Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: BA premium flights and holidays sale, CityJet to launch flights from Southend

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

News in brief:

British Airways Luxury Sale now on

We have been a little slow in covering the latest British Airways  premium sale, apologies.

The prices don’t look too exciting, but it’s well worth having a look to possibly find a good deal.

Until 8th November – so you still have a week to book – you can get :

Club World flights to New York from £1,475

Club World holidays from £1,478 p/p

Club Europe holidays from £271 p/p

It looks like you can book as far ahead as September 2017 so it’s well worth thinking about the next Summer holiday.

The BA Low Fare Finder tool remains the best way to see what deals are available.  Apart from the New York deal above, there is also Boston £1555, Montreal £1435, much of India for £1700, Muscat £1498 and Beijing £1799.  That is about it under £2000.

All prices are based on two people travelling together and include business class flights and accommodation.

CityJet 350

CityJet to launch flights from London’s Southend airport

The Irish airline CityJet and Stobart Group are currently discussing the possibility of new routes from London Southend Airport starting in April 2017.

The proposal is that CityJet will operate up to 18 new routes from Southend on up to four aircraft.

In 2012, with the arrival of easyJet, Southend Airport saw initial success but further expansion seemed a bit difficult.  Rob visited the airport earlier this year and was impressed by the modern terminal and the direct train service from London Liverpool Street.  There is even a decent airport lounge which accepts Priority Pass.

Now with CityJet as a potential partner, Southend Airport is targetting an increase in passengers from 900,000 last year to up to 1.5 million per year.

Though the discussions remain ‘at an early stage’ it looks like a formal agreement can be released as soon as next month.  More information can be found here.

Meanwhile, I flew CityJet out to Amsterdam from London City Airport yesterday.  I will write about that next week.


best credit card to use when buying flights

How to maximise your miles when paying for flights (November 2024)

Some UK credit cards offer special bonuses when used for buying flights. If you spend a lot on airline tickets, using one of these cards could sharply increase the credit card points you earn.

Booking flights on any airline?

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold earns double points (2 Membership Rewards points per £1) when used to buy flights directly from an airline website.

The card comes with a sign-up bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points. These would convert to 20,000 Avios or various other airline or hotel programmes. The standard earning rate is 1 point per £1.

You can apply here.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

Buying flights on British Airways?

The British Airways Premium Plus American Express card earns double Avios (3 Avios per £1) when used at ba.com.

The card comes with a sign-up bonus of 30,000 Avios. The standard earning rate is 1.5 Avios per £1.

You do not earn bonus Avios if you pay for BA flights on the free British Airways American Express card or either of the Barclaycard Avios Mastercards.

You can apply here.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

Buying flights on Virgin Atlantic?

Both the free Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard and the annual fee Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard earn double Virgin Points when used at fly.virgin.com.

This means 1.5 Virgin Points per £1 on the free card and 3 Virgin Points per £1 on the paid card.

There is a sign-up bonus of 3,000 Virgin Points on the free card and 18,000 Virgin Points on the paid card.

You can apply for either of the cards here.

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

3,000 bonus points, no fee and 1 point for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

30,000 bonus points (TO 18 NOVEMBER) and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Comments (56)

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

  • Roger says:

    AMEX SHOP SMALL

    Spend £10 or more, get £5 back
    Save to Card to get a £5 statement credit when you spend £10+ in-store at participating small businesses between 3 December and 18 December 2016. Valid once per Card per business. Terms and payment restrictions appl

    • Rob says:

      Excellent!

    • Jovanna says:

      I’ve got it on the Platinum card but not on my Lloyds Avios card.

      • Roger says:

        This is the only offer on my Nectar card.

        • James67 says:

          On both my cards (nectar, spg) and both of dad’s (spg, ba basic). Got email confirmation via amex network so perhaps on that old site or amex connect. I called amex about nectar card offers, they said this card gets relatively few, decision on offers is made my the card partner, not amex themselves.

      • the real harry says:

        Amex normally open up Shop Small on all Amex cards, so just sit tight & it’ll pop up

        • the real harry says:

          boo – looks like Spar is not on it this time (for me, anyway) – that’s how I got something like £500 of half-price stamps last year

        • Genghis says:

          Cheers Harry

        • the real harry says:

          got 3 close-by fish & chip shops on it this year 🙂

          back to the 90s lol

          not checked whether my good Cornwall butchers are on it but I assume, charging an arm & a leg, they will be!

          arm & a leg divided by 2 = cheap top quality Xmas joints!

    • Andy S says:

      Trobule is most small shops don’t take amex!

      • James67 says:

        This offer is for those that do. They will create a website to help you find them all in your area

        • Simmo says:

          *Which is not always 100% accurate 🙂

          • Genghis says:

            No – but Amex have always given me the £5 statement credit when a purchase did not track because the map was wrong.

  • James67 says:

    OT clubcard-avios:

    For every £2.50 in Tesco Clubcard vouchers you exchange between 1-14 November 2016, you’ll not only receive 600 Avios, but also one entry to win one of 25 prizes of 15,000 Avios.

    OT clubcard-BAEC:

    Received an email last week suggesting it was a prize drawfor a trip to Barcelona for conversions through 30 November.

    Given the short duration of these offers I am wondering if a conversion bonus offer might subsequently appear. IIRC that happened in this quarter last year.

    • BrianDT says:

      I’m struggling of convert mine manually to Avios. Any one else the same ?

      • ankomonkey says:

        I had this around a week ago and just had to keep trying until it processed the right amount. I was getting random amounts rather than my full payable balance, though, so it might not be the same issue…

  • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

    Has anyone confirmed that BA Holidays triggers the £500 get £100 Amex offer?

  • Hugo says:

    Have to agree this “sale” is rather underwhelming, didnt surprise me that you hadnt posted anything.

  • Rob says:

    Amex charge cards are not impacted by the interchange fee cap 🙂

    • Talay says:

      Are you saying that Amex credit cards are affected by the cap ?

      As a retailer, we do not see a difference between any form of Amex whereas we have a myriad of various Visa and Mastercard rates.

  • Ben says:

    I wont be flying out of SEN again at ‘peak’ time again (peak time being 2 flight leaving about the same time i.e. 4:30pm Friday). As people have commented on your review, while its a small airport and easy to navigate, their security seems to have this constant ‘go slow’ mentality and even though there were only about 15 people in the security line (with a good 4 – 5 screening staff), it took me 25 minutes to get through (there is only ever one security lane open).
    I think its a bad combination of both staff and pax thinking its a regional airport so they can have bumpkin chats while they leisurely begin their holiday, staff being regional themselves so working on country time, inexperienced flyers (and staff) and no-one being in a rush. Fine is you live nearby and have all day to get to Spain, not fine if you are coming from London after work. LTN and STN security are very efficient in comparison.

    I also have the same easyjet boarding issue – they make you all line up outside before the incoming plane even disembarks. Ryanair don’t even do that at STN or LTN.

    • Lady London says:

      Errrr Ben, Ryanair did just that at both STN and MXP last week – lined us all up on the tarmac when the incoming had barely started deplaning.

      • Lady London says:

        oops correction the MXP was, indeed, easyjet. The outgoing at STN was defo Ryanair though.

      • Genghis says:

        Why start the planing before the previous deplaning? 🙂

  • Kathy says:

    I wonder if those new SEN flights will be good for connecting to cheap ex-EU tickets? I have to allow a couple of hours to get to Heathrow from Southend so it would take no longer to fly to, for e.g., Dublin from SEN and then get in a flight to the US.

  • Liz says:

    OT Been playing around with redemption flights and looking at availability and taxes for Singapore Airlines for dates next summer. We are saving for SIN-BNE which is usually 55K each but at the moment it is coming out at a 15% discount 46750. IS this a current promotion ? I cannot find any emails on this from KF and I cannot find an expiry date on the KF website. THanks!

    • Rob says:

      Singapore offers an automatic 15% discount for online booking.

      • Liz says:

        Is this a permanent thing. What happens if you have 2 separate KF accounts – I presume you need to make 2 separate bookings? THink I did this wrong and set up 2 accounts instead of one.

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

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.