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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.)

Comments (37)

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

  • n says:

    Turkish – can you work in a 24/48 hour stopover in Istanbul with these prices?

  • Matt says:

    If anyone wants to send me their Economist subscription I will be happy..

  • James67 says:

    Etihad also has offer with economist but only 2000/2500 EG miles. Anybody ever seen it go higher?

  • xcalx says:

    Looks like they’re also paying for comments, Mrs xcalx received an email this morning from rocket research

    Research Campaign – QUOTE 3606
    WHAT: Virgin Trains East Coast Travel (prev. known as East Coast)
    WHO: Men & Women who have travelled on the Virgin Trains East Coast within the last 2 months
    WHERE: Leeds, LS17
    WHEN: Mon 8th or Tues 9th June – Times dependent on answers – 2 hours
    MONEY: £60:00 including compulsory pre-task

    • Save East Coast Rewards says:

      Interesting. This is all the sort of research they should have done before making changes to the rewards scheme.

      My advice for them was to hold off making changes to the rewards scheme until they had a chance to contact the existing East Coast Rewards members.

  • Ant says:

    Off topic – Hilton reward cert – I just received mine and it shows expiry date 28 May 2016! I thought it was valid for 6 months. Not that I am complaining.

    Also do you think I can cancel the Hilton card or should I wait till I use the voucher? I am actually also considering if I want to try and hit the £10k spend for Gold.

    Thanks

    • Nick M says:

      Likewise – nice surprise to have the additional flexibility!

    • mark2 says:

      Just had a look and mine and my wife’s both had six months expiry, but since I used them within six hours I was not too concerned!

    • Rob says:

      Gold would last until March 17 so may be worth a push.

  • James67 says:

    Eastcoast, regardless of operator, has historically commited to many and varied promotions either themselves or in conjunction with various partners. I’m guessing they have only done so because it was necessary to generate passenger demand at times. Unfortunately, no such promotions since the takeover unless I’ve missed them. Seems like they are trying to emulate virgintrains with whom 0 failed to come across a single promogion between Glasgow or Carlisle and London in the seven years I used the service. Do you think eastcoast promotions are now gone or do you think they will continue to be a necessity for the new operators? I was also annoyed to go onto the eastcoast site recently to book my cheap three month advance first fares only to find they were all gone because the booking window had opened up to six months, would have been nice if they had publicjsed the fact. Thanks for your good work on behalf of us travellers.

  • xcalx says:

    Don’t know if its my end but I have just received this and the United lounge emails

    • Rob says:

      They went at the normal time – I saw them go as it was lunchtime here. There was a Twitter issue yesterday though.

      Running a site like this is basically whack-a-mole brought to life …..!

  • mark2 says:

    For anyone else whose Iberia Plus account is frozen so that Avios cannot be transferred, they have sent me this link – https://www.iberia.com/ibcomv3/content/EN/PDF/desbloqueopin.pdf
    It is a form to complete and return with copy of proof of identity. It is unclear where to send it so I sent them back to clasica@iberia.es.
    Just an acknowledgement so far but they are quite slow.

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

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