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News: Opodo and ebookers discounts, Virgin MAN and LGW routes using airberlin planes

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News in brief:

Opodo and ebookers launch new discount codes

Opodo and ebookers have new discount codes for anyone booking a flight or a ‘flight and hotel’ package in the next few days.

Via this link (click here), Opodo is offering £35 off a £500 flight or £100 of an £1100 ‘flight and hotel’ package.  You need to book by 11th January.  You can travel at any time but must depart from a UK airport.

Via this special link (click here), ebookers is offering £60 off a £500 spend.  You must book a flight and hotel package to qualify.  Book before 8th January for travel by 31st October.

Virgin Atlantic releases list of airberlin aircraft switches

We have covered the saga of Virgin Atlantic’s ‘out of service’ Boeing 787 fleet in recent weeks.

To get around the medium term loss of a number of aircraft which require new engines, Virgin Atlantic has leased a number of ex-airberlin A330 aircraft.  These are currently having a light refurbishment to give them the Virgin Atlantic look and feel, albeit with the existing airberlin seating.

Our last review of airberlin Business Class is hereIt is a decent seat and actually more suitable for families and couples than Virgin’s Upper Class product in my view.

The Virgin Atlantic website – click here – has now published a list of services from Manchester and Gatwick which will be flown with ex-airberlin aircraft.

If you have been booked to fly Premium Economy on these services you should already have been contacted, as no Premium Economy seating will be available. 

If you are booked in Economy you may want to look at your seat reservation as the seating is now 2-4-2.  In Upper Class, you may also want to rethink where you sit as you are effectively getting a staggered 1-2-1 configuration.


How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Virgin Points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

You can choose from two official Virgin Atlantic credit cards (apply here, the Reward+ card has a bonus of 15,000 Virgin Points):

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

A generous earning rate for a free card at 0.75 points per £1 Read our full review

You can also earn Virgin Points from various American Express cards – and these have sign-up bonuses too.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for a year and comes with 20,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 20,000 Virgin Points.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with 40,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 40,000 Virgin Points.

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Small business owners should consider the two American Express Business cards. Points convert at 1:1 into Virgin Points.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Virgin Points

(Want to earn more Virgin Points?  Click here to see our recent articles on Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club and click here for our home page with the latest news on earning and spending other airline and hotel points.)

Comments (46)

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

  • Nick says:

    NEWS!!! (As bits)
    BA has finally shown their hand with the monarch slots and released a beefed up summer schedule. Sadly it’s really boring (nowhere actually new) but there are lots more flights which will have avios availability on creation, so if you want a med summer holiday and have points to burn, get in fast.

    • Rob says:

      Chambery is new I believe?

      • Nick says:

        New to mainline, but CityFlyer has been there for years so it’s not new to the network. I meant genuinely new places (as LEI was but that was heathrow and announced ages ago), sorry if it wasn’t clear.

    • JP says:

      Any idea of the new schedule that they have added? Sometimes the new route popup cheap for cash if you get in early.

  • Boris says:

    The infant would be classed as a child if they are 2 and above at any point of the journey. Maybe explore cost of one way as an infant and one way as a child if you are using points (cost will be expensive)

    • Rob says:

      Are you saying this is Virgin policy? Because BA policy is that the child gets a ‘free’ seat on the return.

      There used to be a big wheeze you could do here. BA used to give you a free seat for your kids as long as ANY PART of the trip was before the kid was 2. So you would book Manchester – London (massive stopover, say 6 months, during which the kid turns 2) London – New York, New York – London and probably hop off before London – Manchester.

      BA would give you a free seat for both long haul legs in this scenario. They pulled the plug on this about 5 years ago and now the entire outbound must be flown before the 2nd birthday.

  • Genghis says:

    I’ve only used ebookers once recently for a personal stay at a hotel I wanted to stay in and that is because the rate was much cheaper than elsewhere and outweighed any CB / rewards etc from elsewhere.

    For work stays I either go with one of the chains which is offering the most points / most convenient hotel etc etc (so just a HI close to the office in Paris next week for accelerate) or hotels.com (where get c.16% rebate). Having free breakfast / hotel lounge access whilst away for work does not bother me.

  • EwanG says:

    OT on bits: did anyone receive the 500 bonus Avios points from linking their Avios account to their kulula ID? Points were due to be added within 30 days of the end of the promotion (30 Nov).

  • wally1976 says:

    OT – Rob – are you still planning to run something with Bud? Don’t want to miss out on the 500 Avios through Avios.com but if you’re going to do something better….

    • Rob says:

      Has gone quiet, because the whole process of being able to have Bud access all your bank details has been delayed by a few months. Feel free to sign up direct as I can’t promise anything at the moment.

  • JamesB says:

    Good deal for you 🙂 I had a former boss who was very suspicious of my bypassing the corporate travel agent but he never worked up the nerve to address the issue; a good job for me!

  • the real harry1 says:

    We are also introducing several new destinations to the Gatwick programme, including Palma (Majorca), Mahon (Menorca) and Gibraltar.

  • Tom Cook says:

    Is anyone else having issues when clicking through on BA holidays, hotel choice etc that the page suddenly doesn’t exist? Seems very odd!

    • stevie g says:

      Happened to me earlier today. Had to press refresh a lot and wait for it to recover. Then start again. It worked eventually.

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

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