Bits: €100 status credit for an Avis rental, Qatar sale extended, airberlin restructuring

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• RC says:

  18 Jan18 January 04:38

  From my interpretation, the extra ‘€100 bonus spend’ is more likely to be spend accumulated in your AVIS Preferred account to progress onto the next tier membership level rather than an actual €100 credit into your account !

  • Matt says:

    18 Jan18 January 06:06

    Ah… sneaky! I think you might be right. This is from the description of Avis Preferred on their website:

    Our three levels of loyalty:

    With Avis Preferred, the more you rent with us – the more benefits you unlock. We have three levels of membership based on your rental history over the last year, all boasting bigger and better perks as you go.

    When you join, you’ll start as an Avis Preferred member, and can potentially rise to our Avis Preferred Plus (hire 5+ vehicles and spend €1,000) and Avis President’s Club tiers (hire 10+ vehicles and spend €2,000) – with each tier rise valid for one year. Find out more in our How It Works section.

    A little bonus to get you started (helping you reach Avis Preferred Plus status even faster): the ‘loyalty value’ of your rental will go up by €100 if you hire a vehicle within 60 days of registration.

    Please note: This value will be credited within five days of the rental car being returned to us, at which point it can be viewed in your online account. This bonus only applies to new members.

    • Sh83 says:

      18 Jan18 January 06:23

      Long standing Avis renter here who is Presidents Club member. The £100/€100 credit is added to your accumulated Avis spend to excel you closer towards top tier. I believe they have been offering this incentive to members on a number of occasions in the past.

  • Anon says:

    18 Jan18 January 07:06

    Boooo, thought it was too good to be true.

    But hot on the heels of the recent 18,700 Avios promo, I was hoping it was another mega offer.

  • Frank says:

    18 Jan18 January 07:27

    As someone who has used this offer in the past I can confirm that this is correct. It is €100 in spend ‘points’ to help progress your status, not a €100 credit towards future rentals.

    • Rob says:

      18 Jan18 January 08:31

      Thanks folks. Article quickly amended, apologies for the inconvenience. This really was not clear though!

• Neil says:

  18 Jan18 January 05:32

  Raffles – My wife and I have two one way business class tickets booked with Airberlin for August. Do you think these may get cancelled? They were only booked using avios so we could cancel it now ourselves and purchase cash tickets. Cheers

  • Rob says:

    18 Jan18 January 08:32

    August is fine. Almost impossible for anything to happen by then (apart from bankruptcy of course) as any sale to Lufty would take months to get EU competition approval.

    • Neil says:

      18 Jan18 January 20:32

      Cheers mate!

• Will P says:

  18 Jan18 January 06:16

  OT slightly however relevant to Qatar…

  My girlfriend and I have just taken advantage of a stonking Qatar deal, as highlighted here, from Oslo to Ho Chi Minh for 1000 Euros each.
  Whilst we found the hard product excellent and service good (apart from one leg in an older A330-200) the food was actually very poor. I know BA get a lot of criticism but I actually think they are miles ahead on this front. There seems to be an obsession with obercomplicating food- why try and serve reheated fillet when many restaurants can’t manage it in a full kitchen?
  That said the Tier points (560!!) will do nicely thanks and keep our Silver status topped up…..

  • Thomas T says:

    18 Jan18 January 06:32

    Have you ever eaten a fillet (of beef?) on BA??? I can tell you now, that is like eating your shoe! And serving a mozzarella salad………..with a lovely side of salad isn’t that great either. OR try to get some cheese AND a pudding of BA on a £1750 flight,……I value your opinion, but my experience is different to yours, hence I shifted all my LH to QR now.

    • zsalya says:

      18 Jan18 January 06:42

      Yes, I had fillet on beef last year in CW.
      It really was fillet, but what a waste.
      I wish they would do food more suitable for the limited facilities.

      • Will P says:

        18 Jan18 January 09:05

        Maybe I’ve been unlucky and lucky with BA recently.
        Overall they all need to need to keep things simple and serve stuff that suited for their fridge/heat up facilities! And the Qatar 787 is simply awesome….

  • Doodles says:

    18 Jan18 January 08:01

    OT but Vietnam related, I am flying with QR in March and plan to book an onward flight to Hanoi for the day I arrive. I was wondering how long it took to clear immigration? Thank you.

    • DM says:

      18 Jan18 January 08:34

      Went through HCMC last year, probably took me an hour + to get through. Even if you get the pre-approved visa you still have to submit paperwork in the airport to get the actual visa. This took at least 45 mins alone.

    • Will P says:

      18 Jan18 January 09:04

      10 minutes in our case at HCMC….easy although I would be cautious as the simplest things in Vietnam can be trouble when you least expect it.

      • Genghis says:

        18 Jan18 January 09:25

        About the same for us at HCMC in 2015. We got visas in advance from the embassy despite them being a bit more expensive than the VOA just so we didn’t have to queue up and fanny around after a long flight.

    • WM says:

      18 Jan18 January 12:50

      No visa necessary for U.K. passports visiting for 15 days or less (no such luck for the Irish). Info on Vietnam embassy website.

      • Doodles says:

        18 Jan18 January 13:10

        The earlier replies had me a bit worried about a visa but I will only be there for 10 days so no visa required.

    • Polly says:

      18 Jan18 January 15:53

      Doodles, took us just under two hours last week. We even had pre clearance visa approval from the Vietnam embassy in London. But still had to complete further forms, wait for a photographer to take a pic, hadn’t been told to bring one! 10$ pp. Then wait to be called to collect our passports, and pay a further$25 pp.. Plus we had even paid the emobassy a fee on line. Just a racket…I’m Irish so needed a visa anyway, oh is uk, but we are here for 20 days ATM. Cold in Hanoi, bring a jacket! Halong cool, but now hoi an, finally warmth in our bones!

      • ankomonkey says:

        18 Jan18 January 16:37

        We loved Hoi An (but visited 10 years ago).

      • Doodles says:

        18 Jan18 January 20:19

        Thanks for the replies. I only have 10 days there as travelling to/from Helsinki eats up some of my holiday (but I have never been there before so I want to see some of it). My plan at the moment is to fly to Hanoi and then take the train back to HCMC, the train in both directions would just take too much time.
        Polly, if you have any tips, when you return, do let me know. Thank you.

        • Genghis says:

          18 Jan18 January 20:38

          Great food in Vietnam in general. We didn’t think much of Hanoi but best restaurant we went to in 3 weeks travelling all around Vietnam was there – Gia Ngu. Seriously top banana. We went back the next night. Hoi An is rather special. Do your own bike tour to the coast and round the rice paddies

        • Genghis says:

          18 Jan18 January 20:40

          I’ve heard from people that took the train that they regretted it. We flew everywhere and had a driver around the central Hoi An / Hue area (try Bun Bo Hue – spicy noodle soup – at the source)

        • Polly says:

          19 Jan19 January 04:53

          Doodles, see my reply below, sorry, meant to do,it spear tell to,you. Enjoy!

  • Polly says:

    19 Jan19 January 04:32

    Jake, you will do v well on baec. Surely you would get lots of tier points plus avios with all those trips. Very easy to do 2 return HBO flights to get silver, indeed sounds like you could be gold with all those TPs.you would be crazy not to do couple trips at 5 TPs per sector, have lunch, come back that evening, anywhere, jersey wherever. My friends missed out on their silver last year for that very reason, and has been so P….ed off since. Went to bronze. We are in similar sit, all QR going to baec, but doing 2 HBO returns to eu on BA. Metal to qualify and retain that card.
    We even flashed our BA silver cards in Vietnam this trip to access the VIP security lane for crew and VIPs. And nobody batted an eyelid. Couldn’t believe how cheeky we felt! But it saved an hour queue in both HCMC and HAN! Hilarious…

  • Polly says:

    19 Jan19 January 04:51

    Will, we are currently on an OSL HCMC deal same as you. Fab value. But our food was to die for, served when we wanted, and beautiful. Never had a bad meal on QR yet. Agree, points very useful.

    Doodles, would suggest 3 days max in HCMC, but it is warmer down south! see War remnants museum, eat where you see the locals, as tourist ones, v pricey. Hanoi worth 5 days, visit uncle Ho, Army museum with all the aircraft and tanks from the war etc, and the famous jail, Hanoi Hilton! very important place in their history. John Cain pics etc. If you want to do halong bay, do the 2n 1 d one. Book on arrival, most good ones, are around $75 pp. we were stung by hotel, but they agreed to refund part of it, as l suggested it was twice what was out there, price wise. Hanoi chic hotel in old quarter v g location, booking.com, £40 a night, double, decent breakfast. Worth emailing them see if they do better direct deal. Jonny is the manager. Found out that booking.com take 30% commission from hotels! that shocked me. Restaurants around there, just amazing. ESP Dung Noa Pho Co opposite. And Geiko to the right, not the one to left! Most nights paid £8 pp dinner. Unreal.
    Have fun, enjoy, great deal we got!
    That train is about 16 hours from Han to Ho, too long, take a plane..so cheap. You probably won’t have time to visit Hoi An. It’s pretty, by the sea. And warmer.

• Anon says:

  18 Jan18 January 07:18

  O/T Hilton Asia sale ends soon..

  http://loyaltylobby.com/2017/01/17/last-call-hilton-hhonors-asia-pacific-up-to-35-off-sale-for-stays-until-december-31-2017-book-by-january-20/?omhide=true

• N says:

  18 Jan18 January 07:47

  No details on the voucher anywhere in T&Cs. Looks like it might be “bonus spend” for tier progression, rather than anything else. Update on the article required?

• HV says:

  18 Jan18 January 07:49

  O/T but Avis related regarding the Hilton/Avis offer Rob mentioned last week that was appearing on Facebook. I enrolled via the link on HFP and booked using avisba.com for a car at YYZ to get the better price and BA benefits on the 10th Jan and had the £20 credit applied on Monday. Thanks Rob.

• Will says:

  18 Jan18 January 08:30

  Rob – do you know when the sale went live? Booked our Avis rental last weekend & wondered whether the Avis Preferred credit would still work for a rental in March? Doesn’t look like the sale does much in SA.

  • Rob says:

    18 Jan18 January 08:33

    Terms and conditions have a start date. But it is a status credit and not a cash credit, it now seems.

• Gavin says:

  18 Jan18 January 08:39

  I heard via a podcast it may be a full-on merger between Lufthansa and Etihad… presumably including ventures like Air Berlin as well

  • Rob says:

    18 Jan18 January 09:19

    Obviously not, due to EU ownership rules. Etihad may get a stake in return for merging AB and could buy more but likely to end up like IAG / Qatar in my view.

    This is just copycat stuff. Wait for Emirates to buy a stake in Air France KLM …..

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