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Bits: Luxury Travel Diary deals, bargain at the new IC Perth, Etihad business sale

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News in brief:

Luxury Travel Diary auctions ending soon

The Luxury Travel Diary site dropped us a line about a new wave of its auctions that are closing within the next 48 hours.

Most of the items offered tend to go for far less than the standard retail price. Included are hotel stays, travel equipment and various gift vouchers.

Interesting options closing either today or tomorrow include:

5 Nights At Jannah Resort & Villas Ras Al Khaimah, UAE

5 Nights At 5* Miraggio Thermal Spa Resort, Halkidiki, Greece

7 Nights In A 5-Star Chalet For 10 People In Chamonix France (not in main ski season)

4 Nights At InterContinental Mauritius Resort Balaclava Fort

3 Nights At Belmond Grand Hotel Europe, St Petersburg, Russia

It’s worth taking a look at the different auctions. Not everything will work for you, either in terms of location, length or dates, but you’ll probably find something of interest if you poke around as there are about 110 different items.

Bargains at the new InterContinental Perth City Centre

InterContinental is about to launch a new hotel in Perth, Australia.  It is currently due to open on 15th October.

The InterContinental Perth City Centre website is here.  It looks impressive.  The building used to be the Rydges Perth hotel but has had a top-to-toe refurbishment.  See the images above and below.

As often happens with IHG hotels, it is discounting reward nights whilst the hotel builds up occupancy.

You can currently book the InterContinental Perth for just 35,000 IHG Rewards Club points per night.

The cash price is around A$350 per night (£205) which makes this an excellent points redemption.  Even better, the 35,000 points rate is available for any night currently open for booking, even in 2018.  If you plan to visit Perth and have some IHG Rewards Club points it might be worth locking in a reward night now, as the price is likely to jump to 50,000 or 60,000 points per night when the hotel is open.

PS.  Anika will also be checking out the brand new InterContinental Ljubljana in a couple of weeks, so look out for that review.  The editorial budget won’t stretch to Perth unfortunately …..

Etihad launches a business class sale

Etihad has launched a business class sale – you must book by 27th September for travel by 30th November.

Regular readers will know that I rate Etihad highly, with the A380 Business Class studio (reviewed here) potentially being the best business class seat on the market.

Headline deals from London are (all flights are via Abu Dhabi):

  • Abu Dhabi £1613
  • Bangkok £1610
  • Kuala Lumpur £1811
  • Melbourne £3014
  • Mumbai £1711
  • Singapore £2060

Similar prices are available from Edinburgh and Manchester.

These are not ‘bargain basement’ fares but, given that you get to start in the UK and are flying a top quality product (at least from Heathrow with the A380) it is not a bad deal.

Full details of the business class sale are here.

How to earn Etihad Guest miles from UK credit cards

How to earn Etihad Guest miles from UK credit cards (April 2024)

Etihad Guest does not have a UK credit card.  However, you can earn Etihad Guest miles by converting Membership Rewards points earned from selected UK American Express cards.

Cards earning Membership Rewards points include:

Membership Rewards points convert at 1:1 into Etihad Guest miles which is an attractive rate.  The cards above all earn 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on your card, which converts to 1 Etihad Guest mile. The Gold card earns double points (2 per £1) on all flights you charge to it.

Category

Etihad and Etihad Guest, IHG One Rewards

Comments (44)

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

  • Ben says:
    25 Sep25 September 10:46

    I know there’s certain origin cities that consistently have cheap premium fares but BKK must be the world capital of cheap premium fares as a destination!

    • Talay says:
      25 Sep25 September 11:04

      Yes and no. On a mileage basis, I’m not sure Bangkok is routinely the cheapest but as a quasi Asian hub, it does have a lot of connections.

      Mentally, £1500 is very good, £1750 is usually ballpark and £2000 is high, based on ME3 (BA is crap 8 abreast) with Thai a little more (usually early £2000s) and Eva splitting the ME3 and Thai.

  • Ant says:
    25 Sep25 September 11:15

    OT: planning on getting flights in business to the Bahamas for next year using the 241. The taxes from London are coming to £630pp. Is there a cheaper option to reduce this? I tried online to look from Jersey but it comes back as “BA and its partners do not fly this route”

    Thanks

    • Rob says:
      25 Sep25 September 11:25

      Select ‘with stops’ and it will show from Jersey, but remember that you actually need to fly to Jersey in the first place with all your luggage. It only works if you live near Gatwick so you can do the Jersey flight the previous day, go home, get your stuff and then go back to the airport the next day. Note that the gap in London must be under 24 hours.

      • Talay says:
        26 Sep26 September 07:24

        Tried to reduce the taxes on BAPP using Jersey but it didn’t shave anything off a LHR-BKK routing. All stays less than 24 hours.

    • Anna says:
      25 Sep25 September 16:19

      The Bahamas flight goes from Heathrow. Depending on when you are travelling you may need to swoop at T-355 as it’s one of the routes where they seldom release more than 2 CW seats and the route is shared with the Cayman Islands so you effectively have 2 destinations vying for the redemption seats. I was lucky last year and got 2 x CW seats on that flight which we flew in last month, but in previous years they have been snapped up too quickly in school holiday periods.

    • Anna says:
      25 Sep25 September 16:23

      Also, if you start your flight in Jersey the previous day, you should be able to check your luggage all the way through – we did this at Manchester with an overnight stop in London and it was so much less hassle than collecting it and re-checking. This can only be done if the flights are on one booking reference, AND, in the case of Manchester, BA now racks up the “tax” element to about £100 for the privilege.

  • New Card says:
    25 Sep25 September 13:58

    OT – The application form for the Lloyds Avios Duo Rewards cards doesn’t ask for the applicant’s avios.com username or number. I understand that they generally try and match to an avios.com account by using the email address used for registration, but what if the applicant doesn’t already have an avios.com account (only a BAEC account) on that email address (or any other address)? The CC statement shows how many avios are earned, but there’s no way to access them?

    • Rob says:
      25 Sep25 September 14:12

      Lloyds will ask Avios to open an account. You then need to persuade Avios or Lloyds to give you the number and password.

      • New Card says:
        25 Sep25 September 14:17

        Thank you! We’ve used the “Forgot Password” on the avios.com site to try and get the username, but it says that no account is registered under that email address… so I guess either we’re trying to get into the account too soon (although it is now over a week since the first statement was generated) or the request to open the account may not have been made…

  • What's the Point says:
    25 Sep25 September 18:58

    I’ve booked 4 nights at the Perth IC for Nov on points, looks very good value. But I am keeping my Perth Hilton nights on hold, just in case the IC suffers any last minute opening delays.

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

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