Bits: excellent Virgin East Coast sale, Heathrow Airport Parking sale, 3000 Avios with Rocketmiles

News in brief:

Virgin East Coast and its very impressive sale

A number of HfP readers have been in touch this week to highlight some of the good deals they had picked up in the Virgin Trains sale on the East Coast line.

The Superfly sale runs until 9pm tomorrow.  You can book for travel until 23rd March.

Prices are lower, apparently, than the last sale held under State ownership of the line.  London to Leeds starts at £5 each way, London to Newcastle is from £10 and London to Edinburgh from £15.

Heathrow Airport Parking launches a January sale

You can’t move for sale deals at the moment.  Even Heathrow Airport Parking has got in on the act.

If you book before 7th February, you can currently book the long stay car parks from £4.49 per day based on a 6+ day booking.  Meet & Greet is available from £8.49 per day based on a 7+ day booking.

More information can be found here.  The last day to park is 23rd March.

Don’t forget my ‘secret tips’ for easier or cheaper Heathrow parking – using JustPark or booking a ‘sleep and park’ deal at the Thistle and using the driverless pods to reach Terminal 5.

3,000 miles with your first Rocketmiles hotel booking

I mentioned hotel booking site Rocketmiles recently when I touched on their Thanksgiving promotion.  All of this week until today (and apologies for not running this deal earlier) you will earn 3,000 bonus airline miles if you are a new customer.

This includes British Airways Executive Club for Avios as well as various other airline schemes.

The 3,000 bonus miles is on top of the standard earnings from your booking.  Whilst you need to book today, the stay can be for a future date.

As with Kaligo.com and Pointshound, you need to be careful when you book as prices tend to jump around quite a bit.  If you can find a hotel which is priced very similar to what you would pay elsewhere, the bonus miles make it a bargain.

Remember that you will not receive points in any hotel loyalty scheme for your stay as these bookings are treated as non-qualifying.  You will also not receive a VAT receipt which may be an issue for small businesses booking a hotel inside the EU.

The booking page for the deal – which is only available to new customers – is here.

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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:

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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