Important dates for your diary – offers about to close which you shouldn’t miss (Jan ’18)

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• mark2 says:

  7 Jan7 January 07:51

  You can also get up to 13,200 Avios with an Economist subscription until 31st January on the Avios.com site but only up to 4,400 on BAEC.

• Gareth says:

  7 Jan7 January 08:03

  Also ihg points increases effective 16th January

  • Rob says:

    7 Jan7 January 10:18

    Is that firm? Not had an email.

    • Gareth says:

      7 Jan7 January 11:44

      Couple of other sites saying that ihg emailed them with it

• Oli says:

  7 Jan7 January 08:06

  I read from the HMRC website that the last day to pay with a credit card is 12th January : ‘You won’t be able to pay with a personal credit card from 13 January 2018.’

  • Elizabeth Stewart says:

    7 Jan7 January 09:12

    I called them to ask what time the cut off is o pay online is as my new companion voucher collection date starts from 13th Jan. They were very vague but it seems midnight on jan 12th is the last opportunity to pay online with personal card.

• Tom1 says:

  7 Jan7 January 09:20

  O/t could be helpful to anyone trying to hit a spend target on amex.

  Apparently Morrison’s are offering 6,250 more points (worth £6.25) when you spend £50 on giftcards. The HUKD thread says Amazon, JL, M&S are all included.

  Warning – thread also says you can earn a max of £100 of more points per month, so on this logic you can buy up to 18 x £50 cards. You can buy more cards if you need to spend more, you just won’t get any more points.

  I can’t find anything on line to confirm, so I don’t know the expiry.

  • mark2 says:

    7 Jan7 January 09:32

    Last time there was a limit to transaction size, £50 I think.

    • Tom1 says:

      7 Jan7 January 09:42

      Someone has posted a screenshot of multiple cards in one go – but he got capped at the £100 mark i think.

  • Grimz says:

    7 Jan7 January 11:25

    I didn’t know that and I bought £450 worth yesterday so I hope I get that bonus!

    • mark2 says:

      7 Jan7 January 15:31

      were ‘More Points on Products’ shown below the normal ‘More Points’ on the till slip?

  • johnny_c-l says:

    7 Jan7 January 20:11

    Can you buy giftcards with the ‘more points’ vouchers?

  • Polly says:

    8 Jan8 January 12:31

    I was hoping the £50 visa or mastercard gift cards were included as would still be quids in even with paying the £2.95 fee..amex target reaching and use GCs for ctx…sadly not to be…

• Anna says:

  7 Jan7 January 09:28

  I tried to use the Billhop discount but just couldn’t find a place to input the code. Their website is not at all user friendly to navigate, but there definitely wasn’t a field on the settings page where it could be added.

• Genghis says:

  7 Jan7 January 09:57

  OT. Currently planning a trip to Japan and Hong Kong. What’s the best avios (CX or JL) flight KIX-HKG and TYO-HKG?

  • Genghis says:

    7 Jan7 January 10:07

    Ie. What aircraft has best seat config in J?

  • Rob says:

    7 Jan7 January 10:16

    We got a knackered JAL plane HKG TYO and a brand new 787 to PEK so it may be best to look at aircraft. Remember that long haul planes can have a short haul regional seating plan.

    • JamesB says:

      7 Jan7 January 19:23

      Yes, this is the problem. Unfortunately you cannot trust JAL on aircraft either so I would opt for CX. Also, HKG has congestion issues, given that my guess is CX will get more favours there than JAL.

  • Stu N says:

    7 Jan7 January 11:34

    For TYO-HKG – I looked into this in a lot of detail last spring for travel this March (we are doing LHR-HKG-TYO-HKG-LHR). JAL is apparently all regional set-ups (regional business is basically 2+2+2 recliners). JAL release availability a bit later too, T-330 I think, which doesn’t help when making comparisons.

    For Cathay, most of the flights use regional aircraft but there are one or two a day that use long haul aircraft. Everything seems to be 777s so you need to look at travel classes – if they have F and PE then you are looking at a long haul configuration, but it seems CX are notorious for substitutions so nothing is guaranteed.

    In the period we are traveling there is a round trip from HKG to NRT that apparently reliably uses a long haul aircraft. it’s CX520 outbound d.1000ish from HKG; it is approx 1700 return as CX521. Weirdly it showed as Iberia on BA.com when booking with Avios but it is definitely a CX flight. The other pair is CX548/549 to NRT on similar timings; both don’t go every day as far as I can work out. Also – watch out for some flights that go via Taipei with an hour or so stopover, probably best avoided if at all possible. Availability was very good at approx 11 months out but has dwindled to almost nothing since then. It’s cracking value as a redemption, I think we are on about £170 taxes and 50,000 Avios each for J out/ F back; cash fares are about HKD 30,000 = approx £2,900 so approx 6p/ Avios. Ours were booked as singles as we wanted the flexibility but it might be cheaper to book as return.

    Hope this helps, there is also a lot of good stuff on the CX board on flyer talk; JAL one isn’t anything like as busy so has much less info but you can piece things together eventually.

    • Stu N says:

      7 Jan7 January 12:54

      Actually following on from Ronster’s comment – have a look at jal.co.jp for your dates – seems they are on flat beds for many Hong Kong flights now. If you do a dummy cash booking then it tells you aircraft type and seat type. This has definitely changed since we booked last April; we were keen to do JAL one way and CX the other for the novelty but JAL was recliners (same sort of idea as US domestic First I think) so opted for CX both ways.

      Also, just remembered that sometimes you get better availability of you search HKG-NRT and HKG-HND rather than a generic HKG-TYO. Which is weird.

      • Genghis says:

        7 Jan7 January 15:21

        Thanks very much guys. Will look into this advice in detail.

      • Genghis says:

        7 Jan7 January 15:37

        And while I’m at it, Hotels in Tokyo?

        Thinking the Hilton in Shinjuku. I’ll most likely only be Hilton Gold then. I have lots of IHG points but the properties seem poor in Tokyo, unless anyone can recommend a good one?

      • Genghis says:

        7 Jan7 January 15:38

        I have a few hundred k Hilton points and many IHGs I’m willing to burn.

        • Rob says:

          7 Jan7 January 19:06

          IHG options did not appeal to me. Conrad Tokyo classy but points heavy. Those new ANA IC club rooms look smart if got an AMB free night voucher.

      • Stu N says:

        7 Jan7 January 16:57

        Sorry, no can do on that – staying with a friend when we are there.

      • JamesB says:

        7 Jan7 January 19:32

        All good research, but …HND so much better than NRT.

      • JamesB says:

        7 Jan7 January 19:43

        Hotels, if flying go/from HND tgen IC Tokyo Bay is worth condidering. About 15 minutes from the airport to Hamamatsu by monorail then a shirt taxi ride or hotel transit service. If unappealling, of using NRT, then sonething in Shinjuku.

  • Cate says:

    7 Jan7 January 22:15

    Before you book, take the flight code of the route you’re interested in and look it up on Planefinder or Flightradar24. That will tell you which aircraft type and version they’re flying now on that route.

• RussellH says:

  7 Jan7 January 11:25

  OT: Hilton

  We did two points+money stays over the New Year. I Have got the base points on the money part, plus my silver bonus, plus the 2 000 point bonus for the first quarter promotion, but no Avios – I am on points+miles (Iberia).

  Are miles excluded from points+money stays? Should I switch back to points+points?

  Thanks.

  • Klaus-Peter Dudas says:

    7 Jan7 January 13:45

    Yes they are. I found that out in November… If you contact them they should be able to give you the extra Hilton points though if you tell them that you didn’t know…

    • RussellH says:

      7 Jan7 January 17:13

      Thanks!!

      • pommy ray says:

        7 Jan7 January 21:27

        think you should leave setting on points plus miles as you want the extra avios which ends end of Jan.

• mark2 says:

  7 Jan7 January 15:02

  OT
  re Morrison’s card bonus.
  I went to Morrison’s this morn. The POS had been removed and the staff assured me that it had ended, but when I bought one Amazon it worked so I bought many more and John Lewis as well.
  May have gone by tomorrow.

  • Tom1 says:

    7 Jan7 January 15:39

    The HUKD thread says the offer is on until 31st January with confirmation from Morrison’s. My local store has no signage whatsoever – would suggest it’s store staff not knowing what is going on!

    • mark2 says:

      7 Jan7 January 16:33

      Hope that’s true!

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