Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: win 100,000 Virgin Atlantic miles, Monarch sale, a good family ski resort

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News in brief:

Win 100,000 Virgin Flying Club miles

I have written about the Virgin Red smartphone app before.  It is a new product which tries to bring together customers from various Virgin Group businesses and cross-sell them other products.

Today, it will be running a competition to win 100,000 Virgin Flying Club miles.  (It is a reverse auction, where you make a cash bid for the miles.  The person who places the lowest unique bid wins  (e.g. if 10 people each bid 1p, 2p and 3p but only one person bids 4p, that person wins – once they have paid their 4p).

Their is a £1 entry fee which I would have assumed went to a good cause but, it seems, does not!  It is up to you whether you think a chance of winning 100,000 Virgin miles is worth £1.

Virgin Atlantic 747

Monarch Airlines £33 flash sale

Monarch doesn’t get a huge amount of coverage on HfP but if you live in the regions it is a reliable option.  Their flights can, of course, be booked via avios.com using Avios points.  You can also redeem Tesco Clubcard vouchers for Monarch flight credit at 2 x face value.

Until midday on Friday, Monarch is selling 5,000 seat at £33 each way.  They are valid for departures from 9th – 23rd March, 12th – 29th April and 4th – 26th May.

Full details can be found here.

Monarch

A massive hotel upgrade I didn’t need

Our trip to the snow over half-term involved an overnight stay in the Sheraton Frankfurt Airport.  I reviewed the Sheraton at Frankfurt Airport a couple of years ago here so I won’t go into full detail again.

We did, this time, get the biggest upgrade I think I’ve ever had.  We booked two standard rooms on SPG points (10,000 points per night).  The hotel upgraded us to a 140 square metre, two bedroom suite.

This is the standard looking main bedroom:

Sher1

This the work and living area:

Sher3

And this, in a separate room, was the rather silly dining table for eight:

Sher2

There was also a small preparation area for food.

Unfortunately for us, we were only awake in the room for about 90 minutes.  The dining table was handy for a room service dinner for the whole family though!

Ellmauhof Hinterglemm

A good family ski resort

Whilst I don’t intend to review it, this is the hotel where we stayed in Austria, the Ellmauhof.

If you want to take your kids skiing, I thoroughly recommend it.  Under 5’s have a dedicated ski school at the hotel whilst older children can walk or be driven into Hinterglemm to the main ski school.  The hotel, as a member of Kinder Hotels, is fully geared up for kids of all ages and it worked well for adults too.

The swimming pool also has a fantastic water slide!

All of the front line staff speak English and it is a 90 minute taxi ride from Salzburg Airport.  Recommended.

Comments (69)

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

  • Nick M says:

    Remember that you will still have to pay whatever you bid…

  • Liz says:

    OT: Just had word back from Amex that the 500 pts per supplementary card is still valid for BAPP and the Blue card – will be awarded within 90 days of cards being accepted. I couldn’t see it on the t&c’s and someone else asked the other day – I can’t remember who.

    • Genghis says:

      Hi Liz. Do you know if this is valid even if you got the supp at the time of application?

        • Liz says:

          I assumed it would to both – he didn’t say it was only for ones added later. I didn’t realise there was a difference.

          • Liz says:

            I added me at the same time as the application and my mother-in-law later. She confirmed I would get 1000 Avios within 90 days.

        • ahop says:

          I asked and they said strictly speaking no, but as a good will gesture they did post the points!

    • Guesswho2000 says:

      Didn’t post automatically for either me or OH – supplementaries were applied for after the main cards, via the special link. They did give us both lots of 500 Avios after we sent them a secure message querying it, but didn’t confirm whether we were supposed to have been entitled to them in the first place.

  • Simmo says:

    OT but still Virgin related.

    Does anybody know if I can transfer Tesco -> Virgin using a family members Tesco account, into my Virgin Account?

    If i remember rightly, from (avios/BA/Virgin) they all check different things align, but for the life of me I can’t remember which scheme checked which credential!

    same surname, same address.

    • Louise says:

      Yes you can

    • James W says:

      You can’t but Tesco can sometimes be funny on redeeming vouchers from different accounts. They state the name and address should match but I have been able to exchange Tesco -> Virgin with a mixture of my vouchers and a friends

  • Tony says:

    Those kinder hotels are great but can be difficult to book in peak season. Would highly recommend the Hotel Bar in Serfaus and the Zauchenseehof in Zauchensee. Immediate access to big ski areas from both, good food great childcare facilities…

  • LM says:

    I have a Monarch flight booked for May paid in cash – is it possible to earn Avios for that somehow?

  • Waribai says:

    Looks like a good ski hotel option. Anyone have any thoughts on the IC Davos. It seems to get rave reviews!

  • Oh! Matron! says:

    140m2? Sure about that? That’s 10 times bigger than my first studio apartment in London…..

    • Rob says:

      Yes, 140 sq m. That includes the 2nd bedroom and the bathrooms and the hallway and the other bits I didn’t photograph.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    Kind of OT but Virgin to IHG anyone transferred from virgin to an IHG account in another name/address? or a family member same surname/address?

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

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