Bits: 10,000 Miles & More miles with The Economist, Expedia and ‘hand baggage only’ fares

News in brief:

10,000 Miles & More miles with an Economist subscription

Lufthansa has launched its own new Economist promotion, following on from the Avios /Économist version.

This one is interesting because Miles & More miles are hard to earn.  You cannot buy them any more and they are not an Amex transfer partner unless you go via Starwood Preferred Guest.

£155 (the UK subscription price) gets you 10,000 Miles & More miles and 52 issues of The Economist – not bad at all.  The offer ends on 24th March although the website shows 31st January!  Order here.

Expedia and BA ticketing

A reader dropped me a line to complain about the way that Expedia is selling British Airways ‘hand baggage only’ tickets.  A little digging found that this does create a high level of complaints to the airline.

If you book a British Airways short haul flight on Expedia, it appears to select the cheapest ‘hand baggage only’ ticket.  This is not made clear to the customer.

When I say ‘not made clear’, I mean that it is not made clear up front, as it is on ba.com.  If you click ‘estimated fees for baggage’ then you are told that a bag will cost £25.  On the BA website, it is made VERY clear what you are buying – it is even called a ‘hand baggage only’ ticket.

I don’t know if Expedia plays similar games with other airlines who sell ‘reduced feature’ tickets, but it is a reminder to keep an eye on what you are buying.  Given that Expedia adds an additional fee to short-haul tickets compared to the price of buying them on ba.com (£3 in an example I did), it isn’t clear why you should bother with them anyway.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (January 2021)

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

There are two official British Airways American Express cards:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

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

If you have a small business, we especially recommend Capital On Cap’s Visa card which comes with a generous bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

(Want to earn more Avios?  Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)