Important dates for your diary – year-end edition

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• May says:

  27 Dec27 December 06:40

  Thanks for the info on status match with Alitalia. Had my silver BAEC matched to their frecia alta a few weeks ago.

  • Lady London says:

    27 Dec27 December 20:15

    I was a bit surprised. My A3 Gold was only matched to Freccia Alata.

    I had been expecting they would match this to Freccia Alata Plus. Was I wrong to expect this?

    I could book 4 longhauls out of Italy next year to destinations served by Alitalia. I was kind of looking forward to that. I would need to use certain features of Gold on most of my longhauls (short hauls I could care less). It’s a pity to get a status match I really won’t be using though. Freccia Alata does not seem to have Gold features? I sent them a polite note back asking if they would consider a match to Plus instead, but haven’t heard.

• Stu R says:

  27 Dec27 December 08:04

  Earn double miles on all Heathrow Rewards Points to Avios transfers before 31 December 2015!

• Jay says:

  27 Dec27 December 08:31

  Just clicked on the Alitalia link on the previous article. Seems that the status match is now running until end of Jan 2016

  • Rob says:

    27 Dec27 December 09:05

    Thanks, didn’t spot that. Must only have been changed in recent days.

    • Jay says:

      27 Dec27 December 11:56

      Do you think a status match to ethiad gold would work?

• xcalx says:

  27 Dec27 December 08:56

  Gold Circle points from the 2013 competition Raffles wrote about expire on 31st December.

  I have exchanged the 1000 points (on a couple of accounts) for US $100 F and B voucher valid for 6 months. The only restriction is that you have to choose the hotel you want to redeem the voucher at.

  It looks like the vouchers can be used by anyone.
  “To share, simply provide your nominees with the Non-room Award redemption confirmation e-mail to validate the award and exchange for a GC redemption voucher at the selected hotel’s Business Centre.”

  I have a spare GC account with 400 points (US $40) in, so only good for instant dining awards until the 31st, if anyone can make use of it it yours, it can be used via the digital membership card or the QR of that account.

  Not sure if Raffles allows email addresses here if not PM me at FT same name for the account details.

• AndyGWP says:

  27 Dec27 December 09:12

  Has the status matched to BA silver, but then gained an unexpected few hundred TPs that pushed me to Gold

  Currently trying an Alitalia re-match… Ignored my first email (tho it was a bad picture of Gold card), so recently re-sent it with a better pic. Will let you know how it goes! 🙂

  • AndyGWP says:

    27 Dec27 December 09:14

    “Had the status match to BA silver”….

• Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

  27 Dec27 December 09:30

  31st is the last day to clear out any Red Spotted Hanky points that people might have from the promos.

  • harry says:

    27 Dec27 December 10:04

    Yes & no – I’ve also got some long-dated ones 2020. Can I do anything worthwhile with about a tenner’s worth of expiring ones?

  • harry says:

    27 Dec27 December 10:10

    Thanks, though, I have got a few strange points knocking about, not sure where they came from but you can just convert into a rail voucher presumably with a decent validity date.

    I never fail to think RSH navigation is awful, but if you persevere you get there in the end

• avidsaver says:

  27 Dec27 December 10:52

  Does anyone know how long it takes for Heathrow Rewards to transfer to BA Exec or Virgin Flying Club?

  • Liz says:

    27 Dec27 December 13:26

    Mine transferred the following day to BAEC – but it will probably be a bit longer with the Xmas hols.

    • avidsaver says:

      27 Dec27 December 14:41

      Thanks Liz.

• harry says:

  27 Dec27 December 13:00

  ***REALLY IMPORTANT DATE FOR PARENTS WITH KIDS IN SCHOOL***
  ***T-355 DAYS – YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED***
  2016 is a leap year, so Xmas holidays jump 2 days. My schools’ authority will start Xmas holidays on Saturday, December 17, 2016. I’m under strict instructions not to pinch any days now they’re in secondary school. So if I pinch the 16th December (which I’m hoping SWMBO won’t care about), then I need to book RFS flights TONIGHT @ midnight or so. [Shame as 15th December has all 4 seats on 3 different flights still available, but I guess I can live with that as 16th December is 1 day earlier out to our place abroad than this year lol. Unfortunately goes from off-peak to peak on 15th Dec but can’t be helped.]

  Anybody else going to grab the RFS flights with perfect timing whilst we can?

  • harry says:

    27 Dec27 December 13:18

    7,500 Avios
    + £17.50 Reward Flight Saver = £92.5

    List of other price options
    6,000 Avios + £15 or (= £92.5)
    5,300 Avios + £20 or (= £90.50)
    4,500 Avios + £25 or (= £87.50)
    3,800 Avios + £30 or (= £85.50)
    2,500 Avios + £40 (= £82.50)

    For a 1p/ Avios valuation, difference would be lower if you valued Avios @ (say) 0.7p.

    I guess it comes down to Avios-rich or not, what I think I acquired them for etc. Can’t really argue with 1p on some as I paid that @ Iberia, then again I also paid 0.75p @ Iberia.

    BA clearly want my cash 🙂

    • harry says:

      27 Dec27 December 15:09

      Note to self: check the cash prices, last time the HBOs were much cheaper @ midnight, which sort of defeats the object of this collecting hobby, but don’t ignore the obvious, old son.

      • harry says:

        27 Dec27 December 15:11

        And what’s the difference between Avios + money
        and
        Money + Avios?

        • harry says:

          27 Dec27 December 15:21

          Right so HBO = £82 but I can see

          5625 Avios = £37 off
          3750 = £25 off
          2250 = £15 off
          750 = £5 off

          so all a bit rubbish – at a glance 0.67p

        • harry says:

          27 Dec27 December 15:25

          But you earn some paltry Avios, maybe 250 on RFS economy

        • harry says:

          27 Dec27 December 15:30

          So actually the best deal of these Money + Avios is:
          the Money + 750 Avios = £5 off + c.250 Avios earned, that’s the one I’ll check against avios.com, whereas don’t forget at Xmas the luggage allowance is worth having at least x2

      • Lady London says:

        27 Dec27 December 20:26

        @harry I was doing these same calculations yesterday! Defo not worth giving BA back any Avios at the rates offered on Avios+Money.

        What I did miss, was how much cheaper Easyjet, Ryanair, jet2 were for my trip. I went ahead and booked an RFS with Avios+£17.50 anyway. Then I realised yesterday evening that I had better review my current avoidance of Easyjet in particular. For close enough to the same route Easyjet is offering a fare whose cost was under half my valuation of the RFS cost. (Avios+£17.50)

        Now that Avios are harder to earn for some of us, even the cost of RFS might be able to be bettered occasionally by some of the low-cost airlines.

        • harry says:

          27 Dec27 December 20:53

          Certainly not enchanted except that I do manage to get them (BA) sub-0.75p on average (well below that). Unfortunately for us, the best alternatives are Wizz & Ryanair, both nearly as inconvenient, Wizz can be cheaper at cheapest but both Wizz & Ryanair work out more with luggage, don’t care about snacks.

        • harry says:

          28 Dec28 December 16:45

          Looks like I did OK with my 4 RFS (16/12/2016) flights at midnight UK – I’d nodded off to that comedy girl on BBC but woke up at 2 minutes past 1 local so was OK, I went for highest cash + lowest Avios in the end (10,000), 4 tickets cost £330 so not quite as cheap as no-frills – but then again, we have got 4 x 23kgs plus snacks, Coke for kids & booze for dad lol

          Same tickets currently priced @ £480 but we’re a few hours later, obviously I ate up the RFS 4 & a few other people will have been booking early.

          Anyway, can anybody explain if/when HBO get to choose seats in advance these days? BA site says ‘never’. We had a couple of HBOs 10 days ago and I could choose seats at check in, 24 hours ahead of flight. Is it maybe because I got the HBO seats so long ago & the rules have changed? Or because I linked the HBO seats & Avios seats together, so that we’d all (potentially, ie on BA’s seat allocation) sit with my 10YO ‘child’ (as opposed to with my 12 & 14 YO ‘adults’ lol)?

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