Bits: HEx and Airbnb cashback deals, buy Etihad miles, AA Heathrow slots
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News in brief:
£10 back on £50 Heathrow Express spend and 2% back on Airbnb
A new cashback deal has appeared on many American Express accounts offering £10 back on £50 Heathrow Express spend.
It isn’t clear if this is cumulative. These deals often pay out for cumulative spend but the rules are not clear on this occasion. To see if you are targetted, look in the ‘Offers’ section on your online American Express account.
Remember that Heathrow Express is better value than it was due to the new Advanced Purchase fares and the fact that children travel free. Full details of how to get the best Heathrow Express deals are in this article. If you are paying full price for tickets, make sure you book via this link to earn Avios points on top. The deal runs to 23rd July.
Airbnb has launched a similar deal although it is less generous.
Assuming that you can register for the offer on your account, you will see that you get 2% cashback on all Airbnb transactions until 19th July. This would stack with the free £30 Airbnb credit that you can get by using our refer-a-friend link here.
You can now buy Etihad miles
Etihad Guest has introduced the ability to buy miles.
The cost is a flat 2 US cents per mile. The annual cap is 100,000 miles with a maximum single transaction of 60,000 miles.
This gives you another option if you are looking to accumulate enough miles to try out the A380 Business Class Studio (review) or First Class Apartment (review).
With Etihad currently offering 15,000 miles on its free credit card and also being an Amex Membership Rewards transfer partner (the free Amex Gold would get you 20,000 Etihad miles), there is an opportunity to run up some miles fairly quickly.
Remember, though, that you should not buy more than 75% of the miles you need. Etihad has a very generous ‘part cash part miles’ option and will sell you the final 25% you need for just over 0.5p per mile, as I explained here.
American Airlines behind SAS’s slot sale
Via Business Traveller, American Airlines has confirmed that it was behind the $75m purchase of two Heathrow slot pairs recently.
The seller was Scandinavian airline SAS. The airline has retained the right to use the slots for three years so it may be some time before AA launches any additional services.
Given the BA / AA / Finnair / Iberia joint venture with governs transatlantic flights, this is a slightly surprising purchase. Any revenue that AA earns from these new flights will be shared with IAG and Finnair which must have made the economics of the purchase look tricky.
Meanwhile, I would expect that Etihad remains on the lookout for a way of boosting its three existing Heathrow services, and it remains possible that Emirates would be interested in slots to move over its Gatwick services to pick up more high margin premium traffic.
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