News in brief:
Earn double Avios with Shell Drivers Club
Shell Drivers Club is offering double points on all fuel purchases until 14th February. Full details are on their website here.
Double points means two points per litre on Shell Fuels and four points per litre on Shell V-Power.
Shell Drivers Club is the loyalty scheme for Shell garages in the UK. Joining is simple – pick up a card at a Shell station when filling up and register it online. You earn 100 Avios just for registering your card so it is worth doing this even if you switch to a different reward later.
You can learn more at the Shell Drivers Club website here.
The scheme is simple – 2 Shell points = 1 Avios. As well as Avios, 500 points can be turned into £2.50 of Shell vouchers or £2.50 of Waitrose vouchers. The benefit of taking Avios is that Shell converts (once a quarter) your points in multiples of 20 (ie 10 Avios) with no minimum, unlike the 500 point minimum for other rewards.
The snag is that you are effectively paying 1p per Avios as you could claim a £2.50 Shell or Waitrose voucher with your 500 Shell points instead of taking 250 Avios. If 1p per Avios is too rich for you (it is too rich for me, I am happier ‘paying’ 0.75p or less) then take the vouchers.
Excellent business class deals to Australia
It isn’t just Qatar Airways which has excellent business class deals to Australia at the moment.
Air India has launched a great fare from Heathrow to Melbourne or Sydney – just £1,825 return. The fare is available throughout much of 2018. You will be getting a new Boeing 787 with flat bed seats.
Air India is a member of Star Alliance so you can credit the miles to Lufthansa Miles & More, United MileagePlus, SAS EuroBonus or one of the other main Star Alliance schemes. You don’t need to credit them to Air India.
If you want to pay even less you can – until TOMORROW ONLY – book a fantastic deal in the Qatar Airways sale. Oslo to Melbourne / Sydney / Perth / Canberra / Auckland is around £1475 return. The Norway Qatar Airways sale page is here and my full article on the Qatar Airways sale is here which discusses the best aircraft types to pick.
It is also worth pricing tickets out of Stockholm (Sweden Qatar Airways sale page here). You may pay a little more but Stockholm is more convenient if you are starting in the regions.
Remember that Europe to Australasia is 600 British Airways tier points (560 to Perth) when you fly on Qatar Airways.
Win in a new Accor daily competition
Le Club AccorHotels, the loyalty scheme for Ibis, Novotel, Pullman, Mercure, Sofitel etc, is running a ‘daily win’ competition until next Sunday.
It is quite generous. Every day there are 120 prizes of 1,000 Accor points (worth 1,000 Avios or €20 off a hotel stay) to be won. At the end of the competition, five people will win 100,000 Accor points, worth 100,000 Avios or €2,000 of hotel vouchers.
Here is the link to play. You need to match up pairs of playing cards within 60 seconds. Irrespective of whether or not you manage, you get to ‘virtually’ rub off a scratchcard to see if you are instant winner. Only those who do manage to match the pairs get entered into the final draw to win 100,000 points.
(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for the latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios from current offers and promotions.)
About Head for Points
OT. Has there been confirmation that the IHG points for Intercontinental will go up tomorrow?
Weirdly not.
Pain in the backside. Sitting on 99k points with an Accelerate 4k waiting in the wings somewhere. All I need to take me to the promised land of 100k two nights in the IC Osaka and they are taking an eternity to post.
Now have to book one night then wait and see I suppose.
Perhaps buy 1k (or whatever the lowest level is) – worth it, if it saves you 10k from an increase?
Thought about it Scallder but I have challenged myself to a 2 week holiday in Japan without paying a penny extra in flights (Tax/charges of course) or accommodation. I’ll get around it somehow I suppose.
Have you tried signing up for the IHG survey site, I had a similar issue to you in wanting to round my points up to 80k, signed up for their survey offering, and had a 1000 points within a couple of hours of registering, Probably 1/2hr of effort to set up and do 1 survey.
Managed to get my parents booked Oslo – Sydney – Stockholm for £1,336pp in biz (787, A380, 777 but no Qsuite unfortunately)
Flights to from Manchester were about £125 each with SAS.
I do have a question though, if anyone can help?
How do they get the 600 BA Tier Points and of course, AVIOS?
When booking on the Qatar website I entered their respective BAEA numbers in the frequent flyer box.
do I have to go in and amend somthing or wait until the Qpoints land? I guess either way I need to create each of them a privilege account?
These tickets are classified as “R”.
Would also be good to know exactly how many AVIOS points they will each earn for this routing. The Qater website seems awfully cluncky for a first timer!
Thanks!
Paul
You don’t need to do anything else – the booking will earn Avios and TPs in BAEC directly instead of QPoints
Thanks
Avios from my outward flight did not post on my last QR flight. I desperately needed the Avios. I had to phone BAEC. The flight was checked to have been flown and credited immediately. Weirdly, the Avios from the return QR flight posted in two days.
So as well as other posters’ suggestions to check the boarding pass right up to the gate to check that the BAEC number is still on it, I,’d advise checking from 36 hours after the flight to see that they actually credit. If not credited within a week I’d phone BAEC. Also make sure they keep the boarding passes until the flights credit.
Just put BAEC no’s on booking. Use BA TP calculator putting in each segment to find avios and TPs
https://www.britishairways.com/travel/flight-calculator/public/en_gb?clickpage=executive-club–collecting-avios–flights–index&kmtag=c&ban=%7C%7CBC%7C1%7CCTA1%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7CL2%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C
Very useful thanks!
Works out just over 28k AVIOS each, so 56.5k in to MY household account ????
They will get silver status each @ 600 tier points which is great.
Now need to help them book hotels preferably via eBookers at 10:1 AVIOS!
Paul,
Remember they still must do 4 X BA sectors to qualify for silver within their TP year..l noticed you flew them SAS, return. Do they do plenty of other BA flying during the year otherwise, as they will need to fly those 4 BA coded flights.HBO flights will do.
Re the Qatar site, sometimes the FF now revert to another plan in Qatar. I meant, to make sure at check in their boarding passes have their baec no on them. I only noticed ours before boarding that our QR nos mysteriously appeared on them. So l got it changed back to baec at the gate.
They will also need 4 BA flights as well as the tier points to attain Silver
And bear in mind both the outbound and return and the 4 BA flights all need to be in the same BAEC year to get silver. It’s not a rolling year like some FF schemes.
Slightly OT: how do I make sure my Qatar flights credit tier points and avios, not the Qatar equivalent? Booked to Adelaide in the sale. Thanks.
You log into Qatar with their booking ref no, in the frequent flyer drop down box, chose BA and insert your baec no. Or do it at check in, lounge. We even did it at the gate one time!
Thanks Polly, is this in addition to me having already entered their BAEA numbers at the booking stage?. Just want to be sure… thanks
Yes Paul, as above…slip ups easily happen. Also found out that the chaps in Qatar lounge in Doha can ONLY input their own QR privilege no now, NOT the baec one. Had hassle last time with ours too, noticed baec on out BP and QR no on 2 nd leg. Chaotic! So warn them to double check their boarding passes are correct.
Wow, this must be a breach of something in OW, if Qatar Airways instructs their agents not to enter other airline’s frequent flyer numbers.
Exactly this. I flew Qatar over New Year from South Africa and the Avios and Tier Points credited within 2 days.
Thanks Polly!
OT: Etihad Devulation – Seems to be a lot better than expected. LHR to AUH needs around 4K less miles in business now. This will offset the 50$ rise in tax nicely with miles and points option. Phewww!
OT flying from T3 for the first time since I got silver status. Lounge hopping and can’t believe how awful the BA lounge is compared to the Cathay Pacific and Qantas lounges. Suppose it would be good if you wanted to get blind drunk before a flight!
I think I’d probably just stick to the Cathay Pacific one the next time I’m here unless I had lots of time to do both
What did you think of the QF lounge Lumma?
What time were you there?
I was in the CX lounge today. Pigged our on Noodles and Dim Sum. Fantastic
OT
It is so long since I did not pay a card in full that I have forgotten, or it could be my age.
If you leave a balance outstanding do you pay interest on the unpaid amount or on the whole statement amount please? (Amex SPG card)
Whole statement. Calculated daily I think. There’ll be an estimated interest amount on the previous statement which is what you’d pay if you just made the minimum payment on the due date. Will vary depending on how much you’ve paid off or spent during the month
Yes thanks. I wanted to leave enough to absorb the refunded annual charge on cancellation, but I shall have to spend it and lose the 60 or so points.
Or just ask for it to be refunded as cash / transferred to another account?
I always wait for it to appear on the account after I cancel. Then have it refunded/put on another card I have with them. It does NOT put back your cancellation date, which is an important point for 6 month churning.
As Rob mentions, the best thing about the Shell scheme is that you only need 20 points to get a few Avios. I would imagine that most readers routinely fill up at Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda or Morrisons, or some local garage that prices similarly. But when away from home, you may have to use a more expensive oil co. place – you will never get enough points for a £2.50 voucher anyway. So a few avios is fine.
I think the nearest Shell station to me is around 30 miles away anyway…
OT – internal flights in the US, it’s been several years since we did one. We’re flying DCA-MIA-GCM this summer with AA. The first flight is 8 am but the airport shuttle buses don’t start running until 6 am, is this going to give us enough time? I have grim memories of security queues in the US being so slow that people were missing connecting flights. Not used DCA before but I think it’s a good deal smaller than JFK, ATL etc. Also, will we need to go through security again at MIA?
I’d booked our redemptions into IAD and out of GCM before realising how badly served GCM is from the Washington DC area, so no option but to change in Miami unfortunately.
DCA recommend arriving 90 – 120 minutes before your flight. If you’re worried though, grab an Uber. It will be not be very expensive (assuming you’re central DC) and worth it for the peace of mind. As both flights are with AA I see no reason why you would need to re-clear security in MIA outbound as you’re just in transit and with the same airline. Flyertalk thread here may help. https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/american-airlines-aadvantage/1718314-aa-guide-mia-miami-int-airport-mct-connection-15.html
Thanks – we are staying at DCA so the shuttle should take a matter of minutes, but I don’t know how long baggage drop and security will take. If they recommend 90 mins as the minimum though, we should be ok.
OT – How long does AmEx referral points post? I referred my friend and he got his card by post yesterday, but points are not showing in my account (yet). I know from past experience that points should normally post before applicants receive their cards! Started to worry about I messed up with the referral link…
I referred Mrs Slamberry from a Personal Platinum to a BAPP on 28th Dec. 18,000 referal points posted on 30th Dec. Card arrived 3rd Jan. We were contending with a bank holiday in this mix.
If he used your link you’ll be fine.
OT
Just a reminder that Morrison’s are still giving 5,000 (+normal 1,250) More points on £50 gift cards for John Lewis/Waitrose, Amazon, Debenhams and a couple of others. It works out at 12.5%.
OT: Just read on comments at shopperpoints that clubcard has devalued for some partners and they are already live. Just about to go into a meeting so would be gratdful if sonebody here could check and report back on BA, avios, uber etc please. Thanks.
Avios and Virgin still OK. Most of the 4x partners have been cut back to 3x and some 2x partners increased to 3x.
Apparently ALL vouchers get 3 x value now. I’ve started using mine for Hotels.com so no change there. I’m on track to pay for 7 nights accommodation this summer so am glad this has not been adversely affected.
No, it’s not ‘all’ it is ‘most’.
I look forward to your analysis, Rob, especially those going from 2x to 3x. My staples of uber and hotels.com are safe.
@Anna/Genghis, are you finding hotels.com is generally a better use than UK Hiltons even after the loss of free night credit? When using them for Hilton do we still get the Honors points given we are booking through Hilton? I’m tempted to use mine for three nights at the Trafalgar St James; I will need to run the numbers on which of the two routes to go.
The key is really the rate difference between the Hilton site and hotels.com. If Hilton is cheaper then it still may be the best way to go. Bird in the hand etc ….
I’m happy with Hotels.com. An effective c.2.5x after deduction of reward night benefit and any cash / points back NOW (as opposed to holding out for another bonus; points don’t earn interest). I don’t need the avios etc and only so many Ubers I need.
I thought didn’t get Hilton points on UK Hilton cc bookings? Could be wrong. IIRC what I don’t like is the flexible rates charged for non flex bookings, but perhaps I need to review it again…
You do AFAIK get credit on Hilton bookings.
Thanks guys, I thought it might all come down to the rates because the Hilton route uses the flexible rate while I think rate might be better at hotels.vom. Will read the respective articles on both routes again because I seem to rember you had to wait some time to gdt one or both vouchers too during which time rates could change so there could be an elenent of uncertainty.
Hotels.com voucher seems to take about 20 mins to come through. Never done Hilton.
With Hilton, you book online (if you know the Tesco corporate code, we have an article on it) and once you’ve booked you can leisurely order the vouchers up.
Got my info from MSE so apologies if wrong. I love the Hotels.com deal, it effectively means you are getting a room for the price of the taxes, £15-£20. I’ll probably still also book 10 nights per year for cash and trigger the free night as you can book apartments and villas through the website now.
So it looks like hotels.com is winning the popularity contest and seems to be virtually a real time redemption too. The villa option could be really useful for Bali too if their prices are not far off those for booking direct.
You don’t get Hotels.com Rewards credit on Clubcard bookings. This make it 10% poorer than spending cash on Hotels.com. Uber is still better.
Thanks Rob, a relief as I’ve been hoarding mine for the elusive BA transfer bonus. I will hold off until this statement comes through and covert them or use them on hotels.
Only convert when you know hotel value as you won’t get change, and you need to still pay any taxes and fees
I got an email about the Accor game and so played the other day, and now can’t log back into it to play again. When I try I get ‘This user already exists’. Is it a one-time entry only game or are you meant to be able to play every day? I thought ‘Daily win’ implied the latter….
Once per 24 hours…
There’s something wrong with the login function then. Not sure I can be arsed to chase them about it TBH.
Yup, I got the same when I realised this morning that I hadn’t played again since Monday. Doh! I also thought it was a daily play.
credit to Tesco for “making things easier” as their email stated…. I had really struggled with converting some vouchers to 4x and others to 3x previously…..
I can only assume they will continue to “make things easier” buy updating the Avios earning rate to 300 points per £1 voucher now……
I hope they do. It’s better than the 240 Avios per £1.00 of clubcard points we get at the moment…
OT https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/15/business/airbus-a380-emirates.html