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Bits: bonus on BA/AA transatlantic, Hotels.com sale, United ‘buy miles’ bonus, Nectar Hive

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News in brief:

American Airlines transatlantic bonus – includes BA flights

American Airlines has launched a bonus for flying between the UK and the USA, Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo on either AA or BA.

Until April 27th, you will receive 1,000 bonus miles for each full-fare economy return flight,  5,000 miles for each round-trip business class flight and 7,000 miles for each return first class flight.

To get the bonus, you must credit your flights to American Airlines AAdvantage and not British Airways Executive Club.  If you have BA status, remember that you will lose your tier bonus if you credit to AA which will wipe out much of the benefit.

Full details can be found here.  You need to register via that page to receive the bonus.

American AA 350

United Airlines offering ‘buy miles’ bonus of up to 50%

If you have a United Airlines balance that you want to top up, the airline is running a new promotion with a bonus of ‘up to 50%’.

The size of the bonus is a random thing rather than based on how many you buy – you need to visit the United ‘buy miles’ site here to see what you get.  The offer runs to March 23rd.

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Nectar Hive closed

I wrote about Nectar Hive in November.  It was a way of ‘saving’ your Nectar points and earning interest on the balance.  Unfortunately, Nectar has decided that the Hive was not such a great idea and has decided to scrap it after a trial.

If you took part, your points will be moved back to your main Nectar account.  People seem to be receiving three months of interest as compensation for the closure.

Comments (20)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Stuart McIntyre says:

    Isn’t BA doing their version of the bonus miles deal?

    http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/offers/bonus-avios

    1,000 miles (for an economy ticket) wouldn’t get you far, but as a free bonus…

    • Rob says:

      Yes, it seems it is. For some reason I wasn’t sent this and it wasn’t in any of the BA trade emails I get. Will run it soon.

  • oyster says:

    Raffles, on the subject of Nectar, wasn’t there an opportunity to get 0.75% value for them using train rewards? Did anything come of that?

    • Rob says:

      You can do it now, redeem for Virgin East Coast vouchers. However, they continue to insist in the small print that the evouchers can only be used for Virgin East Coast Advanced tickets. I don’t know anyone who has tried to disprove this yet.

  • jonboy says:

    I must get an email a week with a hotels .com “sale” yawn.

  • Henry says:

    Any idea when the Hive closed and whether those of us who, ahem, transferred in our points without an invitation will get them back automatically?

    • Alan says:

      I think it’s just been in the last day or so and I’ll certainly be complaining if it doesn’t happen!

    • Fenny says:

      From the Hive site

      “Thank you for visiting the Nectar Hive, the Hive has now closed.
      The Nectar Hive was a time limited trial which has now come to an end.
      If you had points deposited in the Hive, these are being transferred back into your main Nectar account. Please look out for an email updating you on the changes. For more information please visit the FAQs”

      Doesn’t say when and I’ve got about £30 of points in there that I currently can’t access. Not that I particularly need to, as there’s not much to use them for.

    • d4ve says:

      I didn’t get an invite but lodged points. I received an email yesterday saying they would be returned in a day or two.

    • Henry says:

      Just to follow up to my note – I got my points credited back overnight without having to do anything.

      • Alan says:

        Yes, mine have now credited back too going by my overall balance, although there’s no specific transaction entry for them that I can see.

        My residual EC Rewards points converted within 24h to Nectar and are across too – now got £38 worth to spend!

        Also received 740 bonus from British Gas on 150 accrued, not quite sure what the promo was but not complaining!

  • Rob says:

    That’s why it only gets two lines!

  • Rob says:

    Off topic but I was wondering if anyone could confirm that an Amex currency purchase, if bought using an Amex card, still shows up as a purchase? Looking to take advantage of the favorable Euro rate. Thanks!

  • Ben E says:

    I had a hilarious panic a few months ago when the wife noted that our nectar account was empty. I’d forgotten about nectar hive and after worriedly hunting through my statement, rang up Nectar to report that someone had hacked my account and transferred all of my points to Hive the energy company! Thankfully we still had the points and they were merrily earning interest. And I started taking memory medication. Or did I? I think I might have started…

  • John says:

    Ben E: same here! I looked in the nectar app and it said I had some piddly low amount and had completely forgotten that I had transferred them to Hive, thinking someone had stolen my points! Thankfully I remembered before I got round to calling them!

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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