Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: good Virgin compensation, Business Traveller auction, collect Avios with Trenitalia

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

News in brief:

Excellent Virgin Atlantic compensation on offer

Following on from our piece last week on Virgin Atlantic’s lease of ex-airberlin aircraft into Manchester to cover for defective Boeing 787 planes, a reader sent me his compensation offer.

The reader had been booked to fly Virgin Atlantic Upper Class from Manchester to Barbados in May.  He was called by Virgin and told that his aircraft would no longer have an Upper Class cabin and that he would be downgraded to Premium Economy.

However, the compensation offer for accepting the PE downgrade was:

a Virgin Atlantic Upper Class ticket to ANYWHERE on the Virgin network, valid for three years, taxes included, or

100,000 Flying Club miles

Not surprisingly, our reader and his wife both took the free flight.  Looking at the document they gave him, this is the standard compensation for readers bumped from Upper Class for operational reasons on the day.  I think he got very lucky to be offered this for a downgrade five months in advance.

How nice it would be if British Airways offered a free Club World flight as compensation to everyone downgraded to World Traveller Plus ‘for operational reasons’.  Instead, we have a situation where BA appears to prioritise Club World passengers flying on BA Amex 2-4-1 vouchers, pays only the legal minimum in compensation to the lead passenger and refuses to give anything to the 2nd passenger on the grounds that their ticket was ‘free’ ……

Business Traveller charity auction

Business Traveller magazine is running its regular Christmas charity auction.  As ever, they have persuaded an impressively wide range of companies to offer up prizes.

Full details are on their website here.

The more ‘obvious’ deals tend to go for full value but there are often deals to be had elsewhere.  You can also bid on items from the separate auction being run by the Asia-Pacific edition of the magazine.

The UK version of the auction has another four weeks to run whilst the Asia-Pacific lots close in a fortnight.

Collect Avios with Trenitalia

This will be a very niche one for most HfP readers, but Avios has launched a new partnership with Italian rail operator Trenitalia.

You can now convert your CartaFRECCIA points into Avios at the following rates:

1.000 Punti CartaFRECCIA = 500 punti Avios 
6.000 Punti CartaFRECCIA = 3.000 punti Avios 
10.000 Punti CartaFRECCIA = 5.000 punti Avios

Conversion can be made into either a BA, Iberia, Vueling or Meridiana account.

Category

British Airways and Avios, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (17)

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

  • TripRep says:
    17 Dec17 December 03:56

    Hugely impressive compensation, how much confidence would that give customers who were deliberating whether to make a future booking?

    Well played Virgin, credit where credit is due.

    • Sam G says:
      17 Dec17 December 04:40

      Hmm – from what I can see Virgin haven’t told the truth here – some flights are operating on the 747 which have 14 seats vs 31 on the A330-300 usually stationed at Manchester. So assuming the 747 is the replacement aircraft – it’s not that the 747 doesn’t have UC – it’s that it is already full!

      Not sure if you have any flexibility but there is availability on most days in May in UC

      As an aside it looks like these aircraft will be visiting London – e.g. May 15th LGW-Barbados VS29 is operating on one

    • Sam G says:
      17 Dec17 December 04:42

      P.P.S. – unless it’s changed, those vouchers can be tough to use. They have their own availability and you had to call in. One colleague ended up taking an offer to switch them back to 100k miles.

      Though Manchester may actually be better for that

  • Amit says:
    17 Dec17 December 06:51

    Rob – whatever happened with the person taking BA to court over the downgrade on a 2-4-1 voucher?

    • Rob says:
      17 Dec17 December 10:48

      BA lost but a confidentiality was signed. However BA was forced to pay (at their selling price of 1.6p per Avios) the equivalent of EU compensation.

      • the_real_a says:
        17 Dec17 December 13:10

        It doesn’t sound like a judgement was made, more like a settlement before court action. If a judgement WAS made it would be great to read the synopsis which would be available as public record.

  • Catalan says:
    17 Dec17 December 09:57

    Rob are we comparing like with like. Was the reader using VFC miles for his MAN-BGI trip or cash? If it was miles then that is definitely better than what BA offered TripRep when they downgraded him using his 2-4-1.
    If it was a cash fare then Virgin aren’t being that over generous in my opinion.

    • Rob says:
      17 Dec17 December 10:46

      Miles ticket.

      • Catalan says:
        17 Dec17 December 11:11

        Well done Virgin. Let’s hope the reader finds suitable availability.

        • Nicholas says:
          19 Dec19 December 06:46

          I am the reader in question, I wanted to add that my original ticket was ‘one way UC using miles’; I am flying back with BA. Needless to say my wife and I were delighted to get a free return UC ticket to anywhere on Virgin Network.

  • mark2 says:
    17 Dec17 December 19:36

    I make the answer in the Marriott NFL trivia tweeter is
    2017#RewardsPoints
    because they started using a tablet.

  • Prins Polo says:
    18 Dec18 December 11:55

    Oh wow, that makes BA look so obscenely cheap.

    Nice gesture from Virgin.

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Latest Forum Posts

Get 40,000 bonus points (worth 40,000 Avios) and £300 dining credit with The Platinum Card

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get £10 when you spend £150 on your free Currensea card

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? EARN POINTS WORTH 10,500 AVIOS WITH CAPITAL ON TAP

Get 20,000 bonus points, four airport lounge passes and your first year free with American Express Gold

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!