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.

The PREM+ offer looks excellent value – this is a superior product to BA’s long-haul World Traveller Plus which has 38″ pitch. (It would not be surprising if BA upgraded their WT+ cabins to something more like PREM+…)

If flying NY to Amsterdam the PREM+ fare is $1,000 return.

The PREM+ fares earn 125% miles with BA Executive Club. In comparison you could fly Amsterdam-New York on KLM economy class (31″ pitch) for €498 and earn a ‘whopping’ 25% Flying Blue miles.

Loads on OpenSkies have been poor – so you are almost guaranteed a quiet cabin – and BA has cancelled any expansion of the service for the time being. Having only 1 daily flight from Amsterdam to JFK is limiting to some business passengers. But at this price it must be worth a shot…

Book the PREM+ fare by Feb 28 2009 for outbound travel by May 31 2009.

The BIZ fare is bookable to Feb 09 2009 for return travel by Apr 30 2009.

Further afield, London to New York, Orlando and Tampa in Club World is available for £1,199 all-in return. The New York flights can be used for travel from 20th November to 31st March. Other North American destinations are priced up to £1,849 return. Upgrades to First Class cost £499 each way.

Other interesting Club World sale fares: Delhi and Mumbai at £1,379, Caribbean from £1,379, Tokyo and Hong Kong for £1,999.

The sale can be booked up to 25th November.

British Airways currently has a worldwide sale on. Club Class flights for London to New York JFK can be found from £1,322 (ex- Gatwick) and £1,329 (ex- Heathrow). These can be booked by 23rd September for travel between 16th December 2008 and 5th January 2009.

Virgin Atlantic have almost the same deal going – Upper Class from £1,332 from London Heathrow to New York JFK and Newark. Same travel dates as BA, also bookable by 23rd September.

Alternatively, Air France / Delta have business class prices at under £1,300 for London – NYC. We also found a £1,123 price on an Expedia special fare.

Icelandair fly London to NYC (via Reykjavik KEF) from around £1,170 in business class.

OpenSkies has linked up with all-biz L’Avion (code-sharing agreement) in order to go head-to-head against Air France at its home base. Business Class airfares on OpenSkies are available from €2,300 whilst economy fares can be found under €600.

However the real business class airfare action is happening on London – New York route. Checking prices for returns in July we see some fantastic deals available.

Air France-KLM / Delta seem to have the lowest fares (some direct flights, others via Paris) and are priced at under £1,000 / $2,000 which is excellent value (the lowest was actually £917 direct operated by Delta)

But we also found flights from Continental, British Airways, American Airlines and KLM for under £1,100 and Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic for under £1,200.

So despite record high oil prices these business class airfares are very competitive.