News in brief:
Good IHG Rewards Club redemption option in Venice
IHG has announced that a Hotel Indigo will open in Venice next year.
Hotel Indigo Venice Sant’Elena will be located next to the canal ‘Rio Sant’ Elena’, within walking distance to the Castello district, a 15-minute walk from St Marco Square. This is one of the quieter areas in Venice. Converted from an old convent built in the 1930’s, the 77 room Indigo has two wings joined in the centre by a former chapel.
The hotel already operates as a Best Western Premier – the website is here – but will be remodelled before reopening as a design-led Hotel Indigo. A photo of the courtyard is below.
A 51-room boutique InterContinental was due to open in Venice this year, but that project has gone very quiet indeed and is no longer mentioned on ihg.com. We can be pretty certain that the Hotel Indigo conversion will actually happen. You can read more here.
Surprisingly decent KLM business class sale deals out of the UK
As we saw with the Qatar Airways sale this week, the best long-haul business class deals tend to involve starting outside the UK. This is partly due to high UK Air Passenger Duty but mainly because the UK remains a strong market. Qatar Airways finds it harder to fill two planes a day from Oslo than six planes per day from London.
This is why KLM’s sale is worth a look – click here.
From the UK, they are offering, all via Amsterdam or with other partner airlines:
- Delhi from £1,122
- Mumbai from £1,232
- Dubai from £1,243
- Hong Kong from £1,442
- Saint Martin from £1,527
- Curacao from £1,625
- Shanghai from £1,643
- Singapore from £1,793
- Beijing from £1,883
- Osaka from £1,973
Other routes are also available as you can see here. Booking and travel dates are very vague unfortunately but it is worth playing around with the options. I am not fully up to speed on which aircraft have which seats at the moment so, again, you will need to do some digging.
KLM is a member of SkyTeam so you will be crediting your flights to KLM’s Flying Blue programme or another SkyTeam programme such as Delta SkyMiles.
I wrote this article showing the 18 UK airports from which you can fly on KLM to Amsterdam and then onwards.
The KLM business class deals are here.
How to earn Flying Blue miles via UK credit cards
As a reminder, Air France and KLM do not have a UK Flying Blue credit card. However, you can earn Flying Blue miles by converting Membership Rewards points earned from selected UK American Express cards. These are:
American Express Preferred Rewards Gold – 10,000 Membership Rewards points sign-up bonus
The Platinum Card from American Express – 30,000 Membership Rewards points sign-up bonus
American Express Rewards credit card – up to 5,000 Membership Rewards points sign-up bonus
Membership Rewards points convert at 1:1 into Flying Blue miles. The cards above all earn 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on your card, which converts to 1 Flying Club mile.
Dave’s blog
I get a lot of emails from readers who tell me of all the great places they have been able to visit and all of the great hotels they have been able to stay in as a result of reading Head for Points. I’m always pleased to receive them.
This week I got a similar email from reader Dave. Dave, despite being only 49, has incurable lung cancer – despite having never smoked – and is unlikely to see out 2019. HFP has helped him spend much of the last year travelling so he can see the world whilst he has the chance. His travel blog, here, is worth a read, if only to remind the rest of us how fortunate we are.
(Want to earn more hotel points? Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Promos’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.)
About Head for Points
Do you still get 10k points for joining IC Ambassador club?
Think that was a one off at the end of last year.
OT Looking at booking my flights for this quarter. 2-3 European trips and one to MCO. I made silver last year with Virgin but doubt I’ll be able to make it to Gold. Is it worth trying to focus all travel on BA to get a status? My BA year starts next month.
It really depends how much economy flying you do, how much you value seat selection priority, and whether you have alternate lounge access options such as PP. I”ve happily survived as blue for years as my longhaul flights are all premium, and my shorthaul is mostly Air Asia or Easyjet.
Thanks James for the thoughts. Good to hear other people’s thoughts. I have PP and not bothered where I sit. The only value I see sticking with BA is topping up the Avios rather than more miles into my VS account.
BA status is really handy if you find yourself in T5 on a regular basis. If not then I wouldn’t bother chasing it. I’m likely to drop out of Silver this year and although i’d like to keep it without sufficient regular BA flying the benefits are not worth making an effort for.
Converseley if you think you have a lot of BA flying ahead of you the faster you make status the better. To the point IMO where buying unnecessary upgrades makes sense in the short term! Also trying to get Silver or Gold early in the TP year makes sense, as you get the remainder of that TP year, next year, and the ‘soft landing’ the year after.
Thanks for the thoughts. Don’t think I could make silver or gold early in my year. Possibly in my 3rd quarter.