News in brief:
British Airways extends car transfers for late connections
British Airways has announced an extension of its chauffeur driven executive car connection service at Heathrow.
Passengers travelling in First, Club World or Club Europe, plus British Airways Gold and Silver Executive Club members who are at risk of missing their connection, will be driven to their next flight. Apparently an initial trial has proved successful and more vehicles are being added to the airline’s fleet.
Other current initiatives to improve the Heathrow connection experience are in-air rebooking with your new flight details sent to the crew and a boarding pass waiting for you at the plane door, the allocation of planes with large numbers of connecting passengers to a gate in the same part of T5 and self-service boarding pass printers in the Flight Connections Centre.
Emirates offering A380 business class to Bangkok for €1546
Emirates is offering an aggressive €1546 return fare in Business Class from Amsterdam to Bangkok.
You need to book by 20th September and fly between mid December (90 days advance booking is required) and 31st March. A five-day stay is required. You can also have a free stopover in Dubai if you wish.
There are two flights per day out of Amsterdam on an A380, and a less attractive Boeing 777 option.
Of course, you can’t earn Avios on these tickets as they are on the Emirates flight code. (You DO earn Avios and BA tier points on Emirates flights if they are booked under the Qantas flight code.) Emirates is not in a major alliance so you will probably end up crediting to their own Skywards programme, albeit you can top these up with American Express Membership Rewards points.
You can book via the Emirates website here.
British Airways is actually cheaper than Emirates on some dates – I saw €1451 return available for Amsterdam to Bangkok via London – so this deal is really for someone who wants to give Emirates A380 Business Class a try and is less bothered about the miles or status points.
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.
More on Virgin redemption options to Auckland
Yesterday I wrote about the attractive Virgin Flying Club redemption on Air New Zealand from Tokyo to Auckland. That article is here.
At just 40,000 Virgin Atlantic miles one-way in Business Class – and virtually no taxes – this is a great way to get to New Zealand. You can, after all, get to Tokyo relatively easily on Avios or, via their partner ANA, Virgin Atlantic.
Reader David dropped me a note to say that there is an identical option available from Hong Kong. This is still on Air New Zealand and with the same pricing. Hong Kong is even easier to reach from the UK with either Avios or Virgin Flying Club miles.
You can use the United Airlines website to check Air New Zealand availability between Hong Kong and Auckland. It seems OK for November, February and March but – like Tokyo – they have yet to open up anything later. Singapore and Shanghai are other possible starting points in Asia served by Air New Zealand although you are at the mercy of their erratic reward seat availability.
How to earn Virgin Atlantic miles from UK credit cards
As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Virgin Flying Club miles from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!
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.
(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
Current Wine Explorer offer @BA Offers is pretty good – 14 drinkable wines @ £3.93p/ bottle delivered, 2 free Dartington glasses and 1000 Avios – @1p makes the wines £3.21/ bottle delivered
The first two bottle I had from the case were fairly disappointing to be honest. They’ve offered to collect the rest and refund me, just deciding if it’s worth the hassle.
What do you expect for £3.21?
Article here – https://www.headforpoints.com/2018/08/10/british-airways-wine-explorer-14-bottles-1000-avios-55/
Might do a reminder over the weekend.
Hi Rob
Any info ad to the definitive date of Avios.co closing?
Need to do a transfer and combine,hoping the avios will not go in a black hole!!
Still today as far as I know.
If I only have a household BA acct, I can’t transfer from avios ?
OT: Gregg’s doesn’t accept AMEX . On plus side drinking my free cappuccino via Three’s wuntu app.
Greggs app + Top up with PayPal = Amex in Greggs
Plus there’s the occasional freebie with the App.
Top tip that, thanks!
Greggs at Toddington services does take Amex (or at least did last month). Maybe something to do with being MOTO brand services…
Passports, good to know: the Passport Office is no longer adding unexpired months onto your new passport, effective 10th September. Many countries require 6 months left on your passport, so this rule change will work against you. For others, you may want to delay renewing your passport until the last month or so, depending on travel plans. No word yet on whether the EU will need you to have 6 months remaining or not when you enter.
Anyone know which countries have a 6 month rule?
Most countries require 3-6 months, not EU at present for fellow EU members but that’s something of an exception
https://www.uspassporthelpguide.com/six-months-validity-rule/
It tells you on the individual country pages on the foreign office website for travel abroad. Might take a while to go through all of them but I’m sure I’ve seen many countries that don’t need any additional validity.
Wow that’s pretty rubbish – always made use of that in the past.
O/T Tesco’s new discount store format, Jack’s – meant to take on Aldi & Lidl – will NOT give Clubcard points.
Does anyone here use Experian web monitoring? I’ve had several emails from them last week telling me that my email phone number last name and postcode have been published and sold illegally online. Wonderful. Thanks BA.
OT: gold card anniversary bonus. Wondering if you can bag the 10000 point bonus then ring up and cancel and get a pro rata refund? My wife has her year coming up and this seems like an easy win or have I misunderstood?
Sure you can – just hold the card until you transfer out the 10K points (about 1 month)
Yes the fee refund is pro-rated so your 1 month costs about £12
Yes but might be easier to cancel in the first few months and just reapply for full bonus
She is where she is 🙂
A concept foreign to my wife, who constantly harks back to: if only we’d (YOU’D) done this etc
Ha, quite. Reckon we’ll bag the 10k, cancel then get a new one in 6 months. Cheers
OT: Ryanair: Book a 3 night stay and only pay 2 nights! Your discounted night is already deducted in the package price.
Just got this through, might see if it’s worthwhile, but rarely do city breaks longer than the weekend in Europe!