News in brief:
Emirates launches a new style of family account
Most people don’t realise that the British Airways style of family or household account is actually very rare. Few other airlines let you pool 100% of the miles earned by your wider friends and family.
Until now, Emirates had a family policy that could best be described as a token gesture. Your family were allowed to credit their miles to your account, but only at a rate of 20%! All of the other miles were lost.
You had the situation where, for example, you and your three family members could earn 10,000 Skywards miles each from a particular flight, or one person could earn 16,000 miles (10,000 + 2,000 + 2,000 + 2,000). Hmmm …..
Emirates has now launched a new family programme called My Family. You can find the details here. And it is just as weird.
Up to eight family members can come together. They do need to be family and there is a list of acceptable relationships. You open a new My Family account and, going forward, you can agree that either 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% of your miles earned from flying go into the pooled My Family pot.
You can see the snags here:
You cannot pool your existing miles
You cannot pool future miles earned from non-flying activity
This means that you are likely to continue to have a small balance in your own personal account which is at risk of expiry
It is interesting to see Emirates taking a fresh look at family account structuring, but I’m really not sure this approach is much better than the previous one. The British Airways model is clean and simple. You can learn more about My Family here.
How to earn Emirates Skywards miles via UK credit cards
As a reminder, Emirates no longer has its own UK credit card. However, you can earn Emirates Skywards points 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 Emirates Skywards miles. The cards above all earn 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on your card, which converts to 1 Emirates Skywards miles.
Free Happy Socks for Virgin Atlantic customers
The socks which are often given out as part of business class amenity kits are generally dreadful. I don’t think anyone would deny that.
Virgin Atlantic has teamed up with trendy sock retailer Happy Socks to launch a substantially upgraded model – see below:
Unfortunately these will not be available to everyone. They are only going to be given to passengers flying in Upper Class on selected ex-airberlin A330-200 aircraft (probably as a trade off for not having an Upper Class bar!). They will be available to purchase via in-flight retail by all other passengers.
PS. Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Virgin Flying Club miles. That page is regularly updated with the latest special offers and will still be accurate even if you are reading this article months after publication.
New Opodo flight and flight + hotel discount codes
Opodo has launched two new discount codes, valid until tommorow, 1st June.
SAVINGS30 gives £30 off a £450 flight booking departing the UK
SAVINGS80 gives £80 off an £800 ‘flight and hotel’ booking departing the UK
Book on Opodo here.
(Want to earn more Virgin Flying Club miles? 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.)
About Head for Points
OT but new email from Marriott about changes to tier levels and it specifically says :
“Elite tier will be based on the status earned, not status granted via linking and status matching.”
Looks like gold spg will become gold in the new Marriott as feared. Boo.
The way I read it, those from amex plat will not even get new marriott gold unless the SPG status “earnt”. So we could end up with no status at all!
No, that’s not what it means because it is already known that Amex Plat will continue to offer ‘new scheme’ Gold.
Ok that’s good to know, thanks. I can’t help being skeptical though, and thinking that there will be a faff having to reapply for the new status via the amex platinum website.