BRUSSELS AIRLINES announced today it will begin service between BRUSSELS and WASHINGTON DC beginning JUNE 18.

This new route will be flown 5 times a week and gives passengers another fantastic way to get to Europe. In addition, this provides Star Alliance passengers a rare (and easy!)new way to reach AFRICA from the USA thanks to BRUSSELS’ fantastic route network in Africa.

SN515 will depart Brussels at 5:30p and arrive in Washington DC at 8:15p
SN516 will depart Washington DC at 10:35p and arrive in Brussels at 12:10p

The flights will operate Wednesday through Sunday.

Currently BRUSSELS’ only US gateway is New York so this is indeed great news for USA based passengers and I LOVE the late departure from Brussels!!

brussels airlines announced today their plans to increase service to African destinations as well as plans to optimize current flight operations to Africa. These changes will begin to take place as early as February.

The biggest changes involve increased frequencies to existing destinations:

Dakar, Senegal will see daily service beginning with the Summer Timetable. Previously, Dakar was serviced 4 times a week.

Conakry, Guinea will see service increase from 2 times a week to 3 times a week. The flights will operate on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.

Cotonou, Benin will see service increase from 2 times a week to 3 times a week. The flights will operate on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Freetown, Sierra Leone will see service increase from 2 times a week to 4 times a week. The flights will operate on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

brussels has also worked with partner airlines Korongo Airlines and Senegal airlines to help brussels passengers reach additional destinations within Africa. In addition, these airlines will optimize their own timetables to help improve passenger connections to and from brussels’ flights. Some of the cities that will be involved in these improvements include Banjul, Ouagadougou, Lomé, Douala, Yaounde, Kinshasa, Luanda, Lubumbashu, Mbuji-Mayi and Johannesburg.

For more information on brussels airlines service to Africa, please visit their dedicated Africa webpage.

Brussels Airlines is currently having a fare sale on their Intra-European routes where you can find savings of up to 30%. The fare sale is in place until January 7. Travel must take place between 1 January and 30 April, 2013. Keep in mind that the discount applies to the base fare only. Taxes and fees are not “discountable”.

Destinations with 30% discount:

Berlin, Bologna, Bristol, Hamburg, Hannover, London, Lyon, Madrid, Marseille, Milan, Newcastle, Oslo, Prague, Stockholm, Toulouse, Turin, Venice, Vienna

Destinations with 20% discount:

Barcelona, Bilbao, Birmingham, Gothenburg, Rome

Destinations with 10% discount:

Basel, Budapest, Geneva, Lissabon, Malaga, Manchester, Moscow, Nice, Strasbourg, Vilnius

To take advantage of the offer, please visit Brussels Airlines’ Fare Sale webpage.

BRUSSELS AIRLINES has earned the reputation for thinking outside the box for its various marketing and social media efforts. I think they have some of the best campaigns and programs of any airline.

With that said, BRUSSELS has raised the bar this Holiday Season. To celebrate the season of giving, BRUSSELS turned to their unsuspecting passengers and provided them with fantastic Holiday cheer.

Last week, in Brussels’ airport, the airline placed a wrapped giftbox labeled with “b.gift” and “pick me up, I’m yours” gift tags onto a baggage carousel . The objective was to see which passengers would be tempted to pick up the “Present” while waiting for their luggage to arrive.

For those brave passengers that took the chance to pick up the package, they were quickly met by an airline associate who presented them with a real Christmas Present, 2 round-trip tickets on Brussels within their European network. How’s that for being in the spirit of the Holiday Season??? Well done Brussels Airlines! You do a lot that other airlines can learn from!!

For more information on Brussel’s b.gift fare sale, please click here.

Here is the video showing some of the lucky passengers who benefitted from this great promotion:

If you’ve run out of ideas for gifts for friends and family, Brussels Airlines may have a good option for you. Between now and 31 December, Brussels is running what I think is an interesting Holiday fare promotion that makes it easy to give the gift of travel.

b.gift fares allow you to buy airfare for up to 3 people who can travel together on the same ticket at the sames time. It’s a great way to give families and friends the ability to travel where they choose and on their own timeline. Its also a great opportunity for you to reward yourself and your family with a respite after a busy Holiday season. It’s also a fantastic way to help your loved ones come and visit you as well!

The b.gift fares are extremely attractive and cover all of Brussels’ European destinations, from Malaga to Vilnius and every point in between!

The b.fare pricing breakdown is as follows:

1 Person b.gift: €99
2 Person b.gift: €198
3 person b.gift: €297

The key part of these fares is that everyone named on the b.gift ticket has to travel together at the same time, on the same flights, to the same destination.

The b.gift promotion will continue until 31 December, so there is plenty of time to take advantage of it. The only requirements are that travel needs to be booked between December 26 and March 23 and travel must take place between 1 January and 31 March.

To take advantage of this Holiday Promotion, please visit the Brussels Airlines b.gift webpage.

BRUSSELS AIRLINES is holding a fare sale this week to 6 European destinations from it’s hub in Brussels. For €119 you can fly roundtrip from Brussels to London, Gothenburg, Edinburgh, Budapest,Stockholm or Berlin.

The Fare Sale is in place from 5 December to 9 December. The travel period for this fare sale is from 7 December to 22 December, a great time to take advantage of Christmas Markets!

In addition, you’ll earn double Miles&More miles if you fly to London or Edinburgh because Brussels is running a promotion that awards double miles for it’s UK destinations. You need to register for the bonus miles promotion in order receive the extra miles.

To take advantage of BRUSSEL’s Fare Sale, please visit their Fare Sale Page on Facebook.

BRUSSELS has revamped some of their Africa flight timetable which ultimately reflects changes to routings and the days of the week that certain flights operate. Most of these changes take effect at the end of February.

Brussels-Abidjan:

Flight SN245 – Originally this flight served Brussels-Monrovia-Abijan-Brussels. Effective February 25, This flight will serve Brussels-Abidjan-Lome_Brussels. This flight will operate on Wednesday and Sunday.

Flight SN255 – Originally this flight served Brussels-Abidjan-Monrovia. Effective February 25, This flight will serve Brussels-Ouagadougou-Abidjan. This flight will operate on Monday and Friday.

Brussels-Roberts(Liberia):

Flight SN221 – Effective February 25, this flight will serve Brussels-Banjul-Roberts(Liberia) 3 times per week.
Flight SN222 – Effective February 25, this flight will serve Roberts(Liberia)-Banjul-Brussels 3 times per week.

Flights SN221 and SN222 REPLACE SN215, SN217, SN219 and SN247.

Brussels-Dakar:

Flight SN205 – Effective February 25, this flight will serve Brussels-Dakar-Conakry. The flight will operate on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.
Flight SN206 – Effective February 25, this flight will serve Conakry-Dakar-Brussels. The flight will operate on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.

Flights SN205 and SN206 replace SN215 and SN217

Brussels-Dakar-Freetown:

Flight SN237 – Effective February 25 will serve Brussels-Dakar-Freetown. The flight will operate on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
Flight SN238 – Effective February 25 will serve Freetown-Dakar-Brussels. The flight will operate on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.

Flights SN237 and SN238 replace SN219

Brussels-Douala-Yaounde effective February 26 will be reduced from 4x/week to 3x/week.

Brussels-Kinshasa effective February 25 will increase from 5x/week to 6x/week.

Courtesy: AirlineRoute.net

BRUSSELS AIRLINES has gotten into the Holiday Spirit by introducing 2 fare sales that both offer 50% discounts for travel from Brussels to destinations through Europe. One of the fare sales celebrates the end of the year, while the other looks forward to 2013 travel.

For the 2012 “Year End” sale, fares have been discounted 50% for travel to selected European destinations:

Berlin, Bilbao, Birmingham, Bologna, Bristol, Budapest, Copenhagen, Geneva, Gothenburg, Hamburg, Hannover, London, Madrid, Manchester, Milan, Newcastle, Oslo, Prague, Rome, Stockholm, Toulouse, Turin, Venice, Vienna & Vilnius.

To take advantage of this fare sale, book your ticket by 3 DECEMBER and travel between 15 December and 31 March 2013.

For the 2013 “New Year” sale, fares have been discounted 50% for travel to ALL OF BRUSSELS’ European destinations:

Barcelona, Basel, Berlin, Bilbao, Birmingham, Bologna, Bristol, Budapest, Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Geneva, Gothenburg, Hamburg, Hannover, Lisbon, London, Lyon, Madrid, Malaga, Manchester, Marseille, Milan, Newcastle, Nice, Oslo, Prague, Rome, Stockholm, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Turin, Venice, Vienna & Vilnius

To take advantage of this fare sale, book your ticket by 3 DECEMBER and travel between 1 January and 31 March 2013.

TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF EITHER FARE SALE, PLEASE CLICK HERE TO BE TAKEN TO BRUSSELSAIRLINES.COM

BRUSSELS AIRLINES has launched a fantastic new contest on their Facebook page that will award 1 lucky winner a fantastic trip to New York City!! Included in the prize is Round Trip Airfare for 2 from Brussels to New York (JFK), 3 Nights at the Sofitel New York and €500 in spending money to help buy souvenirs!

The contest is easy to enter. First, visit Brussel Airlines’ Facebook Contest Page HERE. Once you provide your contact information, you’ll be taken to another screen where you’ll be asked answer a trivia question related to New York City (In my example, it was a question about the size of Central Park in hectares).

Once you answer that question you are taken to another screen to select a virtual gift box which contains a monetary amount good towards your “Virtual Trip Budget” amount. Select one of these boxes to see how much “Money” you’ve earned towards your budget.

The ultimate winner of this contest will be based on who has the largest “Virtual Trip Budget” budget at contest’s end. This makes it important to enter EVERYDAY since that will give you the best chance to win.

In addition to the fantastic Grand Prize, BRUSSELS AIRLINES will also be awarding great daily prizes. Each day during the contest, there will be 1 daily winner who will receive 2 Roundtrip tickets either to Barcelona, London, Berlin, Madrid or Milan.

This contest only runs this week and ends at Midnight (CEST) on 9 November!

GOOD LUCK!

A few details about the contest:

Entry period: 5 November to 9 November 2012 (Midnight CEST).
Travel Period (For Grand Prize and Daily Prize Winners): Travel must take place between 1 December 2012 and 30 June 2013. Keep in mind the following hotel black out dates: 04/12 to 09/12, 27/12 to 31/12 and 03/06 to 04/06.

Based on my interpretation of the rules, it seems that the contest is open to everyone, regardless of country of residence. Minors are eligible as well, provided that they have parental permission.

You can read all of the Terms and Conditions HERE.

Brussels Airlines has an ongoing promotion for anyone who signs up for a “MyBrusselsAirlines” account on BrusselAirlines.com. Signing up for the account subscribes you to their newsletter and to online tools to help you make or manage you bookings.

In addition, anyone who signs up for the account will receive a “Promotion Code” good for a 10% discount for travel within Europe or between Europe and Africa on Brussels Airlines. The the coupon code is also valid for flights to Tel Aviv and Moscow. Earlier this year, this offer was only valid for Intra-European travel and has since been expanded to cover Africa.

The discount applies only to the base fare (taxes and fees are not eligible for a discount). Nevertheless, the code can save you upwards of €80-€90 ($103-$116) off a ticket to Africa! The code is only applicable on b.light economy and regular economy round-trip tickets. Please be aware that the code is only valid on flights operated by Brussels Airlines. Codeshare flights with partner airlines are not eligible.

Signing up is easy. Just visit the MyBrusselsAirline sign-up page to register. You’ll get an email asking you to confirm your account. The link you receive in your email will take you to your “MyBrusselsAirlines” page where you’ll find a link to the 10% promo code. The confirmation page will include this window:

Once you click on the “Enjoy a 10% discount on your next flight” link you’ll be taken to another page that will have the following text along with your promo-code (the promo code would be below booking and travel period information):

We are happy you have chosen to fly with Brussels Airlines. As a welcome gift, we’re offering you a special discount* of 10% off your next return flight to any of our African or European destinations (+ Tel Aviv & Moscow). Simply enter your personal promocode when making a booking to receive your welcome discount!

Booking period: 01 October 2012 – 31 October 2012
Travel period: 01 November 2012 – 01 September 2013

I suspect that the booking window will soon be adjusted to reflect November, so you may want to wait until November to register.

Once you have your promo code and you want to search for a fare, simply check the box next to “I have a promotion code” and that will allow you enter your code which will then be reflected in the fare results:

With Brussels Airlines making it so easy to get a discount off of your next flight with them, there’s no reason not to take a few minutes and sign up for the offer!

Brussels Airlines is launching their newest route this weekend when they begin service between Brussels, Belgium and Edinburgh, Scotland. The route will be flown 6 times a week currently (everday except Saturday) and will increase to 2 times/day beginning with the summer timetable in April.

With the launch of this new destination, Brussels Airlines now serves 6 destinations in the UK. In addition to Edinburgh, they now fly to London(LHR), Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and Newcastle.

Flight detail:

Brussels-Edinburgh will be operated by SN2063 departing Brussels at 15:10 and arriving at 16:00.
Edinburgh-Brussels will be operated by SN2064 departing Edinburgh at 16:40 and arriving at 19:30.

A 2-class Airbus A319 (139 seats) will be used to fly this route. Fares for the route start as low as €99 for a b.light economy ticket.