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.
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.
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