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Get 30% to 50% off some avios.com ‘non flight’ redemptions

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News in brief:

Hilton status matches working OK

I wrote about Hilton HHonors offering to match your status in another existing hotel programme last week.

The good news is that Hilton is now processing the matches successfully.  I sent in a screenshot of my IHG Spire Elite status and my account was upgrading to Diamond.  This is the first time that I have ever had top tier Hilton status, albeit that the extra benefits over Gold are not huge.

The main one, apart from better upgrades, is guaranteed club lounge access.  Click here to see Hilton status benefits in full.

I also sent over my wife’s Accor Platinum status.  This account shows no stay activity.  She got a slightly bizarre response that said a) she could have a match if she verified the telephone number on her account (?) and then said b) she can’t have a match but if she sent a statement showing stay activity with a competitor she would get a ‘fast track’ offer.  I have no interest in a Fast Track challenge for her – I may well wait until nearer the 11th January deadline for matches and simply re-apply.

Hyatt, on the other hand, has had an about-turn on its own status match.  After offering Diamond to anyone who showed top tier status with a competitor, they are now restricting it to SPG Platinum members only.  Everyone else will only receive Hyatt Platinum which only requires five stays to earn anyway – the list of Hyatt Platinum benefits is here.

Hyatt hasn’t even processed this for me yet, despite sending me an acknowledgement of receiving my match request.  This will cost them some business as I would have moved my upcoming Istanbul trip to the Park Hyatt if I had been able to use a guaranteed Diamond suite upgrade.

Get 30% to 50% off some avios.com ‘non flight’ redemptions

If you move your Avios points from British Airways Executive Club to avios.com, using ‘Combine My Avios‘, you can advantage of some interesting non-flight bargains.

Full details are here.

There are some wine selections reduced by 30%, quite a few ‘experience’ or ‘pampering day’ vouchers and a few annual memberships.  These include the RHS, English Heritage, Tastecard, the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust and the National Trust for Scotland.

The biggest discounts are on spa days, helicopter rides, indoor karting, indoor skydiving and supercar driving, all reduced by roughly 50%.

These offers run to 14th December.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

Hilton Honors

Comments (97)

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

  • Rda says:
    6 Dec6 December 08:48

    I went from ihg platinum elite to Hilton diamond. Very surprised!

  • Andy says:
    6 Dec6 December 08:51

    Hi all. I got confirmation of a diamond match from Hilton to ihg spire, they wrote backasking me to confirm my hh points balance for verification purposes so am waiting for the status to switch to daimond now.
    Hyatt matched me with gold passport diamond a week or 2 back, on the basis of my Hilton Gold with stay history which had some cities where they have hotels.

  • John says:
    6 Dec6 December 08:55

    I sent a screen shot of my Accor Platinum with a couple of Sofitel stays and 6 Ibis stays and got HHonours Diamond from Silver. and it took about a week.

  • James says:
    6 Dec6 December 09:00

    Slightly bitter about Hilton after doing the over the top diamond challenge this year 😛

  • Fenny says:
    6 Dec6 December 09:20

    Just sent my Accor Platinum details with a couple of stays earlier in the year. Will see what happens.

  • Sebastian says:
    6 Dec6 December 10:01

    Hmmmm, I am getting the feeling Hilton are going to change the benefits of their status. My guess is that Diamond stays the same and Gold gets hammered.

    • mark2 says:
      6 Dec6 December 11:03

      I agree; it seems that Diamond is the new Gold.
      With all these new Diamond people (including me) I would think that it is going to be difficult to get an upgrade as Gold.

      • Alan says:
        6 Dec6 December 12:53

        Although Gold was already pretty saturated with credit card deals in the USA and they had Diamond as an option after sufficient spend too so I don’t know if it’ll make that much difference.

        Had great treatment in general in Oz as Accor Plat (relatively few Hiltons here, lots of Accor) – wasn’t going to retain my status but my HHonors Diamond has been extended to March 2017 thanks to Accor Plat so double win there!

  • Marlene says:
    6 Dec6 December 10:19

    Rob, I got diamond status but when I got into the HH page, it says that in 2016 I will go back to blue as I didn’t complete enough stay to retain diamond…Maybe we shall all waited until January to do it? Thanks

    • mark2 says:
      6 Dec6 December 10:51

      Mine does too, but the email explicitly states Diamond until 31/03/2017

  • Geoggy says:
    6 Dec6 December 10:25

    This is a bit hit and miss as Rob points out.

    I am HH gold (until end of this month) from a challenge I never passed but they never changed my status.

    My wife is Silver from when she had the HH Visa.

    Also we have a Dubai trip next March and I took a punt and booked it in my wife’s name staying at the Waldorf on the palm.

    Sent both of our Accor Plat screenshots.

    My wife was status matched to Diamond.

    I got rejected and asked to provide 12 months stay evidence.

    I just replied with sane screenshots and added some screenshots of my IHG Plat account which has got some IC stays on it. I replied 3 days ago and yet to get a response.

    It really doesn’t matter as I am a leisure traveller and rarely go anywhere without my wife, so we are good with HH for a while.

    I am actually excited to see if we get a good upgrade in Dubai and if they allow us to stay in the same room as we have some paid nights up front and then 2 nights on the HH Visa free night certs – one is in my name hence why being at least gold would have been good.

    • Danksy says:
      6 Dec6 December 10:58

      We’ve just come back from the cavalieri in Rome… We had (as gold) dedicated VIP checkin , room upgrade free drink vouchers and free spa access. With diamond they offered subbed access (but it was too cold to sunbathe anyway). Would be interested what they offer you guys in Dubai!

      • Geoggy says:
        7 Dec7 December 11:19

        Well as a follow up to my post above I woke up this morning to a nice surprise.

        My diamond email. So I’m not sure if it was matched against Accor Plat or IHG Plat.

        Either way I’m happy and will start looking at using Hilton for some weekend stuff

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