Surprisingly, no alternatives (such as hiring coaches or even chartering an aircraft) have been put in place by Eurostar. Which leaves passengers to fend for themselves.

If you need to travel in the next few days consider the little-known United Airlines service which uses a wide-body Boeing 777 between Brussels and London Heathrow. Checking one-way prices on Expedia for Saturday 20th came back with £59 ex-BRU and £75 ex-LHR – far cheaper than any other airline.

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Let’s take another look at the airfare market ex-London to see where we can fly for £400 or less. The last time we did this in April ‘09 we could get pretty much anywhere except South America and Australaia. This year has seen some incredibly low fares – in early summer Singapore Airlines had sub-£400 fares to Australia and New Zealand.

Qantas and British Airways held a very limited “Ashes Cricket” sale in July with return flights from London to Sydney priced at an amazing £215 – flights sold out within minutes. The Middle East carriers have also had some consistently aggressive prices to Asia and Africa.

As of today what can we book for our £400??

North America

US Airways has some reasonable deals to New York (£283), Las Vegas (£327), Los Angeles (£349) and San Francisco (£354) bookable at Netflights.

Air Transat (operated by a Thomas Cook Airbus A330) can fly you from London Gatwick to Vancouver for just £298 return – out Sep 24th and back Oct 2nd. Air Transat flies to Toronto using an Airbus A310 from £258 around the same dates.

Middle East

Qatar Airways has offers to Dubai (£229), Abu Dhabi (£239) and Bahrain (£251). Book by August 15th for travel Aug 15th to Mar 25th 2010 with some blackout dates applying over Xmas / New Year.

Netflights has even cheaper Qatar flights available to Bahrain (£233) and Dubai (£210).

Africa

Swiss and Egyptair have flights to Cairo for £250 return. Qatar has sale offers to Johannesburg (£352) and Cape Town (£382) – whilst the Joburg flight can be purchased on netflights for £327.

Egyptair can get you to Khartoum for £328 whilst Iberia has a deal to Lagos for £394.

India

Some good return deals are available to Mumbai with Qatar (£264), Etihad (£269) and KLM (£272). Qatar also flies to Delhi for £273.

Asia

Etihad will fly you to Kuala Lumpur KUL for £369 via Abu Dhabi. Travelocity UK has Etihad fares to KUL for £364 and Bangkok for £354.

Air Asia X can get you from Stansted to Kuala Lumpur for a base fare as low as £248 for some dates in November. Don’t forget to add on £5 each way for 15kg checked luggage and £12.60 for all meals.

Qatar will take you to Hong Kong for £297 (£280 on netflights, who also have Qatar fares to Singapore for £390). From Hong Kong you could also get on a cheap Air Asia flight to KUL or Bangkok.

Air France can fly you to Shanghai for £384 and KLM to Beijing for £389.

Central/ South America

More difficult to find deals under £400 – however Lufthansa has a special offer from London to Mexico City (£339) and Caracas (£379) – these are £10 cheaper if departing Birmingham. Their London – Sao Paolo fare of £419 is just over budget! Depart Sep 1st to Oct 16th, return between Sep 8th and Jan 16th.

Australaisa

No sub-£400 schedule deals on the market at the moment. The cheapest fare is Royal Brunei’s £469 to Perth and £489 to Auckland. Note, these flights stop in Dubai for re-fuelling and then transit in Brunei.

However it is “theoretically” possible to use Air Asia X to get to Oz for under £400. The cheapest Kuala Lumpur – Perth flights is currently £109 return, added on to the £248 cheapest base London – KUL fare does come to £357. Because separate bookings are needed it is more difficult to co-ordinate the dates to find sale fares that match up. That said, KUL is a good stopover location with great value hotels.

Final tip, if booking with online agents do check the fare restrictions and compare them to buying direct with the airline.

There are some tremendous business class deals to be had from the UK this summer. With the airline industry having a tough time there are great offers on the market to entice flyers back to the premium cabins. Let’s take a look..

United Airlines is running a half-price business class sale ex-UK, bookable by 2nd June. Travel is between 11th July to 31st August – peak season when trans-Atlantic flights are normally at a premium.

Lowest prices from London are:

New York £795
Boston £845
Washington DC £845
Philadelphia £845
Atlanta £905
Miami £939
Las Vegas £1,109
Los Angeles £1,109
San Francisco £1,109
Seattle £1,165
Honolulu £1,309

British Airways is running another business class sale at the moment, running up to June 30th.

Club World offers (return) to North America from London:

New York £1,099
Boston £1,199
Miami £1,399
Toronto £1,499
Los Angeles £1,699

Travel 1st July all the way to 13th Dec.

Other offers worldwide available include Caribbean destinations for £1,319 return.

Note, BA are also targetting some members of their Executive Club with £200 off Club World bookings with promo code BAUK-VALUED which means flights to New York can be had for £899.

As usual Virgin Atlantic are matching or slightly undercutting many of BA’s Club fares. Upper Class flights to New York JFK are priced from £1,096.

American Airlines has the following business class offers from London:

New York £1,098
Boston £1,198
Orlando £1,311
Miami £1,398
Los Angeles £1,658

Book by 30th June, travel to 13th December.

Air Canada is also matching the BA/AA sale with the same booking and travel dates. Return prices from London to the US (via Canada) are:

New York £1,047
Boston £1,157
Orlando £1,293
Miami £1,383
San Francisco £1,633

Air France has business class fares from London, Manchester or Edinburgh to New York from £1,051. The flights are operated by partner Delta Airlines.

Swiss has some good business class offers worldwide from Birmingham, Manchester and London. Prices from Birmingham:

New York £1,054
Boston £1,204
Johannesburg £1,289
Sao Paolo £1,601

They also have intra-Europe business class deals, the best of which is London-Barcelona at £215.

Air New Zealand has business class flights to Los Angeles from £1,628 – travel to 13th Dec, book by end of June.

Emirates have some value business class fares out of Birmingham:

Cape Town £1,387
Hong Kong £1,376
Singapore £1,378
Christchurch £2,222
Sydney £2,261

Travel up to 9th December. Prices from London are £200-£500 higher.

Perhaps the best deal of the lot – you can currently fly from London to Melbourne or Sydney on Singapore Airlines in business class for under £2,000. This can include some legs outbound on the A380 – we found prices of £1,977 to MEL and £1,986 to SYD.

London Heathrow to Sydney: £1,702 business, £3,452 first

London Heathrow to Johannesburg: £1,239 business, £2,099 first

London Heathrow to Mumbai: £1,160 business, £2,210 first

New York to Abu Dhabi: $4,080 business, $6,110 first

New York to Johannesburg: $4,417 business, $6,357 first

Frankfurt to Sydney: €1,678 business, €3,678 first

Frankfurt to Johannesburg: €1,355 business, €2,605 first

Frankfurt to New Delhi: €1,340 business, €2,390 first

The Frankfurt – Sydney business class fare looks an excellent deal at under €1,700.

Etihad are also offering 2,500 bonus Guest miles for booking online. They are not part of the three major alliances.

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British Airways has a business class airfare sale until 27 Jan 09. Return prices in Club World on selected routes ex-London are New York £1,099, Mumbai £1,359, Dubai £1,459, Tokyo £1,999 (all 05 Feb 09 to 31 Mar 09), Barbados £1,319 (01 Mar 09 to 20 Mar 09), Jo’burg £1,999 (06 Feb 09 to 31 Mar 09), Sydney £2729 (15 Jul 09 to 31 Aug 09). Many other destinations are available. One-way upgrades to First start at £499.

Note, if you are registered with ba.com (it’s free), log in and get an additional £20 off per person on all long-haul economy and business sale fares.

Virgin Atlantic is matching its Upper Class fares with BA on routes they share.

Qatar Airways has a business class airfare sale until 31 Jan 09 for travel up to June. Fares from London include Dubai £1,179, Colombo £1,325, Jo’burg £1,609, Hong Kong £1,739 and Singapore £1,899.

Emirates has an interesting companion fare offer in business or first class which can be booked by 15 Feb 09, travel to the end of October. Use the promo code UKCOMP9. Fares per person are Dubai £1199, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Beijing and Shanghai all available for just under £1,400, Mauritius £1,389, Seychelles £1,474, Colombo and Male for £1,682. The stand-out fare looks like Cape Town or Jo’burg for £1,299, with first class for £2,271.

KLM has some good biz class fares ex-London for travel 9 Jan 09 to 30 Apr 09. Delhi £940, Dubai 1,085, Nairobi £1,371, Jo’burg £1,418 and Seoul £1,568. Similar fares available from regional UK.

With oil prices having come down but with the credit crunch still stifling premium demand now is a very good time to pick up a business class airfare deal for 2009.