Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: the £79 Tesco printer, Qatar Airways 2-4-1 sale, Emirates status match, M&C hotel sale

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News in brief:

Did you buy the £79 printer with 3,500 Clubcard points?

A fortnight ago I ran a great Tesco Clubcard offer.  If you paid £79 for an Epson XP322 printer, you received 3,500 bonus Clubcard points, worth 8,400 Avios.

Tesco has now reduced the price of the printer to £49 as you can see here.

The great news is that Tesco Direct has an unofficial (but widely discussed online) price protection guarantee.  If you buy something and it falls in price within 28 days, you can ring up and request the difference.

A HFP reader did just that and £30 was immediately refunded to his credit card!  This means that, even if he gives his printer away, he will have received 8,400 Avios for just £49.  You may wish to try the same.

Qatar Airways 2-4-1 sale out of the UK

Qatar Airways is currently running one of its occasional 2-4-1 business class sales out of the UK.  Full details are here.

These prices are considerably worse than some of the ex-Europe tickets we saw last week.  We are talking about £1,700 to Bangkok compared to the £800 being charged out of Copenhagen recently  However, for anyone who is more flexible on price and less keen to travel to Europe to start their trip, there might be something here.  £2,500 to Australia per person is not a bad deal when starting in the UK.

Note that availability on A380 services from London is very restricted, so try to get the Boeing 787 services instead as the second best option.  You can also book from Manchester, Edinburgh and – for flights from March – Birmingham.

Book here by 22nd November for travel before 7th July.

Qatar A350

Emirates Skywards status match

It is very rare to see Emirates offering a status match.  There is one currently running but you will need to have an address in France in order to take part.

The offer is a little confusing.  It appears that you need to hold a current top-tier card from another airline, such as British Airways Gold.  Whether you receive Gold or Platinum status will depend on an examination by Emirates of your recent travel patterns which must include substantial travel on routes flown by Emirates.

However, as Emirates is only asking for a scan of your current frequent flyer membership card, it isn’t clear how they intend to achieve this!

Emirates is not part of a major alliance, so you are only likely to benefit from a match if you fly Emirates in Economy on a regular basis and would benefit from lounge access.

Full details can be found here.  The offer ends on 30th November.  Thanks to Benedict.

Emirates A380

Millennium & Copthorne hotel sale

Finally, Millennium & Copthorne is running a short flash sale offering a headline 40% off their standard room rates at all of their UK and European hotels.

The real discount is not 40%, because that is based on the standard flexible price.  These sale rooms are non-refundable and so you should compare them to the usual Advanced Purchase rate.  You should still see a decent saving nevertheless.

You need to book by 22nd November for stays until 31st March 2016.  The sale home page is here.

Hotel offers update – April 2024:

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

Want to buy hotel points?

  • Hilton Honors is offering a 100% bonus when you buy points by 14th May 2024. Click here.
Category

Emirates and Emirates Skywards, Qatar Airways and Privilege Club, Tesco Clubcard

Comments (142)

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

  • MrCinnamon says:
    14 Nov14 November 23:07

    I am sure they will not remove the bonus points from customers after refunding the price difference. If they do that is tantamount to Tesco admiting that the £30 price differential was the cost to the purchaser for the additional Clubcard points. And that by definition would not make them bonus points but cash-bought points.

  • Brian says:
    15 Nov15 November 01:05

    Hi, what Tesco telephone number have been people been using to get the refund? Thanks

  • James67 says:
    15 Nov15 November 09:21

    Thanks Rob, got my £30 back and with hindsight wish I had bought a few more. However, happy the way it turned out on the one printer which I needed anyway. I doubt tesco will be too distressed about this, they will probably continue to ‘sell’ points but will learn their lesson and take care in future not to reduce prices within 28 days.

    • harry says:
      15 Nov15 November 10:53

      Maybe – it does make the points opps on various items more fun, though. Ie, say it’s 2500 points on a tablet but the price is a bit high vs the market. You buy it on the last day of the promotion then sit back & wait for the price to drop. You have 28 days for this to happen, if it doesn’t, change your mind & take it back; if it does, claim the difference & get your money back – the refund should cover your costs (ie fees & P&P).

      Hey presto, Avios for free

      • James67 says:
        15 Nov15 November 13:36

        Always get a laugh on HFP at peoples exploits in an effort to exploit such promotions. The 3V cards, and £5 dvd preorders with up to 1000 bonus points were priceless. We got a few iterations of the latter before tesco got fedup with it but after the printers I’m sure they will learn quickly because their CS seem to have been on the receiving end of a deluge. Just sorry I missed out on all the fun in the very early days of clubcard.

  • harry says:
    15 Nov15 November 10:06

    O/T HT to SF
    error fares from Spain https://www.kayak.co.uk/flights/BCN-KUL/2016-01-25/2016-02-06
    eg econ BCN-KUL £240 rtn, BCN-Singapore £228 rtn etc

    • Polly says:
      16 Nov16 November 00:36

      Honestly Harry, how do you get this info! You are a pure mine of info! Do you actually work for a living!!!!! That’s a a fab price….James67, maybe this works in reverse for you, you are always hunting down these fares….

  • Paras Mamania says:
    15 Nov15 November 10:11

    @Raffles – many thanks! got the 30 pound refund from Tesco. no questions asked.

  • 3CT says:
    15 Nov15 November 10:56

    Many thanks. £30 refund processed efficiently and with no grief.

    • 3CT says:
      15 Nov15 November 21:40

      Interesting. I rang at 1005 this morning and no a mention of losing the 3500 bonus points.

      We’ll see. But if they disapear in the next week, Tesco will be getting a printer back.

  • Brian says:
    15 Nov15 November 11:11

    called Tesco and refudnd rejected unless they took back the 3,500 points. Instructions in a note from manageemnt this morning. Anyone else getting this? Thanks

    • harry says:
      15 Nov15 November 11:12

      Sounds like it’s for real as we heard it from several sources, let’s hope they don’t make it retrospective.

      • Brian says:
        15 Nov15 November 11:20

        I didn’t even have to mention I calling about the printer, seriosuly. I said I was phoning about a product that went down in price. Immediately she said is it the Epson XP322 printer. Then she started to read some instructions on her screen. Sounds like this issue has caused quite a stooshie!!

  • Brian says:
    15 Nov15 November 11:21

    Sorry also to add, she said she wouldn;t be surprised if the points were taken back retrospectively as the policy is not to benefit from both “bonuses” e.g. points and price going down. However they could be on shaky ground I would say with that one if not informed the person at time.

    • harry says:
      15 Nov15 November 11:34

      So shaky that I doubt it will happen. The points were an incentive to buy, a contract was formed when we bought & the item was delivered. They subsequently made a voluntary partial refund because of their price promise. End of.

    • MrCinnamon says:
      15 Nov15 November 12:28

      I agree with harry. As I said above, the bonus Clubcard points came with the printer and to drop the price and take back the bonus points is clearly acknowledging the price was raised by £30 to cover the cost of the bonus points. I doubt it states anywhere in the Price promise guarantee that bonus points will be reclaimed. They could justifiable retrieve 30 Clubcard points for the cost of the printer after refunding the £30 but not the 3500 bonus points.

      If they do I suspect they may have a major “headache” with all the people who wish to return the printer and have a full refund.

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