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There’s been a little bit of a buzz today about two exciting sounding offers – one from Virgin Atlantic and one from British Airways – but are the promotions actually any good?

Virgin ‘Golden Ticket’

Virgin’s offer is for today only (21st Jan) and offers the chance to win ‘Golden Tickets’:

It’s bigger, it’s better, it’s golden-er. We’ve hidden our last batch of Premium Golden Ticket fares in our ordinary flight search for the splendiferous price of £1 (plus the normal taxes, fees, charges and carrier imposed surcharges). So you could be off on your next adventure for even less than you imagined.

Just go ahead and carry out a flight search in the normal way. You’ll need to choose both the correct outbound and inbound dates to be a lucky winner.

Many wonderful surprises await in Premium, including a glass of fizz-whizzing bubbly as you board, an extra comfy leather seat and delicious eatables served on china crockery with proper cutlery.

Good luck to you all, and happy hunting!

In other words, there are 30 return Premium Economy tickets hidden somewhere in the Virgin Atlantic booking matrix. If you can find the correct destination and dates, the headline cost is a £1. Unfortunately, you will still have to pay  “taxes, fees, charges and carrier imposed surcharges”, which means your £1 golden ticket will actually cost you £100s.

Score: 2/10. This is a genuinely rubbish promotion. Your chances of winning are tiny – there are only 30 tickets and finding the exact outbound and return date, as well as the destination, is tough. Even if you do ‘win’, you’ll have to pay £100s in taxes and fees.

I’ve given it an extra mark for presentation (because who doesn’t love the idea of winning a golden ticket!), but in terms of content, it’s awful.

British Airways 100 seats for £100 each way

As part of its 100th birthday celebrations, BA is offering 100 Economy seats for £100 each way (so £200 in total) every day between Mon 21st Jan and Thursday 24th Jan.

To get our centenary year under way, we’re offering you the chance to book a flight from just £100 each-way, as part of a return trip.

Two exciting destinations in the USA and beyond will be on offer at 12 midday every day from 21-24 January.

It’s first-come, first-served. We have limited availability of seats for each destination, so act fast.

Today’s tickets have been snapped up already and the destinations were Cape Town and New York. The rest of the tickets will be released at 12pm each day – keep an eye on BA’s social media for any teasers.

Score: 5/10. This isn’t a bad promotion. A total of 400 tickets are available, you don’t have to spend hours hunting them and the ticket genuinely costs £200.

On the other hand, it’s £200 for Economy, which to destinations like New York isn’t really all that extraordinary these days. As you can see below, even the promo page itself is advertising normal fares to the USA for under £300:

£200 is an incredible fare to some more expensive destinations though – it’s hard to find BA flights to Cape Town for much under £500 normally, for example, so the value of the promo really depends on what other destinations are included.

At the end of the day, it’s still long haul Economy though, so I’m struggling to give the promotion more than a 5.

What do you think about the 2 promotions? – Are my scores fair?