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Book £750 business class flights to Bangkok

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News in brief:

£750 business class tickets to Bangkok

I have devoted quiet a bit of coverage recently to exceptionally cheap Qatar Airways flights to Asia from Europe, often sub £800.  There is nothing available at the moment, however.

Turkish Airlines has stepped into the breach.

For trips completed by December 15th, for departures from Copenhagen, Stockholm or Oslo, you can fly to Bangkok in business class for as little as £750 return.

Turkish Airlines is working hard at the moment to keep up with the Middle East ‘big three’.  Their lounges in Istanbul are meant to be excellent and I have heard good things about their onboard service.  Turkish is a member of Star Alliance so you would earn miles in Miles & More, MileagePlus or a similar programme.

Note that the first leg may be on a short-haul plane, albeit that it is only a three hour flight.  You should also check which planes are used on the long-haul leg and exactly what business class seating you should expect.

In my price tests, Stockholm to Bangkok was coming up as £758.  Copenhagen was £897 and Oslo £822.

The best thing to do is have a play around on the Turkish Airlines website here and see what comes up.

These fares are meant to be available for booking until June 21st.

Turkish Airlines 777 seating

East Coast Rewards points can now be converted to Virgin Flying Club miles

I am pleased to say that Virgin East Coast is now allowing you to redeem your remaining East Coast Rewards points for Virgin Flying Club miles.

As I wrote recently, I recently redeemed most of my points for two First Class train tickets but had 36 points left over.  I was faced with redeeming these for (36 x 6 =) 216 Nectar points, worth £1.08.

I can now transfer them to Virgin Flying Club where I can hopefully get double the value.

Obviously in my case the extra value is minimal.  If you have larger balances – or, more relevantly, don’t want a Nectar account – Virgin Flying Club now offers a decent alternative to empty out your balance.

More details are on the Virgin East Coast website here.

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (April 2024)

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

You can choose from two official Virgin Atlantic credit cards (apply here, the Reward+ card has a bonus of 18,000 Virgin Points and the free card has a bonus of 3,000 Virgin Points):

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

3,000 bonus points, no fee and 1 point for every £1 you spend Read our full review

You can also earn Virgin Points from various American Express cards – and these have sign-up bonuses too.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for a year and comes with 20,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 20,000 Virgin Points.

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 comes with 40,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 40,000 Virgin Points.

The Platinum Card from American Express

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

Small business owners should consider the two American Express Business cards. Points convert at 1:1 into Virgin Points.

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 Virgin Points. 

(Want to earn more Virgin Points?  Click here to see our recent articles on Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club and click here for our home page with the latest news on earning and spending other airline and hotel points.)

Category

Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (37)

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

  • Waribai says:
    28 May28 May 06:25

    Thanks for this tip. Yesterday when I looked, HKG was also working out at similar prices but well into next year so you could travel until February. HKG obviously been ideal for a Virgin return or onward oneworld connections. This was all on ITA matrix though so you need to play around a little

  • Nick M says:
    28 May28 May 06:25

    If ordering an electronic subscription to a different country, can you still use a UK billing address?

    • Rob says:
      28 May28 May 06:42

      Should work fine. Amex does not check billing country anyway so you can put any country down and use your UK card number.

      • Nick M says:
        28 May28 May 08:47

        Excellent, thanks!

        Re: Supercard – I received mine a couple of weeks ago, will try a €10 atm withdrawal in a couple of weeks and see what happens

  • Fenny says:
    28 May28 May 06:29

    If anyone wants a Canadian address to subscribe from, my friend will be happy to read the mag for you! I just cancelled my last subscription.

  • Steve says:
    28 May28 May 07:47

    Economist 12,000 Avios – checking the link it seems that 12,000 is offered for all countries, including Thailand (print+digital; 9,000 for print only / digital only). However, the cost for Thailand is USD300 (approx GBP195). Some countries / currencies are more expensive e.g. China is CNY2400 (approx GBP250). However, Malaysia is cheaper at MYR780 (approx GBP140). There may be others.

    • Paul says:
      28 May28 May 07:54

      …and I just signed up for the 8,000 offer (guess I must have been the only one!). I’ll see if they will do the decent thing…

    • Graeme says:
      28 May28 May 10:42

      I think people found Canada to be cheapest before.

  • Simon says:
    28 May28 May 07:57

    Off Topic – but has anyone received their Supercard from Travelex yet?? I had a confirmation email from them. Then an email to remind me I hadn’t added any credit cards to my account yet. But still no hard card has arrived in the post…….

    • Stuart Fortune says:
      28 May28 May 08:14

      No card here yet. They are active on Twitter saying the cards are going out now. https://twitter.com/supercarduk/status/603595145791995904

    • Leo says:
      28 May28 May 08:18

      Plenty of similar comments already on HFP threads this week. You are not alone.

      • James67 says:
        28 May28 May 13:08

        Saw response from yoj and Mark the other day Leo, thanks. Still waiting for mine and really hoping for it next week before Im away for a month or they will likely cancel it due to my failure to activate. According to MSE they are being sent out in order people successfully registered.

  • Idrive says:
    28 May28 May 08:25

    Hi! Asia in business is something i am looking at in this very moment but fr January. has anyone recently glown TIrkish business? If i am not mistaken it should have no flat bed. I want another BA from Germany mega deal as last month

    • Jac says:
      28 May28 May 10:32

      I flew last month with TK.
      I was expecting flat bed (that’s what I had last time) but last minute plane change meant I got sloping bed (quite uncomfortable) and broken IFE. I contacted customer service and complained .their reply was that they investigated my claim and we’re pleased to inform me that the IFE was now repaired…

  • Steve says:
    28 May28 May 08:31

    The Iberia webpage you linked to regarding the Economist offer states “for new subscribers only”. Does this mean that you cannot get the points if you have EVER had a subscription before? Or does it just refer to current subscriptions? My subscription lapsed in the last few weeks, and this offer may be enough for me to subscribe again, but only if I’m eligible for points.

    • Rob says:
      28 May28 May 09:34

      No idea, to be honest. Perhaps send it your work address for a few weeks so they don’t notice?

  • Scott says:
    28 May28 May 09:07

    I’ve just transferred my remaining 40 points from the old East Coast scheme to Virgin miles. 240 helps keep my account alive a bit longer (only got 1200+ and they expire in Feb 2016 – not sure what happened to the miles I should have earned back in March from a Newcastle to Doncaster first class ticket as they haven’t appeared)

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

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