Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: win £50 for our 200,000th comment, good SAS EuroBonus deal with Avis

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News in brief:

Make our 200,000th approved comment

At some point this morning, approved comment number 200,000 will be made on Head for Points.

This is a slightly crazy and very impressive achievement – especially as well over 199,000 of them have been polite and thoughtful.  And at least 198,000 have had no mention of Harry’s ‘place in the sun’ …..

Thank you to everyone for your contributions.  The site genuinely would not be the same without you.

You can go onto a site like Fiverr and buy yourself thousands of fake page views, Twitter followers or Facebook likes.  Online readership statistics can be faked in a hundred different ways.

What you can’t fake, however, are 200,000 comments, and whenever we have a marketing meeting we always point to the discussions on HfP as the best measure of the success of the site.

Anyway …. we’re going to send a £50 Amazon voucher to whoever makes the 200,000th comment.  Unless it is me or Anika.  Or the person did not give their real email on the comment form.  Anyway, we will decide on a winner and let them know.

Good SAS EuroBonus deal with Avis

We don’t cover SAS EuroBonus much on Head for Points, although the scheme is an American Express Membership Rewards airline partner.

Until the end of October, SAS is running a very attractive Avis deal.  Take 2 x 2-day Avis rentals before the end of the year (to be booked by 31st October) and you will receive a whopping 12,000 EuroBonus miles.

That won’t necessarily get you far, but you could do a top-up via Membership Rewards.  You can get a night in a Radisson hotel for 20,000 SAS miles for example – that is how I got my free night at The May Fair in London 18 months ago.

Using them for flights is less attractive.  You need 20,000 SAS miles, plus taxes, for a one-way European flight on any Star Alliance airline.  That said, if you stretched the definition of Europe to its far reaches then it still may be an OK deal if the taxes made sense.

Full details are on this page of the Avis site.


How to get FREE car rental status and other benefits via UK credit cards

How to get FREE car rental status and other benefits via UK credit cards (April 2025)

If you hire a car in the UK, you can get special benefits (discounts, upgrades, free additional drivers etc) if you have elite status with a car rental programme. You can get elite status for free via certain American Express cards.

The Platinum Card and American Express Business Platinum

The Platinum Card from American Express and American Express Business Platinum come with two free car hire status cards. Your supplementary Platinum cardholder can also receive status in their own right.

From Avis, you receive President’s Club status in Avis Preferred. This gets you up to 25% off standard rates, a free additional driver and a guaranteed one class upgrade. For weekend rentals you will receive a two class upgrade, subject to availability.

From Hertz, you receive ‘Five Star’ status in Hertz Gold Plus Rewards. This gets you up to 15% off standard rates, a free additional driver and a one class upgrade, subject to availability.

Hertz also offers Platinum cardholders a 4 hour grace period on rentals. Your final day is treated as 28 hours, so a 1pm pick up with a 5pm return the following day is only charged as one day, not two days. We wrote about the Hertz / Platinum 4 hour grace period here.

The Platinum Card also comes with full car hire insurance with no obligation to pay for the rental via American Express. You can refuse any attempts to sell you additional insurance at pick up. This benefit has substantial value if you rent on a regular basis.

You can find more details on the two Platinum cards, and apply, in our full reviews linked below. You can apply here for the personal card and here for the business card.

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is an excellent card in its own right. You receive 20,000 Membership Rewards points for signing up (convert to 20,000 Avios amongst other things), four airport lounge passes and £120 of Deliveroo credit. Even better, your first year is free.

There are two car rental benefits:

  • you receive Preferred Plus status in Avis Preferred
  • you receive a special package with Hertz – 10% off best available rates at participating locations, a one class upgrade for rentals of 5 days or more, subject to availability, and no additional driver fees

Find out more about the benefits of American Express Preferred Rewards Gold in our review. You can apply here.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

Comments (404)

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

  • Callum Hughes says:

    Amazing achievement…First read every day before BBC news,

  • Djouzif says:

    Thank you for the voucher 🙂

  • slonik says:

    OT (and in the hope of being the lucky 200,000!).
    Is there any site/app that tracks when new reward seats are opened up on BA routes, and lets you set up email alerts? I am looking for one seat on a specific flight in the summer (date sadly non-negotiable), which is already full and was hoping they might open up more seats….

  • Fred says:

    I always look forward to your morning newsletter!

  • Roberto says:

    Its amazing what tripe people will write with the hope of winning £50… 🙂

  • Alan says:

    How can you find how many points you need to stay at a particular IHG hotel? Looking to see whether its worth buying the points for a planned pre-cruise stay in Southampton.

    Thanks

    • Alan says:

      Ah. I think I’ve found it but, apparently, there are no rooms available for points purchase at the HIE in Southampton – for any date whatsoever!

      Is availability usually this difficult to find or is it because I was a 2 Adult & 1 child room (which they have available to purchase for cash)

      • Rob says:

        The hotel MUST open up 5% of standard rooms every day for rewards but they can all be the smallest standard rooms.

      • John says:

        We are sorry, the IHG® Rewards Club system is currently unavailable. Please try again later or contact the IHG® Rewards Club Customer Care Centre for assistance. You may still make reservations without your IHG® Rewards Club member number. Just modify your reservation later to add your member number or present it upon check-in at the hotel.

  • Scott says:

    I’m going to be in New York next month, arriving from Boston around 1:30pm.

    I’ve got a flight on AA to LAX at 8am next morning (Saturday).

    How early should I get to JFK?
    (BA Gold / GGL, TSA PRE, flying business on the transcon).

    Was looking at staying at a hotel at the airport but a lot of them are coming in at a good £200 for the night and sure I could stay elsewhere and get a cab or the subway for far less.
    I’ve taken the subway to JFK from Queens for a 9am CX flight and made that by 7:30am but not sure about traffic etc. as I’ve been in a cab before and it was busy.

    Keeping IHG and Hilton points for the following weekend so don’t really want to blow them.

    • Anna says:

      Have you tried Priceline? A few years ago I got a Holiday Inn at JFK for about £50 per night using the bidding system. You get a guaranteed location and minimum star rating – the only drawback for us is that you can only do this for a double room (i.e. not family).

      • Anna says:

        It’s actually “name your own price”, not a bid. Haven’t used it since I started booking with hotels.com so don’t know if the bargains are still as good.

    • Billy Buzzjet says:

      As someone who presents themselves as a frequent flyer (BA Gold, GCL etc.) I’m sure you know the answer to your own question.

  • BigDave says:

    200,00 comment attempt – sorry have nothing better to add!

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

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