Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: 2400 Avios on £39 printer, airberlin (BA) match, Iberia sale, Hilton Bournemouth

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News in brief:

Tesco glitch offering 2,400 Avios on a £39 laser printer

Over at Shopper Points today, I have covered a glitch on a £39 Brother laser printer.  Tesco is currently selling it with 1,000 Clubcard points instead of the advertised 500 – which means 2,400 Avios or 2,500 Virgin miles.

The glitch was working ok at 1am when I wrote this.

airberlin status match

airberlin status match (good for BA lounge access) now accepting US addresses

airberlin has been running a status match from other airline status cards for some time.

Unfortunately, it has been restricted to Swiss, German and Austrian addresses.  Even if you had a friend in those countries, it didn’t help much as the Swiss and German postal services only deliver to registered residents.

airberlin has now extended the match to US residents as you can see here.  This gives you some extra scope to use the details of a friend or relative.

airberlin is a partner of British Airways in the oneworld alliance.  This means that your airberlin status card will get you access to British Airways lounges and all of the other status perks they offer.

I wrote about the airberlin match in more detail here.  The online form is here. 

Iberia A330 350

Iberia sale from the UK

Iberia, BA’s sister airline, has some special fares from the UK at the moment.  These tickets will all earn Avios and British Airways tier points.

Short-haul, these cover Madrid (£96), Seville and Gran Canaria.  Long haul they have economy class deals to Cali, Medellin, Caracas, San Salvador, Guatemala and Luanda.

Full details can be found here.  You need to book by 26th January.  Travel dates vary by destination.

New Hilton Bournemouth now open

A couple of months ago I wrote about the new Hampton by Hilton in Bournemouth.  Its sister hotel, Hilton Bournemouth, is also now open.

A HfP reader was one of the first people to stay.  He describes it as ‘4.5 stars, very modern, funky, a two-minute walk to the pier’.  (A different HfP reader who has also been said ‘funky but functional’ – the rooms are apparently not luxurious.)  There is an executive lounge, probably the only one in Bournemouth, and a ‘sky bar’.  There is also a small indoor pool.

If you have some Hilton points to burn it may be worth a look for a short break next Summer.  It is 50,000 points per night – if this seems high, it is actually in line with what I would have expected given the £161 price per night for a June weekend I looked at.  A refundable room is £215 per night.  The hotel website is here.

How to earn Hilton Honors points and status from UK credit cards

How to earn Hilton Honors points and status from UK credit cards (April 2024)

There are various ways of earning Hilton Honors points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

Do you know that holders of The Platinum Card from American Express receive FREE Hilton Honors Gold status for as long as they hold the card?  It also comes with Marriott Bonvoy Gold, Radisson Rewards Premium and MeliaRewards Gold status.  We reviewed American Express Platinum in detail here and you can apply here.

The Platinum Card from American Express

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

Did you know that the Virgin Atlantic credit cards are a great way of earning Hilton Honors points? Two Virgin Points can be converted into three Hilton Honors points. The Virgin Atlantic cards are the only Visa or Mastercard products in the UK which can indirectly earn Hilton Honors points. You can apply here.

You can also earn Hilton Honors points indirectly with:

and for small business owners:

The conversion rate from American Express to Hilton points is 1:2.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which can be used to earn Hilton Honors points. 

(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.)

Category

Hilton Honors, Iberia and Iberia Plus, oneworld alliance partners

Comments (68)

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

  • Liz says:
    2 Jan2 January 09:00

    OT: How do you get back the pro rata refund on an Amex card if you have cleared the balance and transferred out the points in readiness to cancel?

    • Andrew says:
      2 Jan2 January 09:10

      Just call to cancel, once this goes through it will trigger a credit balance on the account which you can have then send you as a cheque.

    • Tilly71 says:
      2 Jan2 January 09:11

      Just call them up for the refund.

    • James67 says:
      2 Jan2 January 09:15

      You don’t need to do anything, they just refund it.

      • Liz says:
        2 Jan2 January 09:18

        I meant how would they refund it ie. a cheque (as suggested) or would they credit onto another account? Thanks.

        • Alex says:
          2 Jan2 January 09:23

          They are happy to transfer to another Amex card

        • harry says:
          2 Jan2 January 09:24

          You do actually have to ask for it, otherwise they keep it in the form of a positive balance on your a/c

          • Liz says:
            2 Jan2 January 09:32

            OK thanks – also is there normally a delay from the SPG points leaving your Amex account and arriving in your SPG account. My 22000 points have zeroed in my Amex account but not appeared in my SPG account. When I applied it wouldn’t let me enter my SPG number but I got it added later – but maybe another account was allocated? Or should I just wait a few days!

          • Jason says:
            2 Jan2 January 09:56

            Just wait a few days, it’s like the BA card and they arrive a couple of days later, maybe a bit longer with bank holidays. But Amex IT seems to have been updating on Christmas Day etc 🙂

          • Rob says:
            2 Jan2 January 11:13

            Always give it 4-5 days

  • Tilly71 says:
    2 Jan2 January 09:09

    Nice to see the link back to Shopper Points for the Clubcard promo article.

    • harry says:
      2 Jan2 January 09:39

      On the subject of shopping, don’t forget to trigger the £10 off £100 @ Argos before it expires, they have some nice duvets reduced + a generous returns policy 🙂

      • mark2 says:
        2 Jan2 January 10:16

        They usually sell gift cards too, although an eclectic selection.

  • Alex W says:
    2 Jan2 January 11:03

    Does the printer come with the cartridges that get green clubcard points for recycling them?

    • harry says:
      2 Jan2 January 12:56

      I thought that died a death (ink recycling for points)?

      I must say I haven’t bothered for a couple of years.

      • Tilly71 says:
        2 Jan2 January 15:30

        They keep changing the inks accepted for points and many get rejected or claimed not received. If you do ink recycling for points, send in a max of 5 at a time, they do not credit points anymore if they think your abusing the scheme.

  • Ian W says:
    2 Jan2 January 11:11

    Is anyone else struggling to update their address on AirBerlin? I make the changes and press ‘save’ but every time I leave the page and return to it the old details are still there.

    • daryl says:
      2 Jan2 January 12:03

      Same here, tried Firefox and IE, both will not save any profile change whatsoever.
      Anyone had any luck with this, if so what did you do and which web browser did you use?

  • harry says:
    2 Jan2 January 13:10

    O/T Whammo! Got 3 emergency exit seats for tommoz incl 2 windows, I could have nabbed 4 windows in EE but for some strange reasons my wife likes to sit with my daughter (who’s too young for EE) & the boys like to sit together.

    Some of these tickets were HBO but I could still choose seats for everybody. [I did link our bookings Avios RFS + HBO bookings.]

    Which BA say is not possible.

    Anybody care to elucidate?

  • Krys_k says:
    2 Jan2 January 18:09

    OT (and I may post this again as I think it’s worth knowing and it will get lost in this posting)… I almost lost out on the last J fare from LAX to LHR in the second week of November (attending a conference, so perhaps others in the Avios know are too, hence no tickets) because I didn’t have enough avios in my avios.com household account and couldn’t transfer from BA Exec or Iberia account because the avios was household (I’m lost as to why that should make a difference). Anyway, searching the net suggested that you cant transfer into a household account. So I called up Avios and they actioned the transfer. So there’s the workaround. You’ll be happy to know that I bagged that last seat!

    • Rob says:
      2 Jan2 January 18:26

      Avios HH accounts do not belong to an individual which is why you cannot transfer in or out.

    • harry says:
      2 Jan2 January 18:27

      I did hear before that a helpful person can get around the Household rules in a flash – but you need to speak to them in person.

    • TimS says:
      2 Jan2 January 18:33

      The BAEC “household account” is actually an umbrella of various individual accounts. eg 2 numbered accounts for Mr J Smith & Mrs A Smith

      The Avios.com household account is a single new account created thatpools previously separate individual accounts. eg 1 numbered account for The Smiths.

      Esentially, as the names are not the same you can’t transfer between the two “household” accounts as they are done differently.

      • Krys_k says:
        2 Jan2 January 18:51

        But my point is that you can get around these rules and ive done just that today and transfered 40k avios from exec HH to Avios HH by phoning up. It’s a useful workaround

        • Liz says:
          2 Jan2 January 20:25

          I’ve transferred from BAEC household to Avios household before – if you call them they effectively set you with a new individual account while you are on the phone then they move the points from there into your household account. That’s how they work round it. You just can’t do it via Combine My Avios.

  • Andrew H says:
    2 Jan2 January 18:31

    O/T, if anyone still needs an AwardWallet upgrade code (and you shouldn’t after the hundreds that have been posted over the last few days), I have three left:

    free-vivbhb

  • Ant says:
    2 Jan2 January 19:23

    This might be a very silly question but i cannot figure out where i can change my address on Topbonus for Airberlin. I can’t find my profile details. Any suggestions pls?

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