people often skip, but it’s the one that saves you from booking a “business class” seat that turns out to be an economy chair with a doily on the headrest and no aisle access. Ugh.
Business class products vary wildly between airlines, and even between different aircraft on the same airline. A carrier’s flagship A350 business seat can be a genuinely excellent flat bed, while their older 777s on the same route still run that ageing angled seat from more than a decade ago, with no seat-back screen. The only way to know which one you’re actually booking is to check a seat map site, then search for a review video of that specific aircraft and cabin, ideally from the last year or two, before you commit.
Look for:
- The actual seat and aisle access (does every seat have direct aisle access, or are some boxed in?)
- Whether the “flat bed” is actually flat, or flat-ish
- Food and service quality on that specific route (short regional hops within a long-haul network often get a stripped-down service)
Ten minutes of watching someone else’s flight is a small price to pay to avoid finding out the hard way at 35,000 feet.
Top tip: be very careful with middle eastern airlines “business class”.
- Qatar has once of the most varied fleets going, with the makeup of premium cabins varying wildly Also, just cause you booked a route with a Q Suite, don’t expect this to guarantee you a Q Suite. Being Qatar ed is real.
- Business class on an Emirates A380 can be very different to that an older Emirates 777 (with its 2-3-2 and dreaded middle seat). Emirates are retro-fitting their fleet, so worth checking seat map websites to confirm the config on your route.
- Gulf Air has a good value 787 long haul hard product, but their older regional narrow body business cabin has some of the most uncomfortable seats and awful food that I’ve ever had on a national carrier. They are starting to fly newer A320neos with lie flat seats, but not on every route out of Bahrain. Worth checking.