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TAP Portugal is currently offering some ridiculously low Business Class fares from London to Brazil – starting at just £532 return.

Before getting into the details, I need to be extremely clear that this is a ‘high risk’ travel option for all sorts of reasons. Even without COVID, it’s a bit complicated to book. Whether travel to the countries involved at the times required is remotely sensible (or even possible) depends a lot on how successful the vaccine programmes are.

To be honest, I wasn’t even entirely sure whether to share this or not, but, if everything did work out (and you are personally comfortable with the various risks), then it’s an incredible deal.

Details

The first flight has to be taken before the end of May, which is surely too soon for travel to Brazil to make any sense. So, the trick is to use the ‘multi-city’ search option to select a flight from London to Lisbon in May (which may or may not be possible, but is more likely than Brazil), and then the main flights from Lisbon to Brazil and all the way back to London in, say, November:

Note carefully that the first flight (to Lisbon in May) DOES have to be flown, or the rest of the ticket would be cancelled. You would, of course, therefore have to book separate tickets to get you back from Lisbon in May, and to Lisbon in November.

When searching, watch out for any options at the top of the results where some of the flights are listed as “Discount” – those flights are in Economy! You need to make sure that all flights listed on the itinerary are described as “Executive”:

You can shave a few more quid off by booking via online travel agencies, but with a complicated and high risk booking like this, I would strongly suggest that you book direct with the airline.

Bottom line

This isn’t something I’m personally tempted to book. I suspect international travel later this year will continue to face restrictions, particularly to countries like Brazil that have been very badly affected by COVID-19. However, if you really do need to travel and are prepared to accept TAP’s rather mean re-booking/cancellation terms, you are unlikely to find a better value way to get there.

Hat-tip Luxury Flying Club