Bits: 3000 American Airlines miles at Ramada / Days Inn hotels, Cathay launches at Gatwick

News in brief:

3,000 American Airlines miles per Ramada or Days Inn stay

I don’t cover Wyndham Rewards, the loyalty scheme for Ramada and Days Inn, much on HfP.  I did write this overview here if you want to learn more.

Despite this, there are a fair number of Ramada and Days Inn hotels across the UK and many are pretty cheap.

Outside the South East, sub-£30 prices at Days Inn hotels on off-peak dates can be found.  This makes this promotion interesting.

Wyndham will give you 3,000 bonus American Airlines miles, on top of your base miles, for your next five stays at any Wyndham hotel.

This means that you can earn a maximum of 15,000 bonus AA miles.

There are no minimum stay requirements.  You have until 29th February to book and until 7th March to complete your stay.

Even better, according to the small print, you can get credit for up to three rooms per stay.  You could book three rooms at the same cheap Days Inn, check in for all three and get bonus miles for them all.

At a suitably cheap hotel (eg daysinn.co.uk has Days Inn Chesterfield is £21.25 on 20th December) you would be paying around 0.6p per AA mile.  Not bad!

You can register for the promotion here – don’t forget to set your Wyndham Rewards account to ‘earning AA miles’ as well.

Cathay Pacific launches Gatwick to Hong Kong

Cathay Pacific has announced a new ‘four flights a week’ service to Hong Kong from Gatwick.  This is in addition to the existing services from Heathrow and Manchester.  From September 2016, it will mean Cathay is operating 43 weekly flights from the UK.

Cathay will be using a brand new Airbus A350 on the route, configured with Business Class, Premium Economy and Economy.  You can find out more on the Cathay website.

As a oneworld alliance member, you can redeem Avios points on this route.  Availability should be pretty good as Cathay is known for being generous in opening up space on non-prime routes.

Remember that BA charges ‘peak day’ pricing every day for partner airlines, which means you will need fewer Avios if you book the British Airways service on an off-peak day.  For peak day travel, however, I don’t see why you would bother with BA unless you had an British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher to burn.  Cathay is generally seen as a superior airline in every respect.

If you live outside London, it is worth looking at redeeming on Cathay services from mainland Europe – assuming you can connect from your local airport – due to the HUGE tax savings.  Here is an example on the Dusseldorf service.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (May 2025)

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

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.