Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: no more UK 5000 point Hilton rooms, Amazon Prime deal, future of A380 and B747-8

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News in brief:

The end of the 5,000 points per night UK Hilton redemption

Hilton has published its latest list of redemption category changes.

With only 11 hotels globally going up in cost, I normally wouldn’t mention it.  However, as you can see here, this list signals the end of the 5,000 point redemption at Hampton by Hilton Newport / East.

From 11th January, this hotel goes up to 10,000 points per night.

It is still a good value redemption at 10,000 points, of course.  However, some people living near Newport were able to use the Hampton as a cheap way of retaining their Hilton HHonors status because Hilton counts redemption nights towards your qualifying nights.

The current list of Category 1 ‘5000 points per night’ Hilton properties is here.  The Hilton Salalah resort (below) in Oman, reviewed on HfP here, is still there amazingly.

In Europe, though, your only choices for a 5,000 point free night are now in Turkey, Poland (Krakow, Rzeszow), Belarus (Minsk) or Romania.

Welcome to the Hilton Salalah Resort

American Express / Amazon Prime offer

If Father Christmas didn’t bring you an Amazon Prime subscription, a deal has appeared as a cashback offer on selected American Express cards.  To see if you are targetted, you need to look at the ‘Offers’ section on the statement page of the Amex website for each Amex card that you hold.

If targetted, you will receive £20 cashback when you sign up for a £79 Amazon Prime subscription.  Confusingly there are two deadlines:

you need to sign up by 31st December if you pay immediately

if you sign up for the 30 day free trial by 31st December, you receive the cashback as long as your annual payment is taken by 31st January (which it will be, because you are charged at the end of the 30 days if you don’t cancel)

Remember that you need to ensure your default Amazon payment card is the Amex card to which you have saved the £20 offer.  The offer does NOT apply if you choose a ‘pay monthly’ Prime subscription – you need to take the annual fee option.

If you apply via this link, HfP gets a small commission on your subscription.  This does not affect your cashback.

The future of the A380 and Boeing 747-8 discussed

I have just booked myself on a Boeing 747-8 via Lufthansa for the first and possibly last time.

The 747-8 – a stretched version of the 747-4 with a longer upper deck – has been a huge commercial failure with only three airlines ordering the passenger version.  Given that the other two are Air China and Korean Air, Lufthansa seemed the best chance of giving it a go.

I found this article from Routes News interesting and worth a read if you have five minutes.  It looks at the future – or not – of both the A380 and B747-8 programmes.

Comments (63)

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

  • the real harry says:

    Norwegian to offer flights to New York for less than £60
    Norwegian has announced plans to launch flights from Britain to the US for less than £60 – reducing its current prices by more than 50 per cent. The $69 (£56) one-way fares, which will be start in summer 2017, will be the cheapest transatlantic tickets on the market.

    Bjorn Kjos, chief executive of the Oslo-based airline, said that the airline will offer the low prices on flights from Edinburgh to New York on board its six new Boeing 737MAX aircraft. The airline will take delivery of the aircraft in April, and flights will commence a few months later.

    “Our planes are very, very fuel efficient,” Kjos said of the Boeing 737MAX models. “We have a totally different set up to other airlines. The Boeing 737MAX has a very modern engine, which means it can go for a longer distance.”
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/north-america/united-states/new-york/articles/norwegian-air-to-offer-flights-to-us-for-60-next-summer/

    • Tracy says:

      I’ll be the first in line 🙂

    • James67 says:

      Perhaps a bit optimistic given the 787 launch debacle. Personally, I don’t fancy 8 hours on a 737, the 757s are bad enough. What I wouLd like to see though is Norwegian fly direct to BKK from LGW.

  • Tracy says:

    O/T I have a £100 American Airlines transportation voucher, have some EDI-NYC flights booked in Sep but can’t use voucher for upgrades or better seats etc. Any ideas for using it? Any UK/EU AA coded short haul flights?

    • Louise says:

      No ideas for UK use but we redeemed ours for internal US flights – had to post voucher to Barcelona to get flight ticketed!

      • Tracy says:

        Unfortunately, other than trip to NYC in Sep, we hav no other US flights planned so no internal US flights needed……

        • James67 says:

          If your trip is long enough how about a day trip to Washington or Boston?

          • Tracy says:

            Only there for 5 days when the US open is on so want to stay in NYC for the whole time

  • John O'Sullivan says:

    What are the Hilton rules for qualifying nights. I’m currently on platinum thanks to status match and need 4 stays for gold. Had a reward night in London, a reward night and a paid night in Reykjavik, a paid night at Doubletree Newbury. Would a points plus cash count at Newport £19 and 2,000 points count as the fourth. Ta John

    • James67 says:

      Yes. Register for 5k visa promotion though on off chance you might get 5000 points back.

  • Nick says:

    O:T, My 1000 Avios have hit my Avios account sometime this afternoon for collecting with a new partner. Hopefully they’ll hit my BAEC account soon too.

  • John says:

    I Havent seen the 5k promotion. Is that on the hilton website?

    • Alan says:

      Yes, just Google “Hilton Visa 5000 points”

    • John O'Sullivan says:

      Thanks was in a rush this morning so logged into Hilton later and found link. I may be in the strange position of popping down the road a few miles (I live in Newport) paying £19 and 2,000 points for 5,000 points, an overnight hotel stay with two breakfasts and Hilton gold status for 15 months. It’s worth doing but as Dougal (Father Ted) would say “it’s a bit mad”

  • Adam says:

    We took an LH 747-8 upper deck flight recently and it was great. I think i still prefer the non-stretched version for intimacy though. My only other gripe was that LH took an age to get the food out (not good for an overnight flight).

  • Ross says:

    I’m not surprised Salalah is 5,000 points. It’s an absolute hole of a place. I left after 8 hours of being there and flew back to Dubai.

    • Tom says:

      Very harsh Ross. Salalah isn’t much to look at, but it is the real middle east. And the drives north and south along the coast are absolutely incredible.

      • the real harry says:

        Oman is the only bit of the Middle East I would ever willingly go to again

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

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