Is Etihad dropping its flights from Edinburgh?

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• Rob Rubin says:

  5 Apr5 April 04:37

  Forgive my curiosity, but how will Sainsbury’s know if a £30 weekly spend represents 100% of a shopper’s weekly spend on groceries, or if £60 represents 30% of a shopper’s weekly spend on groceries?

  • Mr(s) Entitled says:

    5 Apr5 April 07:43

    Presumably the algorithm will look at your basket/accumulative shopping. £30 on stables (bread, milk, veg, protien etc although it needs to be smarter than that to aviod penalising vegetarians) will score higher than £60 on Prosecco.

    At first blush it puts loyalty ahead of profit. Interesting concept for a business. Must be confident in the long game.

    • shd says:

      5 Apr5 April 08:59

      I’m sceptical, sounds like yet another group of consultants have sold Sainsbury’s a “big data” project by promising the moon on a stick.

    • johnny_c-l says:

      5 Apr5 April 11:34

      Probably a good way to extract marketing investment from suppliers to prop up profits with minimal actual cost of implementing the project.

• James says:

  5 Apr5 April 05:05

  I earn my Avios a few ways and my employer doesn’t pay for lots of flights 🙁
  I also top up now& then on these Groupon/Iberia deals if my balance is dwindling. I do this a little speculatively which I know its not recommended but I can get alright value doing almost last minute UK-EU CE weekend breaks (which if I planned properly I wouldn’t need to do) or positioning flights 😉

  If BA remove F redemption availability or make it an insanely large number of Avios which only the mega rich or corporate flyers (freebies) would ever achieve then Avios would very much lose the plebs like me who collect for aspirational trips. Most of us are all still just peasants with wifi really.
  Also, I don’t want a BA J redemption, I’d rather fly Qatar or one of the other very decent airlines which hit £1k for Asia in a much better J product. I see BA Longhaul in J as a bit naff really. Better than economy of course !! And not bad value on a 2-4-1 voucher, but it still doesn’t excite me or inspire me to collect.

  Anyway, I can’t sleep and am rambling.
  My brain won’t switch off 🙁

  Anyway, my overactive brain has concluded something very important and I may be assassinated for figuring it out. But don’t believe Boris if he says he knows who did it.

  We aren’t farming plants, they are farming us.
  They supply us with oxygen until we die, they feed animals which we kill & eat in order to grow, we eat certain sacrificial plants also in order to grow bigger, then we die & decompose in the ground feeding them all our lovely nutrient rich goodness.

  Anyway, off to sleep now.

  Police say their investigation into the shooting at the YouTube headquarters has been hampered by having to sit through a 5 second advert before interviewing each witness.

  • Rob Rubin says:

    5 Apr5 April 05:27

    I suggest you hold back on the GF mushrooms 🙂

  • RIccatti says:

    5 Apr5 April 07:48

    A new star is born.

  • JayG says:

    5 Apr5 April 08:34

    Haha. I suffer from bouts of insomnia and this is what it does to you. At first you’re on topic and then… 🙂

  • Darren says:

    5 Apr5 April 09:43

    Bravo, Bravo!

  • Duncan Stevenson-Price says:

    5 Apr5 April 10:58

    I think this might be the best comment I’ve ever read.

• Henry Young says:

  5 Apr5 April 05:49

  Looking for fares into UK from Asia recently I found Etihad were offering a very good deal into Edinburgh with a codeshare to complete the trip to UK. Thankfully I found a day when Qatar could beat the price without the extra hop. Seems they’ve been trying to buy passengers for their Edinburgh route who are not actually going there. I doubt they are hitting capacity limits direct into London so this news is no surprise. Seems Etihad is struggling to compete. Their hub airport issues have to be a contributing factor also. That said I rather like Etihad for shipping the kids around – very solid economy product although they forgot my special meal one time, with a crew reaction that revealed this happens all the time (not a crew problem – they simply don’t get the data and the meals are not loaded it seems). I complained and got some points.

  • JamesB says:

    5 Apr5 April 07:34

    Etihad already cut capacity on EDI route about a year after launch IIRC. Not surprised they are struggling, Qatar has a better reputation and many going to Dubai likely opt for the greater choice with Emirates from Glasgow. Heading further East, schedules and overall jourey times are usually better with just about any of their many competitors exEDI. Only thing Etihad have going for them is the 242 seat configuration in economy but most potential pax are probably unaware of that. Worst business class flight I took in my life was Etihad from BKK-EDI, highly unlikely I will ever fly them again. Anybkdy looking for cheap one way flights from Asia to UK in any cabin should check out Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Malaysia, Garuda and Gulf. Best fares are usually from BKK but sometimes yoh can get a great deal from KUL and SIN.

• JamesB says:

  5 Apr5 April 07:15

  Very interesting news on Sainsbury, I will be interested to see how it develops. They might well have been trialling this on a wider scale via the back door for some time. I commented last year that the amount of promotions I was receiving from Sainsbury seemed unreal, till slips with bonus points on stuff I actually buy regularly, money off online when I was shoppjng instore and vice versa, delivery vouchers, triple points on fuel which was already usually the cheapest in town. It just went on and on, despite having the tesco debit card and receiving £9/6 off £60 spend it was still not worth my while going to tesco.

• Mikeact says:

  5 Apr5 April 07:55

  Maybe the Nectar changes may impact Tesco also……to look at revamping their Clubcard scheme..again.

• Callum says:

  5 Apr5 April 08:12

  Yeah you can use them on most airlines on Expedia.

  It only works on return fares though so I guess that means none of the low cost carriers are included.

  • Rob says:

    5 Apr5 April 08:15

    Use them for ebay credit and you can buy virtually anything ….

• Save East Coast Rewards says:

  5 Apr5 April 08:31

  To me that just sounds like they’re taking their current policy further – when they halved earning to 1 point/£ they promised more targeted offers and these did arrive. Unfortunately that just made it harder to judge the value of the scheme and therefore just made Clubcard look more attractive.

  I think it was right for Sainsbury’s to take their (well most still considered it their) scheme in-house and if they can find a way to use it to drive more business to them then great. Hopefully any major changes in the scheme will allow other partners a chance to break their contract with Nectar and develop their own schemes if they should do choose.

• Dannyrado says:

  5 Apr5 April 08:43

  OT:

  We are headed to London for a two night weekend break next month. Anyone got advice on best rooms for families, hotels that partake in 2nd room 50% off, upgrades, etc, etc?
  I’d join ambassador if it were definitely worth it, already spire in IHG. Hilton gold. SPG gold.
  Looking to stay not too far from Euston because we’ll arrive late with a 6 year old.

  Any suggestions appreciated, there’s a LOT of choice.

  • Nick says:

    6 Apr6 April 09:32

    Bizarrely the premier inn on the Euston rd gets surprisingly good reviews from people I know who’ve done similar – easy walk from the station. Or there’s the Melia White House nearby, which Rob loves.

    • Rob says:

      6 Apr6 April 09:43

      The Holiday Inn Camden Market has rooms with 2 x double beds. Whilst it could possibly be a bit noisy, you are literally 30 seconds over the bridge to the market so there is a huge amount going on. Kid may also enjoy having the canal outside the window.

      Anika stayed at the Pullman St Pancras on Tuesday night and hated it, so cross that off.

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