Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Sale news: BA Holidays extra £100 off, Opodo extra £20 off, Monarch flights £29 or less

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News in brief:

Get an extra £100 off BA Holidays

The current British Airways Sale is still running until 31st January.  Despite BA giving their sale the name ‘The Unforgettable Sale’, it looks rather underwhelming.

However for a limited time, you can save an extra £100 with your booking when you package a flight with a car or hotel.

Until 10th January you can get up to an extra £100 off when booking with BA Holidays for travel before 31st December 2017.

You save an additional:

Flight & Hotel:

£50 with a minimum spend of £1250

£100 with a minimum spend of £2500

Flight & Car:

£25 with a minimum spend of £600

£50 with a minimum spend of £1250

£100 with a minimum spend of £2500

Full details are on the sale home page here.

British Airways BA 777X 777 9X

Opodo £20 off code launched

Booking site Opodo has launched a code for an extra £20 off flights departing from the UK.

Using the code ONEMIO20  during the booking process will knock off £20 of your round trip, if you reach the minimum spend of £500.

This voucher code is only available until 12th January.  The special booking site is here.

Monarch

Book Monarch flights for £29 or less

A few days ago Avios dropped Monarch as a redemption partner as you can read here.

If you were planning on using Monarch this year, your only option now is to pay cash.  In their January sale, ‘flight only’ options to various destinations cost just £29 or less depending on the date.

Having had a look around, some of the prices do look attractive.  For example I found a one-way flight from London Gatwick to Lisbon on 25th February costs £29 and a flight to Gran Canaria on 4th February for £38.

This offer ends 20th January.  The Monarch home page is here.


best credit card to use when buying flights

How to maximise your miles when paying for flights (February 2025)

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

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Comments (22)

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

  • Tom says:

    I’m curious about your aircraft photo choice today Rob. An ancient BA B742 in the old old livery and a Monarch B787 – which was an order they cancelled!
    Thanks as always for the great reads. I’ve just booked my third holiday with incredible savings thanks to you and the HFP community.

    • Paul says:

      I think the BA aircraft is a 747_400 in the Landor livery( which was lovely). I wouldn’t be surprised to find some of those still in service, certainly can feel like that on some flights.

    • Rob says:

      Yes, I know, fairly random! I like the odd historic photo to liven it up a bit.

  • Paul says:

    The BA sale is over hyped and I wonder if the QR sale will be similarly underwhelming.

    • rod says:

      I agree. QR have been sending daily emails to anticipate some amazing offers starting on monday….let’s see.

      • Alan says:

        Up to 15% off for using VISA cards apparently and sale fares *up to* 50% off, but obvs that will be highly selected cases I’m sure! Also seems like they’ve continued with higher discounts for 2 or 3 ppl 🙁 (all via LoyaltyLobby)

  • Jovanna says:

    B747-200 as Tom said.

  • Concerto says:

    I had a look at the Canaries from here in Germany (€39.99 per flight with Condor, €19.99 with Ryanair) but decided not to go because I am down with a cold and eternal cough. The only thing I noticed is that it is not easy to get a hotel at a reasonable price at all and many if not most are booked out. Trip could be a lot more expensive than you think.

    • Peter says:

      I’ve also noticed flights to the canaries are ridiculously cheap at the moment but all accommodations are prohibitively expensive. Perhaps with nobody going to Egypt these days the canaries are the only guaranteed winter sun destinations.

      • Carl says:

        I am off to the canaries at the end of the month, the hotels didnt seem that expensive to me. Fuerteventura prices were good for me.

  • Concerto says:

    Is it possible to change Monarch flights? Totally unclear on their website. Might need to change to another day.

    • David says:

      Yes. For a change fee of £40 in summer, £35 in winter.
      Changes can be made online – providing you have not checked in (as the option to change online disappears when you have checked in)
      Note: once checked in with monarch, you can’t add baggage online either.

      If you have checked in, you need to call the contact centre (and pay the £5 premium) to get them to make the changes you want.

  • Tony says:

    Is anybody getting the opodo code to work. I’m trying to book LGW-LIS LIS-LHR in one booking and it says “Sorry, “ONEMIO20″ is not a valid code”.

    • Tony says:

      stoopid me, I realise I need to spend over £500. I’ll leave now.

  • Roger says:

    OT- IHG Accelerate Q1-2017 T&C state that “Each Offer must be completed between 1st January 2017 and 15th April 2017(both dates inclusive)”
    Does that literaly mean staying 15th Night will count in this Accelerate promotion?

  • Zoe says:

    Got the money through from our August trip to Spain, I didn’t have high hopes having read previous comments on here.

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

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