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Bits: Virgin redemptions with infants, Qatar increasing Scandi frequencies, Amex and Ryanair

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News in brief:

Virgin Atlantic has still not changed its infant policy, one year on

When the Virgin Atlantic website was relaunched last December, it changed its policy on the pricing of infants on Virgin Flying Club redemptions.

Redemption tickets for infants had historically been charged at 200 miles (Economy), 750 miles (Premium Economy) or 1500 miles (Upper Class) plus taxes and charges.

From last December, they were charged at 10% of the lowest cash fare, plus taxes and charges.

This appears to have been forced on Virgin by the limitations of the new booking software, which they inherited from 49% shareholder Delta.  The new policy is identical to the Delta policy.

The problem is that 10% of the lowest cash fare can be a LOT of money.  This is especially true on one way bookings where no discounted tickets are available.  A one-way Upper Class flight to New York on 1st February will cost you £5,897.  This means that Virgin will ask you for £589, plus taxes and charges, for your infant redemption ticket.

Virgin Flying Club told me a year ago that they were fully aware of this problem and that a fix would be in place in H1 2017.  It is now December, and a recent email from a reader confirms that nothing has changed.  Whether you book a cash ticket or a redemption ticket on Virgin Atlantic, a lap infant will still cost you 10% of the cheapest cash fare at the time of booking.

British Airways, for comparison, will charge 10% of the adult Avios and 10% of the adult taxes for a lap infant.  This is more like it.

Qatar Airways increasing frequencies to Scandinavia

Qatar Airways has been offering some truly exceptional deals out of Scandinavia this year, such as the recent £1300 business class fares to Australasia.

They have proved so popular that the airline is increasing its frequencies.  Oslo will increase from seven to 10 flights to Doha per week whilst Stockholm will increase from 14 to 17 per week.

17 long haul aircraft a week out of Stockholm is a lot of premium seats to fill, so hopefully the flow of good value business class deals will continue.

Do American Express customers fly Ryanair?

Whilst this is not ‘news’ in any sense of the word, I found it amusing.  A reader sent me an email he had received from American Express encouraging him to sign up for new cashback offers. 

Whilst 12,000 people had chosen to register for the ‘£20 back on a £60 Eurostar spend’ deal, only a paltry 311 had signed up for the offer of ‘2000 bonus Membership Rewards points when spending £80 on Ryanair’.  There isn’t even any guarantee that those 311 people were eventually going to fly to Ryanair – many will have saved the offer ‘just in case’.

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Category

Qatar Airways and Privilege Club, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (181)

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

  • Davef says:
    29 Nov29 November 05:54

    I actually went for that offer. Had trouble getting flights to come to over the £80, but added speedy boarding and luggage etc. The alternative airlines were 2.5 times the price, so I’ll spend the difference on a better hotel.

  • Simon Fennemore says:
    29 Nov29 November 06:05

    Rather than Ryanair, I’m hoping there’ll be another BA spend £500 get £100 back deal going live. Anyone got any insider knowledge if will happen again? Looking to book next week

    • Waribai says:
      29 Nov29 November 06:20

      Would be very happy with £100 off £500 at the moment. It seems though that many companies such as Ryanair are now targeting only those who have not spent with them.
      Eurostar seem much more inclusive. We have used them conisiderably in the last two years but still had the £20 off £60 offer on two cards recently.

      • Yuff says:
        29 Nov29 November 06:45

        I have a £75 off £500 spend with Qatar on my gold and supplementary card on same account

    • Tilly says:
      29 Nov29 November 12:14

      A couple of weeks ago i used the £100 off £800 spend with BA on my BAPP card. Very pleased as had just that to pay off my upcoming trip in the spring.

  • ee says:
    29 Nov29 November 06:46

    O/T was there any link circulating for signing up to Tesco CC points auto converting to Virgin Atlantic for 1000 bonus miles?

    Second O/T (and possibly one for Rob’s next Accor article) is not to forget to add your Accor stays into the Accor Places App. I’d forgotten and then bulk uploaded a few recentish stays and ended up triggering 700 Avios worth of badges!

  • TripRep says:
    29 Nov29 November 06:47

    O/T: Question for the Asia travellers…

    Abandoned any hope of visiting Bali, so now activated my contingency plan.

    Booked new flights (trying out AirAsia Biz class), to now bypass Bali and going direct to KL from Oz for a one nighter. With current conditions I couldn’t risk not making our BA CW flight from KL back to the UK. Hope to claim on insurance for the sunk cost of the original AirAsia flights to/from Bali.

    I know the DoubleTree in KL is a popular redemption for 10k HH pts, but has anyone stayed at the Hilton, it seems easy to get to/from KLIA, cash rate only £69 for cancelable room.? TIA 🙂

    • JamesB says:
      29 Nov29 November 07:01

      Hilton is nicer but taxi from airport to door of DT is still easier than train to Hilton and yyouvsave a lot of pints.

    • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
      29 Nov29 November 07:06

      Yes the KL Hilton is great for a short stay. Location not quite as central as you might like, but convenient from the airport (and you can get the metro downtown from Sentral). Great breakfast spread, surprisingly pleasant pool area and pleasant exec lounge too. Park view worth the (small) extra cost.

    • Genghis says:
      29 Nov29 November 08:14

      I’ve posted before but DT was v cheap (and got a suite) but i only rated 3* on TA. The hotel is seriously understaffed.

    • xcalx says:
      29 Nov29 November 08:52

      @triprep

      Good luck with the insurance. Amex not interested in my recent call re lost flights and hotel in St Martin due to hurricane Irma.

    • Tilly says:
      29 Nov29 November 12:22

      The KL Hilton is nice. Stayed there when family were not able to put us all up that time around when we visited for a family wedding.

    • Leo says:
      29 Nov29 November 12:46

      Bali is the most overrated place I’ve been to in recent years so try just to enjoy the trip anyway.

      • TripRep says:
        29 Nov29 November 14:52

        Leo – I’d actually seen similar reviews.

        Don’t worry, an extra 2 days stress free enjoying the bars and beaches of Perth/Freo will be more than worth the sunk costs on flights.

      • xcalx says:
        29 Nov29 November 20:36

        Me too, The Grand Hyatt along with the beachfront upgrade and beautiful lounge were perfect but the surrounding areas and beaches were disgusting, filthy with litter and stunk add on the airport visa scramble and no thanks too many nicer places in Asia for me that are not as over hyped.

        I remember coming into land at DPS and reading an article about Bali it said Europeans still thought of Bali as a paradise Island, I turned to mrs xcalx and re read her the paragraph. We now know what the writer meant.

    • Crafty says:
      30 Nov30 November 23:14

      Yes it’s really nice.

  • Michael C says:
    29 Nov29 November 06:51

    Hit me with those Jan. SEAsia sales ex Scandi, Qatar, baby!

  • Den says:
    29 Nov29 November 07:05

    Reading Rob’s commentary about Ryanair, it feels like a hybrid of two of my favourite blogs: HFP and… Overheard in Waitrose(!)

  • Ken Snowdon says:
    29 Nov29 November 07:12

    Nothing wrong with Ryanair – I’m Platinum and fly with them all the time. Cheap, punctual and better at what they do than BA.
    Ironic that the Ryanair offer didn’t appear on my card!!

  • Anna says:
    29 Nov29 November 07:24

    I didn’t know Ryanair accepted Amex, going to check my accounts for this offer. As another poster pointed out, when you need an economy flight from the regions, why would you want to go via Heathrow?

    • Bob says:
      29 Nov29 November 08:38

      Because for a majority of worldwide destinations, whether business or economy, the main alternatives are transiting in AMS or CDG. Or finding a direct route from MAN, BHX or EDI. Why would I want to go to MAN, BHX or EDI when it is quicker to travel to LHR instead? From Northumberland, anyway. And much of the south-west too. Plus Scotland. And the south-east.

      • Anna says:
        29 Nov29 November 09:52

        Well obviously I was speaking from the point of view of travellers whose local airport is (for example) Manchester or Liverpool. And Ryanair doesn’t fly worldwide so that comparison isn’t valid.

        • Peter says:
          29 Nov29 November 10:34

          Absolutely agree Anna. That struck me as a particularly London centric comment. Board any Ryanair flight in the regions and you’ll notice – aside from stag do’s – that it is generally full of middle class families flying direct to holiday homes (be they owned or rented) in Europe. They are very much Amex target customers. BA may have decided they are not interested in this market but easyJet and Ryanair certainly are – and very successfully too.

        • Bob says:
          29 Nov29 November 19:43

          Not a London centric comment at all. If you’re in the Liverpool to Leeds corridor, then it is quite easy to get to MAN. And MAN does have a wide range of destinations. But if your local airport is Teeside, or Newcastle, or Bristol, or Cardiff – then LHR does play a big role. It is easier for me to get to LHR than it is MAN or LGW or BHX. So when you need an economy flight from MOST of the regions, LHR/AMS/CDG and to a lesser extent FRA play a big role.

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