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Bits: the facts on EC261 when downgraded, Etihad sale, good Miles & More hotel offer

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News in brief:

Court judgement on how you receive downgrade compensation

I ran an article about EC261 downgrade compensation on Wednesday.  I said in that piece that some parts of the regulations were unclear.

Reader Coby sent me a link to this court judgement from July 2016.  It clarifies three points once and for all:

compensation is based on the cost of that journey and not your entire ticket cost.  This means that, for a return ticket, compensation for a downgrade on the outbound is based on 50% of the cost of your return ticket.

compensation for multi-segment tickets should be based on the pro-rata cost of that leg based on distance flown.  This means that if you were downgraded on the Dublin to Heathrow leg of a Dublin – Heathrow – Bangkok ticket, your compensation would be based on roughly 5% of the cost of your ticket.

taxes and charges which are fixed irrespective of class of travel should be excluded from any refund calculation

These are logical outcomes and make the situation clearer when you are submitting a downgrade claim.

Full details of the amount of compensation due for a downgrade is in my article from Wednesday here.

PS.  If you are seriously interested in EC261, my friend Jeremias edited this legal textbook on all aspects of the regulations.

Etihad sale

Etihad sale now on

Our coverage of the Middle East airlines has been quite ‘Qatar heavy’ recently because of their aggressive sales.  That will change over the next couple of months, however, as I will soon have the tough task of doing a (self funded) ‘back to back’ comparison of Etihad A380 First Class vs Emirates A380 First Class,  I haven’t flown Emirates First Class for eight years so it will be good to give it another go.

I rate the Business Class Studio on the Etihad A380 very highly – it is probably my favourite business class product in the sky (read my review here), just edging out Qatar Airways.

Etihad has just launched a new sale.  £325 in Economy to Abu Dhabi is as good as you get, and Dubai is a £40 taxi ride away – or a very cheap bus ride.  Johannesburg at £2,435 and Perth at £2,599 are OK in business class.  Forget the £2,799 Sydney fare though and go with Malaysia’s £1,500 deal.

Full sale details can be found here.

Lufthansa A340

Get 1,000 Miles & More miles on hotels stays

Most hotel loyalty programmes give you the option of taking airline miles INSTEAD of points.  These deals are often not very attractive, but if you are at a chain where you rarely stay it can make more sense than taking some points you will never use.

For example, if you do NOT take IHG Rewards Club points and elect to earn Avios instead, this is what you get:

  • Earn 500 Avios per qualifying stay at participating InterContinental Hotels and Resorts, located outside of the USA, Canada, Mexico, Latin America and Caribbean (bad deal)
  • Earn 2 Avios per $1 spent at InterContinental Hotels and Resorts located in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Caribbean, Latin America, Crowne Plaza Hotels and Resorts and Hotel Indigo (could be attractive)
  • Earn 1 Avios per $1 spent at Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Candlewood Suites & Staybridge Suites (bad deal)

Compared to the generous points opportunities with the Accelerate promotion, plus the fact that points count towards status, taking miles is rarely good value.

However ….

Until 28th February, Miles & More is offering 1,000 bonus miles when you credit a hotel stay to the programme instead of taking hotel points.

(With Hilton, this would mean switching to ‘points and miles’ and choosing Miles & More for the miles element.)

This could be attractive.  I tend to value Miles & More miles at 1p when used for premium class redemptions.  This means that you’d be getting £10 of additional value, and that is on top of the value of your base miles.

This deal only makes sense if you already have some Miles & More miles – you won’t earn enough from this deal to get to a premium class redemption on its own.  It is definitely tempting though, and if I end up having a cash Hilton stay in the next 5 weeks I will definitely be taking advantage.

For clarity, this offer does NOT include making transfers of existing hotels points to Miles & More.  It only works for points from new stays.

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How to earn Star Alliance miles from UK credit cards

How to earn Star Alliance miles from UK credit cards (April 2025)

None of the Star Alliance airlines currently have a UK credit card.

There is, however, still a way to earn Star Alliance miles from a UK credit card. 

The route is via Marriott Bonvoy. Marriott Bonvoy hotel loyalty points convert to over 40 airlines at the rate of 3:1.

The best way to earn Marriott Bonvoy points is via the official Marriott Bonvoy American Express card. It comes with 20,000 points for signing up and 2 points for every £1 you spend. At 2 Bonvoy points per £1, you are earning (at 3:1) 0.66 airline miles per £1 spent on the card.

There is a preferential conversion rate to United Airlines – which is a Star Alliance member – of 2 : 1 if you convert 60,000 Bonvoy points at once.

The Star Alliance members which are Marriott Bonvoy transfer partners are: Aegean, Air Canada, Air China, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana Airlines, Avianca, Copa Airlines, Singapore Airlines, TAP Air Portugal, Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines and United Airlines.

You can apply here.

Marriott Bonvoy American Express

20,000 points for signing up and 15 elite night credits each year Read our full review

Category

Etihad and Etihad Guest, Lufthansa and Miles & More

Comments (52)

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

  • Alan says:
    20 Jan20 January 07:50

    OT – Android Pay and Uber seem to have enough revived the previous promo that they mentioned (just before Christmas) but then withdrew. Unfortunately this means it is now for a much shorter time period! For your next 10 journeys via Uber, if using Android Pay you’ll receive 50% off, up to a maximum of £5 per ride. Only stated requirement is to use the latest version of the Uber app.

  • Grant says:
    20 Jan20 January 08:10

    Thank you very much Rob for the information about Downgrades.

    I for one would welcome an ‘idiot’s guide to what your rights are if downgraded’. Specifically, can you refuse the downgrade and demand to be put on the next flight (or even with another carrier) in the original booking class, and if that means you are late to your destination whether that means any compensation/duty of care is due.

    Plus, what the rights are if downgraded on an Avios booking, including the 2-for-1 issue.

    Also, if your flight is cancelled and they tell you you need to be downgraded to go on the next flight, can you refuse and, if you do, are you entitled to compensation if the delay is significant enough?

    • Andrew* says:
      20 Jan20 January 09:05

      +1: I’d like to see that too; I was interested in how Rob went from 3 downgrades and 1 offload (of his infant!) to getting back into CW…

      Good negotiation skills or knowing your rights?

      • Rob says:
        20 Jan20 January 09:08

        I refused to sign the waiver disclaiming all liability against BA in return for getting the hotel voucher. They were stuck then and had little choice but to board us.

        BA was screwed anyway at that point once they realised they’d booked a 2-year old into a hotel on its own.

        Note that we these were cash tickets (for once) and my wife and I were both Silver at the time.

        • Aeronaut says:
          20 Jan20 January 11:51

          I’m slightly bemused as to how their system even allowed the situation with your then 2 year old to arise.

          • Rob says:
            20 Jan20 January 12:06

            He wasn’t actually two – he was just a week short of being two. We had bought him a cash ticket, however, because you don’t carry a 103 week old kid on your lap for 7 hours. Because he was under 2 it was assumed he was a lap infant so he was not allocated a seat when the rest of us were downgraded. He was then automatically offloaded.

            What would have been interesting would have been the compensation situation if we had agreed to take him as a lap infant, since he would a) have been offloaded and b) still travelled!

          • zsalya says:
            20 Jan20 January 18:49

            103 week ?

          • Rob says:
            20 Jan20 January 19:30

            Oh yeah!

      • Mike says:
        20 Jan20 January 09:32

        Both probably and I agree an article on this subject would be appreciated. No doubt it would generate some healthy debate

  • Gin and Tonic Please says:
    20 Jan20 January 08:17

    OT – Amazon are doing a £10 off £50+ spend today only. Promo code is BIGTHANKS and he details are on their home page. Main thing is the products need to be sold by Amazon. Don’t think it’ll stack with the Amex MR offer (as it’s two promo codes) and can’t test it myself as I’ve already used the latter. Happy shopping, everyone!

    • Charlie says:
      20 Jan20 January 09:09

      Fortunately for me I had not used the AMEX MR offer yet, I confirm they do stack.

      • Polly says:
        20 Jan20 January 10:40

        Same here, which offer do you access first to get them to stack? Tnx p

        • Charlie says:
          20 Jan20 January 10:54

          I entered the BIGTHANKS offer first, I saw £10 discount applied.

          I then remembered about the £15 offer and saw that my AMEX card was already linked and the ‘use Membership Reward’ was visible, so I then entered £0.01 there, and entered a 2nd discount code AMEX16SWP.

          The total discount was then updated to £25.

          This was for an item costing £70, so reduced down to £45.

  • N says:
    20 Jan20 January 09:01

    I did this over Christmas. Very handy.

    Also asked them to pick the car up at the drop off end of the journey and they did it for free, even though I was a smidge over 10 miles away from their depot.

  • Steve says:
    20 Jan20 January 09:11

    Virgin have also been doing sub £300 fares from London, bagged me a break in March for £298 each.

  • darren says:
    20 Jan20 January 10:39

    A decent business price to DXB would be nice, when was the last BA luxury sale?

  • Aeronaut says:
    20 Jan20 January 11:47

    I used this recently.

    The agent at the drop-off location wasn’t aware of the offer at all, and was a bit suss about why I’d only paid a pound so called up HQ to check. We ended up having a laugh about it, so all’s well that ends well! So be prepared for an odd look or two

    When picking up the car the agent did ask if I wanted something larger… I wasn’t fussed and just wanted to get going so didn’t get into this, but I assume they were offering a paid upgrade. I don’t know whether there’s any opportunity to talk your way into getting a better car for nowt. I suppose that would be dependent on what inventory needs to be moved where.

    The car I had was a basic small saloon with scant legroom (and probably headroom) in the back for adults… But it was fine for the two of us up front. Point being don’t count on getting anything larger!

  • James says:
    20 Jan20 January 12:48

    Does this mean we can expect a longer wait for a harder Etihad sale?
    The Qatar one came just a little too early for me this time, plus I want to try Etihad.. perhaps to Perth. But I’ve seen etihad to Perth for 2k in the not so distant past, so 2.5k is a little too much. I know mayalsia are doing 1500… but I’d be prepared to fork out the extra 500 to fly etihad

    • Rob says:
      20 Jan20 January 13:14

      I wouldn’t personally pay over £2000 for Australasia if I was flexible on dates and carrier. More deals will be along soon I’m sure although Qatar didn’t on the Travel Festival rates last year.

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

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