Bits: Element in Amsterdam open, warning on Emirates Membership Rewards conversions

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• Mycity says:

  9 Feb9 February 07:36

  Hi, I need to top my miles account up, I have an MBNA Emirates Elite card which give 25% off the cost, I can’t see anywhere on Emirates re this when looking to purchase, is it just taken off by MBNA or is there a special link to buy miles with to give the discount?

  Thanks

  • Rob says:

    9 Feb9 February 08:35

    Honestly don’t know, never heard of anyone using this benefit before.

    • Tom C says:

      9 Feb9 February 13:04

      When you go to buy the miles, it should display the card you want to use and if you select MBNA Emirates then it reduces the price

      • mycity says:

        9 Feb9 February 15:39

        Hi Tom C
        just looked and your correct, I was looking on my Ipad which didn’t bring it up, and my computer its a clear as day

        Thanks

• Amtexfly says:

  9 Feb9 February 08:31

  How great will the ME3 be when their FF scheme catches up with the competitive pricing and excellent product.

  • Rob says:

    9 Feb9 February 08:34

    It used to be competitive – then it got worse. Emirates has really been chiselling away at it. However, since Avios devalued, Skywards looks a lot better. Saver reward in Business on an A380, with chauffeur service, is only 90k return. Avios return on a peak day is 120k with no chauffeur, no A380, no onboard bar and worse seat (and worse IFE).

  • Yuff says:

    9 Feb9 February 09:21

    Qatar doesn’t need a decent FF scheme with their fantastic sales.
    Etihad’s scheme isn’t too far off Emirates in terms of cost.
    Not flown Emirates, for a long time, but the high taxes put me off.
    Luckily I haven’t done any transfers, to my Emirates account, so can’t fall foul of this rule atm 🙂

    • Iain says:

      9 Feb9 February 09:32

      I’ve had same problem. Both wife and I have platinum, I can transfer but not wife. I wonder if it is because she is named on mine.
      Word of warning. Looking for seats using expertflyer beware that seats may appear as available but may not be as traveller may not have checked in. Seats only become unavailable at that point. I got caught out trying to book GLASGOW Dubai on Emirates.
      Iain

      • CV3V says:

        9 Feb9 February 10:24

        Expertflyer only shows seat reservations, it doesn’t give an indication of the number of seats booked in a cabin, an error I have made in the past thinking my cabin looks almost empty and then getting on a fully booked flight! At least with Emirates you can make a seat reservation at time of booking (or whenever you want) for free unlike BA. I have often changed seat reservations based on all sorts of factors, when in economy it was based on being as close as possible to the door to then be at the front of the stampede for security. Also, whence in Economy if you make up a suitable excuse (e.g. short connection time) the crew will give you a fast track pass for security if its available at your arriving airport.

        The constant devaluation of Skywards versus the ease of earning Avios means Emirates are now ditched – I will have to go without the bling bling of their business class cabin and accept the ‘solid’ BA Club World cabin! Also if paying cash, then Qatar is only a short drive over to EDI and will earn avios. Will be interesting to see if the MAS codeshare, which is supposed to be a widespread agreement, will allow me to book a GLA Emirates flight on the MAS website and allow me to earn avios, that would give another option for earning avios!

• Ben E says:

  9 Feb9 February 10:15

  Funnily enough I managed to recently transfer membership rewards from my wife’s account into my delta account. Went through immediately, and I was able to book a flight around 20 minutes after conceiving the crazy concept

  • Rob says:

    9 Feb9 February 10:31

    Some partners do not match names. I have done Carlson and Nectar from my wife (diff surname) in the past.

    • Genghis says:

      9 Feb9 February 11:12

      It also seems to work with Iberia as by mistake I put my wife’s Iberia number in on my MR account when transferring and avios appeared in her account.

  • ankomonkey says:

    9 Feb9 February 14:56

    Hilton/Amex let me transfer from wife’s MR account to my HHonors.

• Charlie T. says:

  9 Feb9 February 11:30

  OT, but this is Bits after all.
  Has anyone seen this?
  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-09/british-airways-enters-ryanair-s-back-yard-with-stansted-flights

• Kevin Fisher says:

  9 Feb9 February 12:08

  More about BA and the proposed Stansted flights reported in the attached c/o The Telegraph.

  Interesting to read there will be no charge for seat selection.

  They are clearly looking to compete head on with the LC carriers.

  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/12147808/British-Airways-to-fly-from-Stansted-for-the-first-time.html

  • The_Real_A says:

    9 Feb9 February 12:14

    A positioning flight from LCY to STN on a friday night would be very welcome 🙂

    • Mark says:

      9 Feb9 February 16:14

      Quicker by bus ?!

  • harry says:

    9 Feb9 February 17:45

    That simply looks like a reporter’s mistake / failure to understand the press release – but I guess worth checking. Article actually says no charge for seat selection 24 hrs before the flight – same as LHR departures. The bit about no £14 seat selection charge is probably incorrect.

    And I bet HBO from Stansted won’t offer free seat selection at all.

    • harry says:

      9 Feb9 February 18:09

      http://mediacentre.britishairways.com/pressrelease/details/86/2016-72/5629

      yep reporter needs a big kick up the behind for lazy reporting.

      BA won’t change its pricing structure on elements such as seat selection, HBO etc just because it has started flying from STN

• Dale says:

  9 Feb9 February 12:09

  OT but I noticed today that a Kimpton hotel popped up on a search for Miami beach in October – it wasn’t there yesterday!!

  Unfortunately it doesn’t look like it’s available for IHG rewards redemptions as there’s a redirect to Kimptons own scheme.

• The_Real_A says:

  9 Feb9 February 12:15

  Looks a great redemption options for Amsterdam. Will probably book this for my upcoming trip. Thanks Rob.

• Craig says:

  9 Feb9 February 15:55

  Yes, I’m one of those unfortunate people.
  I held an Amex Gold card a couple of years ago and collected points and transfered points without any problems to Hilton, Virgin and Emirates.
  I applied for a new Amex Gold in October 2015 and spent thousands on it as I knew I would be travelling with Emirates and would be upgrading from economy to business.
  Unfortunately when I accumulated enough points I tried to transfer the points from Amex without success.
  The points would leave my Amex account but never arrive in my Emirates account.
  This was tried about four times and eventually Amex would just put the points back in to my account.
  On numerous occasions I spoke with Amex who told me that they just needed to de-link my old Amex gold card from my Emirates.
  I have tried transferring points over to Hilton and Virgin without any problem, so the problem is only with Emirates!
  Again after numerous calls Amex never managed to de-link my old Amex card with my Emirates account, then they told me that this was a new problem and that they could not rectify it.
  Amex tell me that I could open a new Skywards account with Emirates and then link my old Skywards with my new Skywards and then I could start transferring points, but I have never clarified this with Emirates.
  I already have my Skywards account linked with MBNA Emirates Amex so didn’t want to confuse matters.
  I complained to Amex who tell me that they are now going to change their terms & conditions to reflect this new information stating if you have had a previous Amex card then you will not be able to transfer points over to Emirates.
  I have since wrote to the Ombudsman and am awaiting a response as Amex never had this in their T&C’s when I applied for the card.

  • Tom C says:

    9 Feb9 February 16:39

    Good luck, Craig. I’m in the exact same situation and am currently waiting for Emirates to come back to me and confirm what they are willing to do in order to help fix this.

    • Craig says:

      9 Feb9 February 16:56

      Tom C – Have Amex offered any compensation and have you also wrote to the Ombudsman?

      • Tom C says:

        9 Feb9 February 17:25

        You’re a bit further along in the process than me. I phoned AMEX yesterday evening and they said they sent a letter out saying it could not be done and I would need to setup a new Emirates Skywards account. As Emirates have been pretty good at coming back to me, I was waiting for them to confirm whether they can do anything at their end. I suspect not, in which case I’ll take the same action you have. I have 100k of miles with Skywards currently, so unless Emirates offer to just transfer everything to a new account for free, then I’ll definitely kick up a storm.

  • Tom C says:

    14 Feb14 February 16:49

    Craig, I’ve had success today and finally got this resolved, all done via Emirates finally having come back to me and unlinking the account at their end! Have just spoken to AMEX and transferred 70k miles through to my existing Emirates account and I can see the miles there.

    If you want to chat about this extra and or/need any help, please ask Rob for my contact details (I don’t want to post them publicly) and I’ll be happy to talk to you more in detail.

    P.S. Woman I spoke to at AMEX said she had worked there almost 10 years, never had this issue, but it’s suddenly appeared in the last few months with Emirates and Nectar.

    • Craig says:

      17 Feb17 February 22:48

      Tom C. Thanks for the advice. I have already got the Ombudsman involved now as both emirates and Amex said nothing could be done. I’ll wait and see what they come back with. It’s more of an inconvenience for me as I wanted use skywards for upgrades but couldnt due to me not being able to transfer. Also I’ve had to fly to other airports rather than my local using BA miles and Virgin miles because of this. But I may get in touch with you after I hear back from the Ombudsman.

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