Well it’s valentines day and a number of airlines are offering restricted sales period  fares on the hope (but not requirement) that you will buy two of them!

The key thing is to check what airlines are offering for departures from their home market country – where their hubs are located, and from where they serve the greatest number of direct destinations. Iberia have some interesting ones.

From the UK, BA are offering flights to the stereo-typical valentines destinations (Paris etc), alongside plenty of other short-haul destinations. But they are also offering a Club World special to New York for £1414. (You must book today, depart by tomorrow and return by the 17th).

http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/destinations/holiday-types/romantic-getaways/valentines-breaks

Of course, if someone in France looked at their homepage on the BA website, they would just find London offered under as a valentines day promotion. No mention of special New York fares from London!

If we turn our attention to Iberia, someone accessing the Iberia website homepage for the UK will just find the offers they are running from the UK (and they have not even bothered to load a valentines day promo from London).

However if you look at the Iberia homepage for Spain, then they too have their valentines day offers loaded, with the fares are based upon departures from Madrid:

Various short-haul plus:

Economy One Way:
€209 (£171) Chicago, Guatemala, New York, Panama, San Salvador
€259 (£212) Rio de Janeiro, Sau Paulo
€309 (£253) Buenos Aires, Mexico City

Business Class Round Trip:
€499 (£409) London, Moscow
€1418 (£1,164) Chicago, Guatemala, New York, Panama, San Salvador
€1518 (£1,245) Rio de Janeiro, Sau Paulo
€1618 (£1,326) Buenos Aires, Mexico City

Iberia flights can be purchased up to Sunday 16th, travel period is until the 10th April.
For the destinations in the Americas there is an advance purchase requirement of 7 days and a minimum stay of sunday night.

None of these prices seem to allow Spanish regional or european short-haul connections. Valid on direct flights, including those operated by AA.

Economy class link: http://www.iberia.com/web/flightOffer.do?menuId=IBOFDT&cntCat=/OFERTAS&cntId=ES_SANVALENTIN_TURISTA&quadrigam=IBOFDT

Business Class link: http://www.iberia.com/web/flightOffer.do?menuId=IBOFDT&cntCat=/OFERTAS&cntId=ES_SANVALENTIN_BUSINESS&quadrigam=IBOFDT

I’m not an expert on South and Central American pricing, but some of those look interesting to me and I will be pricing them up as non-traditional TP runs with a chance to go somewhere new.

Finnair, AirBerlin and some other airlines are also running valentines day promotions, but nothing has jumped out yet. Again, I’d suggest checking their UK site (or for wherever you are based yourself) but ALSO check their site for their home market for more destinations. If their hubs are within BA short-haul range you can position yourself there for just the cost of Reward Flight Saver redemption!